3 Days of Travel

Hello Friends,

Last summer Annie and I were discussing travel and we decided to plan a trip to Thailand. She is a great travel buddy for me, and luckily enough with both our teacher schedules we have a large block of summer off. We researched flights, hotels and restaurants, and finally in July of last summer we booked flights. The trip was officially on! A few days later she texted me and told me that her parents wanted to join us on the trip. I love her parents, so that was an easy yes!

Annie researched hotels, restaurants and I looked into various activities. She had been to Thailand twice before, so she has some recommendations. She was planning to travel with her husband to Japan before our Thailand trip, so we ended up booking her parents on my flight, and I am so glad we did. It was nice to have a friendly face to sit next to, and to double check all the flight details with!

Singapore Airlines:

So flights were pretty tricky. Most of the ones we looked at took off in the morning from the US, and landed in Asia somewhere in the evening, with a layover until the next morning for the second leg. After a few hours of looking, we found a flight that left super late from SFO, and a short layover in HongKong, and finally landing in the evening in Bangkok. That was the winner for us. We flew with Singapore Airlines, which was a great experience. We checked into SFO around 9:30pm on Saturday for a 1:15am flight ( i didn’t know they even flew that late!).

The flight was long (14.5 hours!!) but great. The food was tasty and there were so many choices! They had a bunch of great in-flight movies and entertainment, but for the first 6 or so hours I slept. We had a quick layover in HongKong where we got Starbucks and freshened up. I felt like a new person with freshly brushed teeth and hair and a clean shirt. We had a much shorter flight (4hrs) to Singapore where we had our longer layover (4 hours). It was middle of the day when we arrived, so we decided to get some steps in at the airport and explore. I was blown away by how many shops, interactive displays and interesting decorations the Singapore Airport had.

Singapore Airport had 3 terminals: one that had a butterfly garden, one with a magnetic sand exhibit, and one that had these orchid/koi pond gardens. There was lush flowers everywhere! We ended up grabbing some food just before boarding.

We landed in Bangkok around 4ish. We picked up our luggage and met the driver from our hotel. It was rush hour traffic on a work day (Monday) so it took about an hour to get to Chatrium Hotel.

It was beautiful evening when we arrived, as we looked out over the balcony into the city lights. We were finally here!

Have you ever been to Asia or Thailand before?

Love,

-S

Life Lately

Hello Friends, Here are a few snaps from my Instagram, which I update a little bit more often than the blog here. Feel free to follow me (@sisforSandy) to see more about what I’m up to! My amazing brother make … Continue reading

Class of 2011

Hello Friends!

The first weekend in Oct. my university had their reunion weekend. It’s a big event at Santa Clara that runs from Thursday through Sunday. I had reached out to a few alumni friends that I still keep in touch with, and we decided that although the events at Santa Clara sounded fun, we wanted something a bit more intimate. We sent a group text to all of friends from my year and picked a time and place.

Sunday evening we all met up at Santana Row for a group dinner at Maggiano’s. We ended up eating some delicious pasta, catching up on the last five years, and reminiscing on various shenanigans that we did during our time at SCU. I ate too many carbs, laughed a lot and smiled until my face hurt. I had forgotten, as we all do with time, how much fun I really had in college with these great people.

We asked a waiter to take a photo, and although the first one we had scary red eyes and cut off some peoples body parts (Sorry Katie!) the second waiter was a much better photographer. We hugged it all out, and parted ways, hopefully to see each other again far sooner than our 10 year reunion.

(Oh shoot, now you know how old I really am..) ;]

Love,

-S

A Saturday in Tiburon

Our good family friends the Goldstein’s (Hi Jon and Mim!) invited our whole family up to Tiburon for their son’s bar mitzvah. We started out with some tasty hot drinks and snacks before heading over to the temple.

Josh did an amazing job reading, and the party later on was a ton of fun. We had a few hours free in the middle between the earlier ceremony at the temple and the dinner party. I reached out to my friend Emmie to see if she was free to explore Tiburon with me and my family during the middle free hours on that Saturday.

We ended up grabbing a fantastic lunch (get the stone fruit & burrata, or the fish tacos!)  at Tiburon Tavern and walked through downtown Tiburon, where we had unbelievably great weather.

It was sunny but breezy with gorgeous blue skies. From there we snacked on ice cream from Honeymoon in Mill Valley. We ended up walking around Mill Valley before heading over to the evening party, which was a blast.

Have you ever been to a bar mitzvah? I had never see people being raised on the chairs before, it was so cool!

Love,

-S

 

 

 

A Weekend at Clear Lake Video

Hello Friends,

I had so much fun at our friend’s house at Clearlake, it was probably my favorite weekend of summer! I loved how warm it was there, which made me want to get in the water the whole time! I had so much fun in the boat, tubing and just how great everyone was the whole weekend. I snapped a few videos, so I hope you enjoy this video. Tell me if you like it in the comments, or if you want to see more videos!

 

Have you ever been to Clearlake? Or been to a lake house? Have you tried boating or water skiing?

Love,

-S

A wedding in Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe 2016

Mom and I flew back from NY into Lake Tahoe. Our dear neighbors were kind enough to drop us off and pick us up from our trip to the East Coast. We had a beautiful sunset on our drive over the hill to our house.

I had some friends from the Bay Area driving up to spend the weekend with us while they attended a wedding down near the Lake. They invited me to spend the day with them on Saturday and so we ate at an all you can eat sushi in Reno and had a ton of fun back at the house in the jacuzzi.

Lake Tahoe
IMG_6778

Kim and Aaron and their family left Monday morning, Dad, Cathy & Eduardo drove up to the house Monday afternoon. Mom and I spent most of the week with them, and I drove my little Prius home Thursday as I had to return to normal life and babysit. It was a sleepy week in Tahoe, we played board games a ton with our down the street high school & college neighbors, who are pretty cool kids. I also finally got a chance to use the kayaks with Cathy and Mom out on the lake, which was great and I can’t wait to get back out there on the water again.

I always come back from Tahoe well rested and relaxed and happy.

Do you have a place that you can “turn off” your brain at?

Love,

-S

Sharon Springs, NY

This gallery contains 6 photos.

After a few days in Pittsburgh, Mom and I drove our little rental car up to Sharon Springs NY to visit my cousin Jeannette. The drive was pretty quick, 6 hours later and we were in a different state. This … Continue reading

Pittsburgh in the Summer

This gallery contains 7 photos.

A few days after visiting the Marin Civic Center, my mom and I flew to Pittsburgh to visit my grandfather. One of the first days we were in Pittsburgh, we ended up Yelping for a bakery to bring some sweet … Continue reading

Nantucket Day 5

Thursday was a day of sunshine, wind in your face and gorgeous ocean views. We started with breakfast at Downyflake, where I had delicious doughnuts, eggs and bacon. A breakfast of champions for a busy day. My dad brother and … Continue reading