San Francisco Treat

Seems like I've been all over the place since I got back in California! Up and down all over this state, then there's Oregon and Washington in addition to seeing friends all over the central coast..ahhhh! I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation! 

Since I've been here, Dad and I have been pretty busy with our own adventures, so we were finally able to plan a day to hang out in which we picked San Francisco! To be more specific, Pier 39! It's about two hours from here, so it's not all that far of a journey (compared to going to Ventura or something like that), so we managed to talk about everything under the sun for the majority of the drive. Keep in mind, I haven't been to San Francisco in YEARS...I'm talking since about 2001. High traffic areas freak me out, so I had a hard time driving around there as well as Los Angeles due to crazy drivers. Yes, I'm a real Californian..I just don't like swapping paint with other cars.

When we came up on the main street for the piers (Embarcadero), I saw this sculpture called, "Cupid's Span". I really wish I got a better picture of it because it's so cool! It was built in 2003 by Claes Oldenburg. You can see the San Fran / Oakland Bay Bridge in the background...honestly, why didn't they make it as pretty as the Golden Gate?

As you keep rolling along, you'll come across another sculpture called "Raygun Gothic Rocketship". From what I read, it was supposed to have been removed earlier this month since it's a traveling sculpture, so it has another destination already lined up after San Francisco, but for some reason, it's still there. Oh well! At least I got to take a look at it :) Very retro and looks like a throwback to the 50's.

One thing I noticed (and loved) was that there were retro cable cars actually working! I mean, I know there's old fashioned cable cars that run throughout the inner city, but I wasn't expecting THESE! They were AWESOME! There was one that even looked like an old boat that ran by all the various piers. 

This was a cool perspective..new verses old :)

Luckily, it wasn't TOO busy even though there was still a fair amount of tourists. Not to mention, the weather was nice (high 60's) so we weren't dying with the heat while talking all over the place. 

 Of course, there's Alcatraz Island. Honestly, there's SO much history on that place, you should read up on it here. We considered going out on the island and taking a tour, but the line to buy tickets was insanely long..and honestly, I didn't wanna risk getting sea sick floating out there, lol. If you've watched "The Rock" or "Escape from Alcatraz", you got the best way of viewing it aside from actually going to the complex in person.

 Love this sculpture :) It's right outside the entry of the wharf. San Francisco's wharf became very famous because of the sheer mass amount of sea lions that set up shop there and decided they wanted to stay. If I didn't know any better, it's all the seals from Monterey that migrated over to SF and decided to stay. 

 Talk about riding in style, right!? You could opt for a speed boat tour of the bay, or you can have an old fashioned harbor tour on the boat that's docked next to the flame job.

Old Port Gate of San Francisco:

This is from inside the Hard Rock Cafe! Whenever I come across one of these cafe's, I always buy a bottle opener and sometimes a shot glass...but I mainly focus on the openers since they're all different and very unique :) Dad and I ended up ordering some specialty drinks so we ended up with "40th Anniversary" glasses that actually has a list of all the Hard Rock hotels all over the world. I was able to mark alot of 'em off my list, lol

This is "San Francisco Bath Salt Company (www.relaxtheworld.com) where they have barrels of various scented bath salts available for you to sniff and see what tickles your pickle. All of 'em have a name and description of what the ingredients are so it's able to help you narrow down what type of smell you're looking for.

Dad had a hard time figuring out which one he wanted....decisions decisions...

I found some humor in this... let's see if you see what I'm talking about: 

Dragons blood? Any relation to Tigers Blood? I wonder if it'll give me the power to make millions of dollars. 

After poking around for a bit and getting my nose stuffed full of various scents, I ended up getting a little container of Pomegranate which is nice and fruity, but it's not over powering.

For those of you who know my husband, Eric...you'll know how he's very vocal about how he likes to kid about red heads (aka Gingers) and people who are left handed. So, when I saw this store..I had to take a picture of it for him:

Another store I found actually carried life size replicas of "Zeldas" sword..totally up Erics alley!

One of Pier 39's icons is their old school two story carousel they have at the end of the dock. 

 

There was this really cook little pet boutique called "Le Beastro" which carries various little doggy things if you like decorating your house with a particular breed. Not only that, but they had collars, leashes, clothes, calendars..pretty much whatever you can think of. Of course, I had to pop in and check it out :) 

I tend to make my own doggy treats when I'm back in Belgium for my furballs, but I was running out of ideas as to what I can make. So, a long long time ago..I popped onto Amazon to see if I could find any sort of cookbooks for dogs (yes, seriously) and I saw the "The Doggy Bone Cookbook", but I wasn't wanting to pay about $25 for it (after shipping and what not). I basically forgot all about it because of the price. WELL...this pet boutique happened to carry it, and for a reasonable price! I snatched it up in addition to some silly car signs since I usually have a dog in the car with me when I run around and do errands. 

