Take me out to the ballgame!

Another essential part of summers, for me at least, is a baseball game. My family and I were able to go to an Anaheim Angel's game and it was a blast. It's really not even about the baseball, but just hanging out and cheering occasionally and eating ridiculous food. Ticket prices can be pretty decent and you have a pretty great view no matter where you sit (thanks to the jumbo tron, though you can still bring binoculars). If you don't have a major league baseball team nearby, Triple A or minor league games provide the same experience and typically at a lower cost. When I lived in northern California it was all about the Sacramento Rivercats.

Now onto the food. Sometimes 500+ calorie ice cream sandwiches are okay. And it's pretty much the only appropriate time to eat peanuts-in-the-shell. The fresh squeezed lemonade was totally worth the 6 bucks. Not kidding, we watched the girl squeeze the lemon in front us, then added the lemon rind to the drink along with a little bit of simple syrup, ice and water. Of course you HAVE to get hot dogs too.

Plus there's fireworks just about every night, and even though it starts out warm, it cools off nicely at night, especially close to the coast with Anaheim and with the Delta breeze in Sacramento.

p.s.

After I finished finals yesterday I decided the best use of my time would be to trek over to the beach. it's only 10 minutes from campus after all. So I ran to target and bought a book and sunscreen and spent my afternoon reading under palm trees. Sometimes I take this place for granted and that is a travesty.

Newport Beach & Pier (sorry for the terrible cell phone pics)

i feel most alive when...

so maybe I'm crazy but I'd like to lean on my passions instead for my excuse, between finishing finals yesterday and graduation tomorrow, I spent today digging trenches on a Habitat for Humanity jobsite. I'm tired and sore but it was amazing. I spent the majority of the day working alongside a couple future homeowners. There's nothing like volunteer work in the form of physical labor. Helping make someone else's world just a little more beautiful.

Here's a couple photos from a Habitat build I helped out on a couple years ago

(that's me in the back holding down the wall)

(myself (left) and a couple other ladies taking a breather)

Vino

So I was off to Anaheim this weekend, to celebrate another friend's birthday. This time, inside the park. Disney's California Adventure to be exact. She works with the characters at Disney and so was able to get my poor self in for free. Our purpose for going was not rides or parades. But wine tasting at the lovely California Food and Wine Festival being held from April 16-May 31. We took two wine "flights" (complete with passports that were stamped :D) through Italy and California. Four regions per flight, you get to choose one of 3 wines per region to sip. (So 8 tastes...which probably amounts to about 2 full glasses total, don't worry!). Since it ended up being rather warm and there were no snacks I stuck with the whites and rose's and a to-die-for prosecco (a sparkling wine, the italian version of champagne). I thought they were all quite good, some more than others but none tasted bad to me! Since we were enjoying ourselves chatting away, we did a terrible job documenting the wines so I don't know what I tried.

Our journey began in the Apulia region of Italy - 2 separate booths for this one. (I would love to try their olive, its supposed to be quite famous). Then Veneto and Tuscany. According to my "passport", Veneto has the first ever school of oenology (wine science/making) and the first strada del vino, where they posted facts about local wineries along the road for travelers. The farm that we stayed at in Italy is in the Veneto region, and they made their own wine.

And we moved on to Napa Valley. Which is apparently second only to Disneyland as a tourist destination in California...interesting. Sonoma County, Central Coast and Paso Robles were also featured. All wonderful.

All in a days work my friends. Fantastic birthday party.

explosions

Last night we celebrated my friend's birthday. And we did so with a fabulous, free, well-kept orange county secret. We tailgated in the Sheraton parking lot in Anaheim with a perfect view of the Disneyland fireworks. It was so fun! The fireworks start at 9:25 pm, you want to be on the side of the parking lot that faces Ball Road. It lasts for about 20 minutes. We had lots of snacks and chatted with new friends. The gate for the parking lot was open too so we didn't have to pay. Yay for creativity and good friends.

hook it up

365 cheap date ideas in LA and Orange counties?
YES PLEASE!