Some more updates!

Since the winery outing I had with the Hopkins, a few new things have happened. First and foremost, I have a job! Everything has not gone through yet so it is not official but there's a definite chance it will be official soon :) I will (cross your fingers) be working at San Diego Miramar College, a community college in, you guessed it, San Diego. My roommate Bits (the one on the water polo team) is from San Diego and it is her mother who so wonderfully got me the job. So I will be relocating to Coronado and living with the Hopkins family for a while :) I am SO excited to be doing something! Hooray! Once I get more info I will certainly be posting it :)

On the lighter side, I baked my own apple pie from scratch, with the help of my 12-year old cousin Jessica. This may not seem like such a big deal to most of you but I like to think of it is a small step in the making-it-on-my-own direction. Eh. Oh well.

This past weekend I had the tremendous opportunity of watching all of my cousins' children for the weekend! Oh boy. While they packed up and went to Vegas, I played soccer mom: SUV, school lunches, day-care, car seats; the whole enchilada. It was fun, some of the time. On Saturday I took all the children plus a friend of theirs to the beach, and Sunday we went back to Montana de Oro, a state park that I have mentioned previously in the blog :) It was a gorgeous day, and after many rules and regulations laid out in the car, the 5 kids and I had a blast. In total, ages 12, 11, 9, 7, and 4. Yikes! Anywhos, here's a photo op I made them take:

To sum up: raising kids is going to be hard, Shub can bake, and I'll be in San Diego within a couple of weeks! Wish me luck!

OH! Also, tomorrow I am leaving for San Francisco to see Kenny Leftin! Oh boy! Kenny works for Google so he is going to show me around the Google campus, feed me lunch, and then on Saturday we will be going to Napa/Sonoma for wine country. (Wish me luck on that too).

I miss everyone SO much!

Love, Shub :)

OK so the wineries...

are AWESOME. I had the pleasure of spending a whole afternoon with my roommate Bits' parents a few weeks ago. They live in San Diego but come to the central coast often for the VINO! So I drove an hour north to Paso Robles, met them breakfast, and then we did four different wineries throughout the day; a luxury I never had the opportunity to experience in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland.

Though all the landscape out her is dry and brown, there are gorgeous hills and mountains as far as the eye can see. And in between all these mountains are the most beautiful wineries you've ever seen. Three out the four we went to were Robert Hall, Meridian, and Hunt Cellars. Here's Robert Hall:


This is at Meridian:


Here is an excellent candid of the Hopkins. Mrs. Hopkins is most likely dancing through the vineyard because this was our third or fourth tasting spot, and Mr. Hopkins is on the phone with Bits! Yay!

On my way home from the many tastings we had that day, I could not help but stop by the side of the road and take more photos :) Enjoy!

Moral of the story: If you ever come to the Central Coast of California (which everyone should), you must, and I mean MUST, visit the wineries.

Adios!

Shub :)

Sorry it has been so long!

Hi everyone!

I am SO sorry I have not posted anything in such a long time. Life in California has been very different so I have been taking time trying to adjust. My aunt and uncle whom I am staying with just bought a new house. So we spent all of today moving everything from the condo to the new house. So instead of the condo to myself, I now have a whole single family home to myself. Please come visit me?

Anywhos, my family out here is great. There always seem to be lots of children running around. Which I love. We drove the truck down to Pismo Beach and had a bonfire last night and I am going to the beach again tomorrow with some friends I met! Yay! Here is the sunset on the beach last night:


I was also just down in Coronado with my roommate Bits and her family for a big party they had. I took the train down from San Luis Obispo to San Diego which is an absolutely gorgeous ride, right along the coast the entire time and straight through mansions in Santa Barbara, Malibu and such. It's always fun to stare at other people's expensive homes.

On the way home from San Diego Bits and I stopped in LA to see Christopher! He has a very cute apartment in Koreatown, which works well because he loves Korean food. We in fact had Korean food for lunch of course and after what seemed like 3 minutes we finally left for Arroyo Grande. While Bits was on the Central Coast I took to her one of my favorite places: Montana de Oro, a free state park that will soon be closed because of the whole California-going-bankrupt thing. Look how pretty it is!


I miss home a ton and miss my family more than anything. Bro just got to his new place in Massachusetts! Hooray! He is going to be a nerdy history TA. Bahaha. Just kidding, he will be awesome :)

And for my final number tonight (and by that I mean for everyone's general enjoyment) here is AJ, one of my little cousins out here, in her happy place: