April & October

A Life Blog

150th Italian Heritage Parade

Randomly we decided to go check out the Italian Heritage Parade in San Francisco this weekend. It was a gorgeous day – the temperature was in the 70s. It is also Fleet Week, so the Blue Angels were flying over us in different formations constantly.

The traffic wasn’t too bad up there. It was quite easy to find parking, much to our surprise. We walked over to North Beach and was able to watch the parade. We were able to grab a bite to eat at Capo’s – which has some of the best food in North Beach. Their tomato salad is simply divine. We also had pizza, but the kids devoured that before I could even grab a photo.

We walked over to Washington Square Park and checked out the auto shows. Tot had fun checking out all the “red cars”. They were all varying years of Ferrari’s. I loved the older models. We crossed the street and went to Giovanni’s to pick up some freshly made pasta.

We trekked over to Chinatown to pick up some fresh produce and stopped at a bakery. We always pick up some sesame balls and egg tarts when we are in the area. We grabbed some noodles and let the kids play at the local playground on the way out.

It was such a fun Sunday. I normally spend my Sundays grocery shopping and setting myself up for the week. It was nice to take a break from it all.

How was your long weekend?

Adventure: Chinese New Year in San Francisco

Adventure: Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco

As someone of Asian descent, any time I’m in the area – my family and I make sure we make the trip to San Francisco for the Chinese New Year Parade and Festival. It happens approximately 2 weeks after the Lunar New Year, since the celebrations take up to a month in a lot of the Asian cultures. The Chinese New Year Parade is the oldest and largest celebration outside of Asia. It is also the largest Asian event in North America. It’s a fun day of different booths, lots of eating and one of the most amazing parades.

Parking was a nightmare and we tried to get up there early! We ended up parking alongside the parade route, so we wouldn’t be able to leave until after the parade was finished and cleaned up. We were able to walk through the festival, and check out the different booths. The kids were able to grab some stuffed animal dogs, since this is the Year of the Dog.

My dad had heard of a restaurant that he wanted to check out. So for lunch, we checked out China Live SF. It’s a huge 30,000 square foot marketplace, which was pretty fun to walk through. You enter in through a tea bar, walk through a retail marketplace (you get a discount after you eat!), and then you get to their restaurant, with their fully stocked bar. The concept is a lot of fun – it’s extremely roomy and the majority of the kitchen is through a glass wall. I love being able to see the kitchen from my seat. I love watching the chefs make my food.

The food was actually pretty good! The serving sizes were a bit on the small side – with what the kiddos were willing to eat, sometimes the adults didn’t even get a taste of some of the dishes. We were also seated in an area that had no server – so we had to get up and find someone to get our drink orders after sitting for half an hour. We were way too full to even think about ordering dessert. They did have an awesome tea selection, which we drank during our entire meal.

After our meal at China Live, we walked down Grant Street to check out the different shops. Birdie wanted some authentic clothing, since she was performing with her Mandarin Club at the Lunar New Year Assembly that they have at school. Tot wanted all of the firecrackers that he could get his hands on. We stood in line at a bakery to grab some pastries to bring home. During our walk through, we could hear the parade starting up, so we walked over to see the many different floats that they had. My kids loved the dragons – those were their favorite.

We decided to eat again, after the parade. I love the food options here – so even though we weren’t quite hungry, we wanted some soup and tea to warm us up before we ended up in traffic, leaving the city. We stopped by the famous Sam Wo restaurant, which had an extremely long line. So we walked over to our old favorite, the Grant Place Restaurant. It’s a little homey restaurant with some great homestyle dishes.

Adventure: Disneyland on Halloween

This post is sponsored by Mitsubishi Motors.

We’ve been to Disneyland a few times, or more than a few times I should say. We love Disney. Living out of California showed me what I took for granted when I lived here. So when I moved back, the first thing I did was get an annual pass for Disney. So we decided to do Disneyland for Tot’s 3rd birthday and for Halloween. SO EXCITED.

Mitsubishi was amazing and dropped off a 2018 Outlander SEL for us to take on our trip. We are also in the market for a bigger car, so we were excited to be able to drive the Outlander for our trip. My car is older, so this was a bit of a treat. Honestly, I felt like I was sitting in a rocket ship, when I first sat in the front seat. Touch screen, big screens, cameras – I didn’t know what to touch first. The kids loved checking out the car, and loved having a third row of seats. Tot called the second row and Birdie wanted the third row to herself. The kids were loving the extra room that they had!

