Summertime

It's officially summertime, and my activities are on a hiatus which means that I was finally free on a Wednesday evening to not only go watch and cheer on AJ and our neighbors in their beach flag football game, but bring the Nanners too!

It's one of those things where we finally make it to the beach and I don't understand why we don't go more often! We're 2 minutes away and it was nice being by all the cute shops and near the water and then going out for beer and pizza afterwards with the team(s). Some fun pictures of AJ even surfaced. He's literally the best at every single sport he touches. It's annoying.

I'm not much of a beach person... I don't really care for the sand and the waves sometimes give me anxiety, but usually beachside areas are cute and they're nice every once in awhile at least lololol!

Father's Day Weekend

We had a nice Father's Day weekend! We celebrated the marriage of my cousin David and we got out to Duke's in Huntington Beach with AJ's dad.

It's too bad we were too lazy to do much else but it was nice to relax. It's such a Monday today!

Ten Years Ago Today

Holy moly!

HAMILTON

I would love to say that AJ surprised me and swept me off my feet to go see Hamilton because he thought I would love it, but the truth is, he got a free 3rd row ticket to see it with his friend a few weeks ago and was so obsessed with it, he was willing to sponsor our trip out to Las Vegas in June to see it. So it was selfish, but I don't care cause I really wanted to see it anyway.

It was a too-quick trip. We headed out Saturday morning. Since the show was playing at The Smith Center north of the Strip, we decided to do the whole old town Fremont Street experience. We checked in to our hotel and went to the pool and got beers and just tried to get the car ride off of us!

We went to dinner and then headed to The Smith Center for the best musical of the decade! Seriously, it was awesome! The writing and the songs were soooo good, and it was so engaging. I also lovedddd how all of the cast was so diverse. Hamilton was Latino, Burr was black, George Washington was Asian, Eliza Hamilton was black, etc etc. They were just great performers who told the story of America, I wasn't detracted in the least that "omg Eliza was white" and it felt even more American to see the story of our Founding Father played out by representations of our entire country.

What was annoying was that AJ had seen it before and kept making commentary or telling me what was better about the version he saw in Costa Mesa. I kept having to shush him lololol!

After that we went to the downtown strip, were not treated so kindly at the blackjack tables, and eventually wandered back to the hotel, needed a late checkout, went back down to the downtown where we watched a magic show (how do they do that?!), got breakfast, and then went back to the pool to hang out for a little before the long trek back. Ugh. At least we had the Hamilton soundtrack to sing!

Anyways, was totally worth the hassle, definitely recommend, two thumbs up, delightful family fun, would see again!

Philadelphia 2018

I have to say, I haven't made it back to a lot of the cities I thought I would have by now, but I've also revisited a surprising amount of cities that I wasn't planning on either. One of those is definitely Philadelphia. For the record, I like Philly. It's got a nice East Coast jive and I have good memories there.

The first being when Jayna and I visited in on Martin Luther King Day in January 2011 or 2012 (can't remember anymore!) and then visited Sri a time or two with Palak when he was attending Wharton and Palak was living in Baltimore and I was still in NYC. And I returned again in 2018 on behalf of work to attend the NAFSA conference.

I already knew NAFSA was going to be fun - it's kinda like the annual reunion of all global partners in this industry, so I was really excited to see everyone again... the contact for the French fair I attended in Paris in January, some of the agents I met with in Frankfurt in February, my trip leaders from the India tour in April, and even my friend from my San Diego days, Chrishon. But it even went beyond that... I was running into old coworkers I wasn't even expecting to see, and between evening receptions, meetings around the center, working the Expo Hall and attending sessions, the week was jam packed and was both exhausting and fast! But, it was great. Plus, I got to spend the first night meeting up with my old coworker Sara, whom I used to share an office with at Columbia. She's completely unconnected to the NAFSA work but is doing her PhD at Penn and it was such a joy to see her again!

Watching The Disaster Artist on the plane
for like the 50th time while on a plane!

Philly Philly!

Finally back in the land of my favorite Yuengling!

AJ's people!

Worked the UC booth and got to scope out
our sister schools' swag LOLOLOL

Was more impressive than the famous LOVE

BMI Brazil party... was diggin the sax player-
he was so into it!

Jessica and one of our Peruvian partners

One too many dirty martinis led to this photo

The great ol' LOVE sign

It's funny to see the booths bring out their A
game... in the scheme of the Expo Hall, the cardboard
Queen was pretty low, but it was my personal favorite!

The first Goose Island Brewery
outside of Chicago was here in
Philly, and this Juliet sour was
A-MAZING!!

At the Ben Franklin museum - how cute is this?!

MIND YOUR BUSINESS!

BIRTHDAY CAKE ICE CREAM

I could have done without a trip to the Liberty Bell, but
Chrishon hadn't been and she humored me with the Ben Franklin
museum so had to do it again... and it was fun!!

I was so torn up after this trip! Insane blisters (heels on day 1? Rookie mistake!) Spent a night or two with too many drinks which led to some regurgitated Philly cheesesteak in the morning, but all in all had such a great time on the wonderful East Coast seeing my old friends and getting to do some really productive work at the same time.