San Diego Family Reunion: Part I

Our family reunion trip to San Diego was in full swing before we even left Logan Airport in Boston, since my parents and I woke up at 5am, threw our bags into the car, picked up my aunt Ginger and uncle Rich, and met my other uncle Ken and my cousin Tyler at the airport. I don't know if you guys have ever traveled in a group of seven, but that was a whole new experience for me. Sort of like in Home Alone, when they're all running through the airport and take up the entire plane? Well, except for that time in high school that me and 14 other students went to London. THAT was hectic. But mostly because I got lost and stood alone, crying. I was 14, and that's a story for another time.

Anyway. You all probably know that I'm terrified of flying, and if you don't, well, you should. So right off the bat I of course joke that if anything happened to our plane, half our immediate family would be taken out in one fell swoop. Perhaps that's morbid for pre-vacation talk, but guys, this is what I think about. Oh, and also, pre-flight, I got into the car to go to the airport, and promptly heard a loud "rrrriip!" It was, of course, my favorite and perfectly-broken in pair of Express skinny jeans, and now I'm skinny jean-less and the closest Express replacements are $80. So that happened.

I was delighted to find that our Jet Blue plane had individual tvs on every seat, so naturally I spent the six-hour flight (my parents like direct flights, ever since they missed their connection in Chicago. I'm more partial to layovers-- I like being able to grab something to eat, a new magazine, and stretching my legs) watching quality television like Cupcake Wars and Bethenny Getting Married. Understandably, the flight whizzed by and before I knew it we were on the ground in San Diego, crowding into our rental mini-van (which promptly dashed my hopes of a shiny black Escalade--thanks for that, Dad), and scouting out some Mexican food.

After what was probably the biggest lunch I've ever eaten in my life (it was so big I didn't eat dinner), we checked into the hotel, which was just as pretty in person as it was in those pictures I posted, pre-trip, here and here.

See?


This is the front of our building, the Casa del Mar building. You can clearly note the CLOUDY SKIES because the sun hardly came out until the day before we left. I was devastated but the way I saw it was, I'd rather be in cloudy San Diego than cloudy Massachusetts or New Hampshire!



This was the view from outside my brother's villa. That's the smaller of the two pools and next to it is a little seating area where I sat Thursday night with my cousins Sara and Leigh and their husbands, Dave and Jared. Leigh's baby girl, Kinsley, just turned one, and she was adorably sleepy. But this was all around 10pm, approximately 5 hours after this photo was taken. So what happened before then?

Well, when we first got in, I had the special privilege of meeting my brother Scott's baby boy. See, Scott's not married or anything, and we suspect he probably might not ever be, but that didn't stop him from getting a baby all for himself:


His name is Halo (not after the video game, NOR the Beyonce song, NOR after the things that angels have, but after the parachute jump of the same acronym, High Altitude-Low Opening. He was in the Navy, after all. I think he's so ugly!

Since Thursday was a traveling day, my brothers didn't schedule anything big, but just had a little get-together that evening at their villa with some drinks and food. My future sister-in-law, Tiffany, put together QUITE the spread. She's really phenomenal. The poor girl was faced with meeting her fiance's ENTIRE extended family, and I mean ENTIRE--people that are so extended they don't even have the same grandparents or last names--and she totally rose to the occasion. She brought over her homemade guacamole, fresh shrimp, pâté and crusty baguette, egg salad sandwiches, and smoked sausages. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! It was a relaxing night of mingling and trying to remember names of all the distant relatives, which we're all impossibly terrible at.


All the girls! Tiffany's Maid of Honor, Christine, who is the biggest sweetheart you'll ever meet, myself, my mum, and the bride-to-be, Tiffany.

And of course, the men. Pardon my brother Scott's awkward grimace-half-smile, and then the Best Man, Brad, my dad, and the groom, Brian.

Part II will be all about the big reunion dinner we had Friday night, which also revealed the location of our reunion in two years! (Hint: It's somewhere I've never been and ALWAYS wanted to go.)

Then, the juiciest for last, Part III will detail our disastrous boat ride on Saturday night and how we could have ended up in the bay. Very Titanic.

(Note: I'm not trying to create a false sense of excitement by breaking this up into three parts. It's just that I can only do so much blogging at work before I begin to feel guilty and/or need to close out my Blogger screen.)

The Great Header Reveal

Well, latest in the series of installments of my blog-improvement mission is my new header! I finally started learning the ins and outs of Photoshop, and that, combined with a slew of super cute digital scrapbooking kits, led to this, my first attempt! I'm sad to replace Brittany's header, since I loved it so much, but I thought it was important that I try out the things I'm currently learning on the blog, and hopefully get some feedback (read: constructive criticism?)

Here were some of the runner-ups. They all have a few things in common that I thought were fun, such as ribbon borders, fun fonts, and made use of my newfound ability to create clipping masks. I also seemed to really like buttons?


I liked the sort of sophisticated feel to this one, and the fun type. But it didn't quite have the color palate or feel of my blog, which is soft blues, grays, and golds. So this one was just for fun.


This was a more personal banner that I played around with, before ultimately deciding that, at least right now, I don't want to have personal pictures in my banner. It also felt really unbalanced, as the frame and the subtitle--both elements I really loved--were difficult to fit together. The color scheme, however, was perfect for my blog.


This was the most simple of the four headers that I played around with, and I loved the color palate. However, the beach theme felt just like that--a theme--and it felt a little forced to me.

The header I ultimately chose is actually the first one I made. In the end, it just felt like I had gotten it right the first time. I love the colors, the fonts, and the different Photoshop elements I had fun playing around with such as clipping masks and shading and coutouring. It felt simple but at the same time interesting. I hope it's pleasant to look at!

UPDATE: I also made a new button that matches my new header! If you've already grabbed my button, would you mind replacing it with the new one? It should only take a second. =)

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

I returned from San Diego late last night. Or, early this morning.

However you want to look at it.

Then I drove 3 hours from my house to work.

I think that wins for longest commute ever.

San Diego recap complete with pictures is imminent, but in the meantime I'm looking forward to spending some time catching up on my bloglist.

Sometimes reading blogs is my favorite. Sometimes writing one is. I think it goes 60/40, 50/50, other60/other 40.

In the meantime, I leave you with the best news I've heard all week.

Now my girl Heidi can finally go back to being a normal person again. Normal, sweet, albeit sometimes one bulb short of a string, but most of all NORMAL.

I'm going to sleep now. (And by "now," I mean at approximately 5:10, when I get home from work.)

PS: Thank you all for the sweet comments on my last post. I think it's one of my favorite ones to date.

"Plan Now, Relax Soon"

Don't worry, friends-- I'm not sitting on my computer and blogging the first day I've arrived in San Diego! I scheduled some things to post so that I could try to keep you entertained while I get pedicures and sip fruity drinks. (Who says you can't still be productive as you repose by a pool?)

[Island Palms Resort pool at sunset]

My dad forwarded me an email from the Guest Services staff at the resort at which we're staying for this vacation, welcoming us and letting us know of some fun activities to do while we're there. That's not really important; what sort of struck me about the email was the title. "Plan Now, Relax Soon." Certainly that's what a vacation is all about; you plan (and plan and plan) and make yourself maybe even more stressed/anxious than you were before you ever even decided to go on vacation at all, presumably to decrease your daily stress and anxiety, but when you get there, ideally all that goes away and you turn into a wonderfully lazy pile of relaxed mush.

Until, of course, you get back home. New research shows that, although it's been proven that experiences, such as going on a trip or to a play or out to dinner, increase happiness more than material possessions, such as buying a new pair of shoes or a new car, people's level of happiness after they return from vacation is no greater than the happiness levels of those who did not take a vacation. Those planning a vacation were happier than those not going away, most likely due to the anticipation of the trip, but once they return, having to then anticipate all the work they have to catch up on and impending responsibility can sort of siphon off all those positive benefits they gained by going on vacation in the first place.

[San Diego Bay, via Island Palms Resort]

Pretty depressing, huh? But when you think about it--at least, when I think about it--it's definitely a little true. I never really enjoy my last day or two of vacation because I'm always dreading returning home. (The big exception here is "summer vacation," which isn't a real vacation anyway since I work 40 hours per week, but I always anticipate going back to school by the end of July. I just like to be busy and stimulated.)

However. You might be thinking, "Gosh, Michelle, you're bumming us out. Why are you writing this before you go on a vacation? [Well, I guess since you guys are reading this on Thursday, I'm already on vacation. Which is even more of a bummer!]"