This gives ya an idea of how the recipes are. It even includes a doggy bone cookie cutter! 

Annnnd....like any good little Starbucks junky, I had to pick up one of the coveted "Starbucks City Collector" mugs since I had officially gone to San Fran! 

Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "Erika. Surely you went to check out the Golden Gate Bridge while you were there!"...indeed, I did.

Gorgeous, isn't it? Absolutely breath taking! Right?

Oh, not sure what you're looking at? Here..lemme help. The arrows will direct you to where the Golden Gate is. If you're able to get a clear shot of the bridge without fog...you, my friend, are very lucky considering there's almost ALWAYS fog near it, or masking it...in some way/ shape/ form.

There ya have it! My trip to San Francisco! 

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Jet Settin' Piper

The last time I flew overseas was back in 2009..and that's when I was returning from watching my cousin graduate from high school. Keep in mind, I had moved to Belgium two and a half months earlier, so I had just gone through the whole process of moving my entire life from California to Europe. When we moved, we had four dogs moving with us: Cali the Boxer, Izzy and Cole the Dachshunds and Macie the Dachshund / Beagle mix. Luckily, we were able to take all of 'em over there since Cali was considered "check in" baggage while the other three were allowed to be carry on. Might I add, we flew with Delta Airlines (which is in partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines) and they even gave us a fat discount on all the dogs since we were military. Here's my post about what I dealt with in terms of Cole and the whole process of having a dog as carry on.

Now, I have Piper. So, I get to do this process all over again when it comes to bringing her back to Belgium with me. With the way my flight is scheduled, I'd be flying from Monterey to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Heathrow (London), then Heathrow to Brussels. All of those flights were booked through British Airways, but apparently the flight from Monterey to Los Angeles is through their partnership with American Airlines. Shouldn't be a problem, right? Welllll it is. The little puddle jumper flight won't allow me to take Piper as carry on, and they don't have a cargo area that'd allow her to go in as checked baggage. So, I asked if I could skip checking in at Monterey and just go straight to Los Angeles (which is about a six hour drive from here) to get my connecting flights there in which I was told "NO". If I don't check in at Monterey, all of my other flights will be cancelled. Fabulous. I'm rather miffed considering this particular *snag* is really irritating (and expensive) because it basically boils down to: going from an American Airlines flight to British Airways doesn't work in terms of transporting a dog, even as carry on. So, British Airways..and American Airlines, you lost a customer. For life. It's great to know I spent $1k on my flight and you can't accommodate a 10lb dog for a 40 minute flight in order for me to reach my other connections. Seriously, you're fabulous. Keep up the great work.

After doing some research, numerous customer service calls to various airlines and talking to my father, it's been decided that I'll be flying on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. He actually flew with them back in 2010 when he visited us and raved about how amazing their in flight service was. I ended up talking to their customer service line (they were SO nice!) and found out that there's room for Piper to be checked in since she wouldn't be able to fit under a passenger seat to be considered carry on. Even though I'd rather have her in the cabin with me, I'm just happy there's room .So, that's all taken care of, new tickets are taken care of and I'll be taking a straight shot from San Francisco to Amsterdam. In the long run, this is better anyway since that flight will only be ten and a half hours verses the original seventeen and a half hours I was gonna deal with between Monterey/Los Angeles/Heathrow. 

Now comes the fun part of getting Piper all set up for her flight. Since I've done this whole song and dance before, I know what I gotta do. She has to have a "Puppy Passport" (mainly a health certificate ) that's valid between 2-8 days before flight, all her shot records available, her hard shell carrier has to meet airline regulation..blah blah blah. Luckily, I know what I'm doing, lol. Even though she's a little 10lb dog, her height is what killed the notion of her being carry on since she's the actual height limit, not including the additional height of the soft carrier. After everything is all said and done, the soft carrier would've been 28 centimeters and the limit is 20 centimeters. Airline regulations state that the animal in the carrier should have enough room to fully stand up, turn around easily and is able to sit down comfortably under a passenger seat. If I crammed her in a small carrier (according to the weight specifications), then she would've been denied access cause it wouldn't have been comfortable for her..especially for ten and a half hours!

Luckily, I'm really familiar with an awesome Vet place in town called Romie Lane Pet Hospital .

My family has used them for YEARS (grandma, mom, me, etc), so it's not a shocker that I took Piper there to get a file started. She's only been there a few times, but the staff seems to really like her alot..mainly because she's really well behaved. Plus..no one can resist her little beard, lol. After doing a lil bit of research, I found the official forms that I'll need to take with me when I fly into the Netherlands as well as when I bring her over to Belgium. Just to play it safe, I'm getting a health certificate done for both countries because I REALLY don't want to deal with any little snafu's since I'm landing in one country and driving into another. Ahhhh the joys of traveling. 