The trip down went seamlessly. I love the notifications that popped up on the dashboard was nice. I enjoyed knowing when you were in ECO-cel, so you weren’t using much gas. They also had notifications for other vehicles being in your blindspot, if you were drifting into another lane or if something jumped into your lane and you needed to brake. Normally we have to stop a few times for gas or because the kids were getting antsy, but the ride was so smooth, we were able to just drive straight there.

Day 1 – We stopped at the hotel first, had to empty out the car and wash the travel off of us. We made it into the park by dark and got to see the Halloween decorations that they had out. We ate at Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port – our favorite restaurant for quick and inexpensive food in the park. The kids love pizza and this mom wanted some carbs. Spaghetti all the way! It’s the only thing that I can get everyone to agree on anyway.

Tot is obsessed with Toy Story and “Buzz Buzz” so we went on Astroblasters. A and the kiddos are super competitive, so they wanted to see who got the most points at the end. We also love getting the photo emailed to us at the end. We also had to check out the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay over at Haunted Mansion. Birdie loves the Haunted Mansion and I love Nightmare Before Christmas. I love Sally and Jack. Plus you get to smell the gingerbread on the ride, from the gingerbread house.

Day 2 – SO HOT. It was a nice 105 and we were melting. Everyone bought hats and extra bottles of water. We were not about to become dehydrated. We wanted to enjoy the day. We checked out as many shows as we could, so we could enjoy the air conditioning. We also found out that TOT IS TALL ENOUGH for certain rides! He got to ride Soarin’! He was SO proud of himself. He kept telling every cast member that he’s extra tall and he can finally ride Star Wars!

We got to check out Cars Land since they were decorated for Halloween. We loved the decorations! This is the first year that they did it and they definitely hit the ball out of the park. It was incredibly perfect. The decorations were made out to car parts, so it really fit into the whole “Haul-O’ween” thing they had going on.

   

Day 3 – Another hot day. Only 107 today. I can’t believe we decided to check out Disneyland on the hottest weekend of the year — for the most part. Just felt like we were melting away. Our big boy finally got to go on Star Wars for the first time. He couldn’t stop smiling. The lines weren’t too bad since the park closed early for Mickey’s Halloween party. We got to eat at Cafe Orleans for the first time and tried out the Monte Cristo. This sandwich is pretty good – it’s like having the main entree and dessert on one platter.

 

We decided to go back to the hotel for a nap and get changed into costumes for Mickey’s Halloween Party. This was amazing! I can definitely see us doing this every year for as long as we can. They have little trails for you to go trick or treating throughout the entire park. We got SO much candy. We got to dance with Pixar characters at the Pixar Dance Party, meet up with Villains that you normally don’t see around the park. There was a villain parade that was just simply amazing. My favorite characters are the villains so this whole thing was just so worth it to me. End of the night, we had over 10 pounds of candy. It was ridiculous, but oh so worth it.

Day 4 – Our last day. We went through the parks to hit up the last bit of rides that we didn’t ride before. It was just a nice, slow, calm day. The lines weren’t too overwhelming and it wasn’t as hot as it was before. Everyone got to go on their favorite rides one last time before it was time to head home. It’s so bittersweet to leave the parks.

I did wear Tot during our trip! Not to many photos to show for it, because he’s running everywhere when we’re there. But he did go up, when he was overwhelmed, to be nursed and for nap time. It’s so perfect. I know I will miss these snuggles when it’s time to let them go.

Medieval Times Excitement

Thanks to the wonderful people over at Medieval Times – Buena Park, we were able to check out the dinner and tournament. A and I were so excited and the kids had no idea what to expect. We had no idea what to expect. This was our first time at something like this. We frequent Orange County quite often, so we wanted to see what other activities there were for families with kids.

We arrived early and were able to park in their parking lot. There was enough parking in the back, but it started to back up and have some traffic once more families started to arrive. It was conveniently behind the building. Not too hard to locate.

Birdie was so amazed by everything that she saw. We were chosen to be on the black and white knight’s side, so we got our crowns for that. We were offered photos with the royal court, which we turned down since Tot was sleeping in the baby carrier. He’s not a fun one to wake up, so we had to pass. Then we made our way to the Hall of Arms.

The Hall of Arms is this giant room – there are tables and chairs for you to wait, gift shop kiosks, and a bar for the grown ups. There was so much going on and things to look at. It was a bit overwhelming. Birdie wanted to shop at all the gift shop stuff and A made a beeline for the bar. Tot slept through the noise.