Because truth be told, that's not really the point of this post. I enojy my vacations well enough; sure, no one wants to go back to work afterward, but I do get to see L. afterward. And when I get back it will be August, and then I'll be that much closer to senior year. So, I'm not experiencing any big plummet in happiness after my vacations.

The reason I was drawn to that quote--"Plan Now, Relax Soon"--is because in a way I sort of feel like that is my ultimate, yet unattainable, goal in life. I mean, that's sort of the whole point of this blog--this blog where "an admitted compulsive planner appreciates small moments." I'm always planning, but never relaxing. The research I cited above, that says people get the most happiness out of planning their vacations, even more than being on them? I must have that, to the extreme.

I don't think I've ever not known what my life would look like in a year, two years, even four years, at least since the age of 12, when I began living with my adoptive parents. Before that, I had no control over my life, over with which family members or foster homes I lived, over not only where my life would be year-to-year, but even if I would have the opportunities to even go to college. I've always loved school and excelled in it, but back then, I simply might not have had the money or the support. I think, though, since I've been safely, comfortably, and above all happily living with my adoptive parents for the last ten or so years, I've found an obsessive love of planning--mostly because now, I can. In high school, I could plan to go to a great college; I had the grades, I had the recommendations, and I had my parents' support. Now that I'm about to begin my senior year, graduate with honors, and complete a two-year internship, I can plan to move anywhere I want (LA) and reasonably expect to find a job, because I've worked for that, and because I have the freedom to. Now that I'm in a serious relationship, I can plan to move to LA with L., sign a lease with him, and possibly even marry him. So even though I know that obsessive planning really detracts from appreciating everyday moments--it's something I really do struggle with every day, having the newfound option of planning, and the ability to, is almost intoxicating for me, since for so much of my childhood everything in my life was beyond my control.

That being said. Planning is exhausting. It gives me a high to go on idealist.org or mediabistro.com and search for my dream job in Publishing; there's hardly anything as exciting as logging onto rent.com and finding L.'s and my future dream apartment in West Hollywood. But it makes me tired. And then I realize: what about senior year? That's going to fly by, and I would have been so busy finding editing jobs and one bedroom apartments that I missed everything. And then I realize: as much joy as having my own clean, well-decorated apartment will bring me, shouldn't I appreciate this essentially rent-free, effort-free last year in dorm life? A lot of things in my life right now--communal living, rigid class schedules, internships--might not be as sexy or exciting as what my life will hold next year, but it's probably the last time I'll ever experience them. Do I really want to just essentially fast-forward through them?

Not only on my vacation, but really in my life: I am going to try to relax. I can't promise there won't be clandestine job searches and online apartment-lusting, but, I don't want to be a statistic of that study and only enjoy my life when I'm planning how I'm going to live it. I'm going to relax, not soon, but now.

You Stay Classy, San Diego

If you remember that my three (yes, all three!) brothers live in San Diego, then you'll know where this post is going. See, every two years, my family has a little reunion. And by "little," I mean that there's so many cousins of grandparents that by the end of the night, no one knows what's what and half the people there are calling me Jennifer or asking if I'm dating my brother, Brad. (True story. Ahh!) (Also, they clearly don't KNOW he's my brother. THAT would be weird. Not like it isn't weird anyway.)

However. This year's family reunion has a couple things going for it. For one: it is hosted by my three brothers in beautiful San Diego, which is a step, leap, and a bound ahead of our location two years ago: Rome, NY. You didn't know there was a Rome in NY? Well, it's okay because no one else did either; it made Buffalo look easy to get to. NEVER AGAIN, Rome.

For second: This is the first family reunion for which I will be 21. Sound the trumpets! Cue the confetti! This means this is the first family reunion where a. I will not be basically the only sober person between the ages of 13-21 there (for some reason there's a big drop off in that age in my family's, er, offspring results) and b. This is the first family reunion where I don't have to designated drive anyone, anytime, anywhere. Oh, the glory.

Thirdly? Well, why tell you when I can show you? I took the liberty of snapping a screenshot of the forecast for the week. We'll be arriving Thursday afternoon, and leaving Sunday morning.


LOOK AT ALL THOSE YELLOW CIRCLES. You know what? I totally deserve it. It has been 90, humid, and downright oppressive here in New England for, oh, the ENTIRE SUMMER. And, AND, I'll get to sleep in an air conditioned hotel room. What a luxury!