I went over to PetSmart and picked up a hard shell case (the same type we used for our Boxer) since I knew that particular style was airline approved. You CANNOT use a hard shell carrier that has the snap sides! It has to be assembled with stainless steel screws (to connect the top and bottom of the kennel) and heavy duty zip ties. So, this is the one I got for her:

There's a company that I HIGHLY recommend when it comes to prepping a carrier for a flight ...I actually used 'em when we transported the other dogs during the move and they were FANTASTIC! It's called "Dry Fur" and they actually sell a variety of  "Pet Airline Kits"  ...mines the Small / Medium kit which includes:

• 1 Set Spill Proof CLEAR Kennel Food & Water Cups (Size Small Holds 1.25 Cups)
• 1 FULL Set of REFLECTIVE Live Animal Stickers/feeding instructions (5 Labels)
• 1 Set of Solid Metal Kennel Securing Nuts & Bolts  (8 each)
• 1 Set Cable Ties for securing snap latch & dial-latch
• 1 set of Hand Releasable Cable ties for securing door
• 1 Temporary Pet ID Tag
• 1 Laminated Kennel Tag for Pet’s & Owner’s Name
• 1 PET Airline Check-List & do it yourself instructions
• 1 CLEAR Document Storage Zip Pouch
• 1 CLEAR Reinforced Dry Food Storage Zip Bag

Here's how it looks when it shows up: All the contents that are listed are in the plastic baggy..I ordered the extra set of metal pieces in pink because I wanted to re-enforce the extra screws. 

It actually includes a "checklist' that you can follow to help finish prepping everything you'll need to do prior to the flight:

Here's how Pipers carrier looks once I switched out all the plastic screws for the metal ones, in addition to slapping all the stickers on...it's VERY solid and secure now! That's for sure! :

So at this point, I'm pretty much waiting for my final vet visit where they'll check her over one more time, then sign off on all the health certificates so she's clear for take off. Then the day before we head out, she has one last grooming appointment so she'll be all pretty since her scruffyness (wire hair) tends to get outta control fairly fast . 

Gee. Can you tell I'm a sucker for furry things or what? Piper is quite possibly the most expensive shelter puppy I've ever encountered, lol. Oh well, that's what I get for being an animal lover!

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Flickity Flackity Friday

Ahhhh it's Friday! What does that mean? Well, absolutely nothing for me since I don't work or anything...today was just a normal day for me, but still, I was busy! So, I figured I'd do another mish mash post since a variety of different things are going on and I don't wanna post a bazillion times. 

My Dad IS NOT a video game kinda guy. Despite growing up with various video game systems throughout my childhood, my Dad RARELY ever played. I remember when my Mom was diagnosed with her cancer, she ended up buying herself an Xbox (yes, really) and would play Tiger Woods while she was stoned out on her medical marijuana (YES, REALLY!)...I bet that mental image is a real twister for ya if you knew my Mom, hunh? lol. Anyway, now..my Dad mainly uses it to play DVD's or he'll video chat with Eric & I since he got the Kinect sensor. 

Welllllllllll....there's a pretty bitchin' racing game that came out called Forza 4:

For those of you who don't know my Dad, he's a gear head in every sense of the word. He's been a mechanic for longer than I've been alive, we always went to Laguna Seca for the races....the man loves cars..and love is an understatement. Cue in Forza 4..it's a gorgeous game and I had a feeling he was gonna like it. Sure enough, I pop it into the console and started playing it..and here's the result:

It's not "Daddy like!" it's more along the lines of "Daddy LOVE!". Now we have the official "racing wheel" control since he feels like that helps his racing states better than the regular xbox controller. Whatever, honestly! I'm just glad there's a game he's actually enjoying and putting the console to good use! We also picked up "Ace Combat" which is a flying simulator game..yet another passion of his, which is flying. 

* Peeper Piper *

Piper is pretty much set and ready to fly back to Europe with me in November! Her blood tests have come back with flying colors from the vet and I've already arranged a health certificate for not only Belgium, but for the Netherlands as well since I'll be officially landing in Amsterdam, but transporting her to Belgium. After talking to the Belgium Consolate, they recommended that I get a certificate for both countries..so, I'm gonna listen to them and do it. Nothing worse than going through all this work and find out I missed one crucial step, ya know? So, there ya have it...the fur ball is cleared for takeoff. 