Birdie really wanted any of the items to put on her head, but she couldn’t decided. She also wanted to grab Tot any of the swords, but he refused to wake up to choose. So she decided against getting any of it. Her self control was really admirable at this point.

She then realized, that in the back room, you’re able to see all of the horses. So she dropped everything that she was looking at, to go check out the horses. Horses are more important to her.

He was not waking up at all. He just wasn’t having it. Our True North 1.5 sling supported the heavy, sleeping monster forever. It was pretty impressive. We put the crown on his head and it didn’t bother him at all. He just continued to sleep in the ring sling.

We got to our table a little on the late side. Birdie wanted to check out all of the horses that she could see. This was what the arena looked like. Everyone was going to their seats in their section. We had to locate the black and white section, since that’s who our knight was.

Our section was pretty full of people. It was also dead center, so we were able to see everything. It was really good seating.

 

Our table setting was perfect for the time period we were imitating. At this point, Tot finally woke up. Birdie was confused that there was no utensils though. She constantly asked if she could get a fork.  Tot was excited to be able to eat with his hands and not get in trouble.

Dinner was pretty good. Our wench, Celina, told Birdie that it was a baby dragon – so for a week afterwards, she was telling everyone that we had baby dragon for dinner. It was the cutest thing. We had garlic bread and tomato bisque for our first course, chicken, potato and corn for our second course, pound cake for our third course and coffee for our fourth course. It was a good meal and we ate it all. It was a lot of fun to eat our meal with a show. A had a beer and I had the Dragon Slayer – pretty good drink!

All of the ceremony was impressive. I loved the accents and the way they seem to follow the script exactly. They had the attention of both children, who were totally following the movements down below. Birdie loves the horses, the colors and the princess. Tot loved the sword play and jousting.

Our knight was the black and white knight. He was pretty cool. He waved at us constantly.

The sword play was pretty impressive. I loved when the swords hit and you could see they were the real deal. There were sparks flying and everything. Tot thought it was the best thing in the world.

If you’re taking a family trip to Buena Park, I definitely recommend checking out Medieval Times. It was an experience that we loved. It was a lot of fun. It was entertaining and the food was pretty good.

 

Disclaimer: We received free tickets from Medieval Times, but our opinions are our own.

Amazing Weekend in Monterey

Monterey Bay is one of my favorite places to visit. Ever.

My kids love road trips and luckily, one to Monterey is a short one. Once I announced where we were going, Birdie packed up her backpack and Tot slowly copied her. They grabbed their tablets and ran to the car. Since Monterey is only about an hour and a half to two hours away, we opted to leave early in the morning so we could spend the whole day there. Sometimes we like to start a little later in the day, so we can stop by Moss Landing and eat some lunch at Phil’s Fish Market.


We parked in one of the local parking garages and walked over. It is such a pretty walk. Birdie wanted to stop in every single little store that she saw, but we had dates with the jellyfish. The jellyfish are my favorite.

Tot was so interested in touching he bubbles. He liked all the interactive spots. The Aquarium is definitely for all ages. He was so happy to be able to walk around and play.

The Puffin exhibit was our second favorite. This little one kept coming up to the window and swimming in front of us. Birdie sat here for a good 20 minutes, just watching him. It was adorable. 

Birdie wore her baby throughout the entire aquarium! I was pretty impressed. She wore her baby in a traditional sling carry, using an old scarf. She was drawn to this exhibit because of the colors.


Enter the See Monterey giveaway where you can win free tickets to the Aquarium and MY Museum!

There are so many different things to check out when you’re in the area! I was curious about anything specific we should check out, we tend to hit up Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium when we’re in town, so we looked up a Monterey travel guide.

Check these places out if you ever get a chance:

  • Fisherman’s Wharf
  • Cannery Row
  • Dennis the Menace park
  • Monterey Bay Aquarium
  • 17-Mile Drive
  • Surrey Ride
  • Carmel-by-the-Sea

There are just so many things to do in Monterey. You could spend a week there, visit one place each day and have a lot of relaxation in the middle.



I would love to do a drive to Big Sur some time over the summer. I think the kids would get a kick out of it and the adults would love it. It seems to be a great family travel spot.

I love Monterey! It’s such a great area, a great little town. The people are friendly and there is just so much to do there. I would recommend this trip to anyone and everyone.