But the best part of the family reunion being in San Diego this year? Instead of the Rome, NY Quality Inn that whichever miserable, miserable distant family member of mine booked us two years ago, my brothers really did keep it classy, San Diego.

Which is why I'll be spending my four day, five night mini-vacation at the Island Palms Resort, San Diego.


Have I told you that I love my brothers? Because I do. They're simply wonderful...


...really, just the best brothers a girl could ask for.

The hotel is also right on San Diego bay, so Friday night we'll be having our big reunion dinner in their banquet center, and Saturday night we'll be having a dinner cruise on the bay. Saturday afternoon is also going to be my future sister-in-law's surprise (shh!) bridal shower! All of my brother Brian's female relatives will be in town and we thought, what a perfect time to host her shower! It's so strange to think that I'm getting a sister, since I've only been able to meet her once! But I'm so looking forward to her shower and getting to know her better this weekend. Plus, we all know I'm obsessed with everything-wedding, so. There will be that.

And my mum and I fully have plans to get mani/pedis and sip mai tais, poolside. THE LIFE.

Hopefully I'll have tons of amazing pictures to share when I get back. I wanted to bring my L.'s camera, which is the official unit of photography here at Things I Said and Meant to Say, with me on the trip, but darn it he actually wants to bring it to NYC this weekend to use, himself. PSH. Since when does L. use his own camera? Or get the first bite of any of his food, the first sip of any of his drinks, for that matter?

That being said, I will miss him on this trip. Just a little.

[All images via Island Palms Resort]

Validation

How funny! Emily, from Cupcakes and Cashmere, just posted her most recent outfit recap...and she was wearing the same striped H&M top I got in Boston last weekend! Here it is again for reference:


No doubt Emily wears it better; I would snag a pic and link to her outfit post (okay, I'll link it), but I won't repost a picture right up next to mine because then it will turn into one of those People magazine "Who Wore it Better?" features and frankly, I wouldn't stand a chance against Emily. Oh, and Rachael commented on my Boston post to let me know that she had just bought the top, too! I guess I picked a goodie. Rachael, I'd love to know how you wore it. I paired it with a gold necklace that my best friend C. bought me for my birthday, white shorts from Old Navy, and silver strappy sandals. Emily paired it with jean shorts, gold necklaces (it works so well with the nautical look), an awesome green military-inspired jacket, and killer platforms. Typical: the East Coast girl plays it safe and nautical-preppy, and the West Coast girl makes it stylish and bold. I really can't wait to get out there!!!

Update: Rachael commented and said that she wore her top with black opaque tights, a black skirt with braces from Urban Outfitters and black flats. (She says she thinks it was boring and necessitated by the bad weather, but I think it sounds oh-so-chic!) Rachael's from the UK, so now we've seen how three girls in three very different parts of the world wore this one top, and you can totally see how our locations influenced us. Is it just me who thinks that is so cool?

And, Chelsea commented to say she owns it too, and wore it with jean shorts, black opaque tights, oxfords, and a gold owl necklace. So she sort of combined elements of Emily and Rachael's outfits. And the gold necklaces seem to be a constant.

I love seeing one top do so many different things! And getting validation from a true style icon that my own isn't too bad ;)

Just Peachy

Do you guys know Brittany from Diary of B? Well, in addition to blogging about her sweet husband and adorable golden retriever and their life in Southern California (so jealous! Girl I will be there so soon!), this talented girl has recently launched her own blog design business, Peachy Keen Blog Design! In fact, I saw over on my lovely bloggy friend Date Girl's blog that Brittany was offering some free design services in honor of the recent launch of Peachy Keen Blog Design, so I decided to see if she'd make me a header. I'm in the process of teaching myself web design and Photoshop, as most of you probably know since I constantly ask for your validation on all the changes I make around here ;), so I've been working on trying to make some cute headers, but Brittany whipped one up for me in no time at all! (Like, same day.) She generously made all the little tweaks I asked her to, and even downloaded the special font I wanted, which was super sweet. I asked for lots of texture, simple, gray and gold design. Didn't she do a great job? I love that she produced the header that I wanted, not one that SHE wanted to design, as some blog designers can do.


If you need a header, a button, or a whole blog overhaul, head over and check out Brittany's new site! Her gorgeous banner alone should be enough to convince you that she's got some talent. And her rates are super reasonable.

Thanks for the header, Brittany!! =)