* Picture Perfect *

Throughout my entire childhood, I remember there only being about...hmmmm....MAYBE four family pictures in my parents house. And, that's pushing it. We weren't the typical family where we sat down and had professional pictures done...hell, we didn't even have the same day ones you can get done at Sears! It always made me kinda sad when I went to my friends house and you'd see tons and tons of family pictures, yet my house didn't have those. Our walls were VERY empty. When I got married, I swore I was gonna have a house where you'd see pics of myself, husband and son throughout the years because time REALLY does fly and I want to be able to look back on all the memories. 

The last time I was in the States, I really wanted to get pictures done with my Dad since we're ridiculously close (now), but our schedules were way too hectic to actually do anything. Not to mention, some photographers were asking insane amounts of money to do a "Father / Daughter" session because of the area we live in (Monterey automatically makes everything more expensive). This time around, we're actually able to get our pictures done!! YAY!! And not just by anyone, but by the lovely Stefanie! 

Here's an example from one of Stef's recent shoots:

Being the awesome person that she is, Stef rearranged her very, VERY busy schedule to accommodate my Dad and I. Not only that, she's driving up here from Santa Maria so we can get shots of Monterey in the pictures! Seriously, how fantastic is she? 

It totally means the world to me that she'll be the one taking the pics instead of some random person we don't know. As my Dad put it, "If I'm gonna pay anyone to do these picture, I'd rather it be Stef". 

* Retail Therapy *

 I went to the mall to get my new watch sized because, sadly, my beloved Bulova decided to die...again. I found this cute little knock around for the time being and ordered it since all the stores in the area happened to not carry it. Once it showed up, I ran across town to take care of it since I wasn't really up to driving all the way to Monterey to have one link removed...besides, I needed to stop off at Lane Bryant and the location in Monterey went away :(

After I got the link taken care of, I headed over to Lane Bryant to check out their boot selection. By the time I make my way back over to Belgium, it's definitely going to be feeling like winter...very cold! Luckily, I found a cute pair of boots with them..it's SO hard to find boots that fit a gal with thick legs! It's like you gotta be swizzle stick in order to wear cute shoes! I ended up trying this pair on even though I'm normally not a fan of the foofy / furry looking style, but these actually complimented my figure, if that makes any sense!

Thing is, they're about $80 in the store and I didn't wanna spend that much. So, I put 'em on hold JUST IN CASE I managed to find something similar while boppin' around the mall. Once I made it home, I hopped online to see if I could possibly find some sort of discount code or whatever so I could ger 'em cheaper...and...TA DAH! I found a code that took $25 off of a $75 online order. In addition to that, I could have the boots mailed directly to the store, which saved even more money. By the time I lumped all that together, they came to $55. Not too shabby, right?? Now I just hope Eric doesn't make too much fun of me because they're soooo....errrr..fluffy.

There's been several occasions where I've debated on getting my eyebrows waxed. Given, I have fair colored hair (naturally) so whenever I don't have my eyebrows penciled in, they're hard to see and look thin. Normally, I'll just shave them into shape, but the last two times I've done that...I've managed to screw 'em up (go ahead, laugh) and I gotta spend extra time when it comes to drawing in my mistake (again, go ahead and laugh). While I was cruisin the mall today, I saw a vendor stall where a gal was doing some threading on a customer. If you don't know what threading is, here's a funny video explaining it with a demonstration:

So, I took the plunge and got it done! The gal that helped me was very nice and joked with me so I'd relax a lil bit since I told her it was the first time I've ever had threading done. Truth be told, it hurt. It's like tweezing, but faster...imagine a ton of your super tiny fine hairs getting yanked out. Given, I don't have to worry about getting burned like I do with wax..but it still had a few moments where it literally brought a tear to my eye cause it felt like certain hairs were pulling my soul out through the follicle. But..the end result looked good and 

Not too shabby for $11! Although, it felt like my eyebrows were three inches infront of my face because they were a lil tender / swollen from the hairs getting yanked out. Oh well...beauty is pain!

When I was on my way out of the mall, one of the cart vendors (you know, the people with those little stalls in the middle of the mall) snagged me and started talking about this stuff. I honestly wasn't interested because my eye shadow colors are pretty basic now..and a lot of the colors she was showing me were VERY loud (electric blue, hot pink, yellow, etc)...but she started showing me how this powder worked and it caught my interest.

This stuff can be used as eye liner, eye shadow, mascara, cheek enhancer, lipstick, nail polish, hair highlights and body shimmer. Holy cow, right? The gal did all kinds of examples for me to prove it actually does what she stated (I picked a variety of colors) ..and hey, how 'bout that! It worked and looked really cool! I ended up buying some since she wheeled and deals with me...instead of paying $15 a pop for 'em, I got three colors for $25. I also got a "recipe" card so it tells me how to mix it up for all the various things you can make out of it. 

WOW! Lots of rambling, but that's all I got going on right now :) On that note, have a FANTASTIC weekend!!

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