Hip, Hip, Hooray for Day 1 of Christmas Vacation!

My first 30 hours of Christmas Vacation have been incredible. We are just arriving back in the city after a quick night in beautiful Banff, Alberta. Our first night back in Calgary we had a whirlwind evening. We arrived home just before supper and enjoyed a wonderful holiday family meal before jetting off to Flame Central for a kickass Christmas party that The Dudes were headlining. 

I had been jonesing to see The Dudes for years but I have barely been in Calgary since finishing school. “Dudes Christmas Special with Wet Secrets and Shotgun Jimmie” was an awesome, late night dance party that would get even the biggest grinch tapping their toes. I already loved The Dudes, now I am all pumped up about Wet Secrets. Boy, have I ever missed live local music! 

I’m keeping this post short and sweet, it is Christmas and there is just SO MUCH to do in Calgary! The Farmers Market, Zoo Lights, Flames games and sooooo much more!! 

Starting to get into the #Christmas spirit in #Banff! #mountains #Alberta #travel

A photo posted by Kate Bruce (@kategbruce) on Dec 20, 2015 at 4:01pm PST

#WetSecrets at Flames Central, getting pumped up for The Dudes! #Calgary #YYC #concert @thewetsecrets

A photo posted by Kate Bruce (@kategbruce) on Dec 19, 2015 at 10:54pm PST

We finally saw The Dudes last night, they are definitely one of those bands that are awesome on the radio but even better to listen to live! #YYC #Calgary #livemusic

A photo posted by Kate Bruce (@kategbruce) on Dec 20, 2015 at 9:14am PST

A Little Email From TripAdvisor That Put A Big Smile On My Face :)

I am weirdly proud of my recent status update on Tripadvisor. I’m not sure I why I pride myself on reviewing the random things that I do after I do them. I have been a little boring lately, but this email today made me smile. I am looking forward to continuing to rise in the ranks when the next segment of my life’s strange adventure begins. Helping even one person is awesome, I am so happy to have helped the people who have voted my comments helpful on Tripadvisor!

I think of myself as a very average lady, I like the fine things and can appreciate pretty much everything so it is fair to say that I am a pretty nice reviewer on Tripadvisor. I’m not sure that I have given any really bad reviews, but I love noting the amazing experiences I have while I am on my travels and on my highlight reel nights at home.

I cannot wait to continue seeing and doing the things that I love and sharing them with you! J  

I know in the grand scheme of things this is a relatively minor, silly blog but I am really trying to be happy about the small things in life right now and for some reason this email made me ridiculously happy today! 

San Diego Part Five: The La Jolla Open Aire Market

I love going to the market. This is a big surprise, when I was a kid I absolutely hated markets. The Open Aire Market in La Jolla is my absolute favourite Market. Halifax and Calgary have great markets but they do not really compare to the market held in La Jolla on Sundays.

Today the Market was a lot less busy than our visit last year. With all the rain I guess it was hard to tell if it would be worth setting up for vendors, our trip was dry and it looks as if the afternoon just keeps getting nicer weather wise.

We decided to skip lunch at home and have street food at the Market, Kevin had gyros and I ordered what they called a breakfast pizza with a gluten-free crust. Unfortunately I have yet to find a gluten-free traditional pizza crust that holds up to a traditional pizza crust. This was the best crust I have had so far that was gluten-free; over all the pizza was great! Cooked in a portable wood-fire oven from Cucina Caprese it was a great quick meal (it took about 10 minutes from order to plating).

I should note, before we actually ate our market meal we were lured in by Sugar & Scribe Bakery. We cannot pass by cupcakes! I had the red velvet mini; it was amazing! We were told it was the top red velvet cupcake in San Diego and I believe it. From what I was told (from Elaine) the vanilla was also very good! It was Sugar & Scribe Bakery’s first trip to the market. I hope they had a good reception; we sure enjoyed their offerings!

After the gyros and pizza we had a mocha Rickaroon. For $3 it was a perfect dessert for two very full people to split. I tried a couple different bites; the mocha was definitely my favourite. Like so many of the vendors at the La Jolla Open Aire Market you are able to have these treats shipped out to you. They were really good, filling snacks. Bonus Rickaroons are gluten-free and paleo friendly, right up our (non on vacation) alley!

You can actually walk the market and sample before you buy. It is so nice to check everything out and then make your decision from the different vendors. Be careful, it is hard not to fill up on samples before you buy! 

Last year when we visited there was an amazing collection of vintage posters and artwork. Incredible old ads for designers, the price tags for these items were steep but they are still fun to look at! 

I love the La Jolla Open Aire Market, you can find everything from Asian-fusion street food to treasure found on scuba diving adventures. You can get a quick massage or have your knives sharpened. There is even live music to entertain you while you shop away your Sunday!

Don't forget to grab a bag of San Diego Kettle Corn before you leave so that you can enjoy the market all day long! 

For more info on the  La Jolla Open Aire Market click here. 

A couple tips to help you enjoy the Market more efficiently:

1.   Bring cash, there is an ATM but it charges you nearly $4 to withdraw money. Add in a cross-border charge if you are Canadian. Many vendors offer the Square for card payments at a much lower cost than withdrawing money, very cool and something you may want to look into if you are a small business.

2.   Bring a bag; we totally forgot to do this! Your arms will fill quickly with items you will pick up.

.

Rant: Gym Selfies

I’m not sure what annoys me more constant pictures of babies or gym pics on social media.

If you didn’t enjoy that line, stop reading now. You really won’t like what is to come.

You know what, I actually I have an answer to that. I would much rather see cute photos of your baby or pet then a body shot of you at the gym.

Maybe I am a jerk saying this, but to me it is the most self-centered thing you can post. As a friend, I am so proud of your efforts to get out and work out. Good for you (seriously)! Going to the gym everyday takes dedication. It truly is like having a part-time job taking care of your body to get it to competition level for bodybuilding; or working of extra weight you have been carrying around.

Last year around this time I became a dedicated gym-goer, for no real reason. I love the size and shape I was, I was the smallest I have ever been when I started at the gym but my body was still giggly. Also, I had a lot of time on my hands while I was at radio school. I never got on the on my phone at the gym photo-train, in fact I have stopped going to gyms because of people who do this.

At my gym in Calgary every time I went I had to side step around people taking pictures of themselves and talking on the phone while working out. I think it is so obnoxious and (again) self-centered.

To me, the gym is a sacred place. Gyms are places where make-up melts away from your face like you are the Wicked Witch (if you are doing it right). They are places where fashion is not as important as functionality, who cares what you are wearing! The goal is that no one will want to see that outfit and this may sound harsh, but your face when you’re done working out.

I will admit, as soon as I am back from California I am joining the gym in Castlegar. I was pretty obsessive about working out before I moved to B.C., but once I started working my career became my obsession.

Every time I stop going to the gym or playing sports regularly my mind trips me up. I see that I am losing weight (muscle) and think it is all going to be okay by just eating smart. But, after that drop in weight and fun period that makes you think you never needed to go to the gym in the first place to drop weight, you start to blow up the scale again.

Right now I will gladly post that I am 171lbs on vacation (yup, a little chubby). This is the largest I have been in a while, I have been weighing in about 165lbs but on vacation I have been retaining water and eating pretty poorly (sweets and wine).

I actually really like the routine of going to the gym. For me, it has been really hard to try to get back to working out since I have moved to B.C. I have not really had a routine since I moved to B.C.; at first it was constant trips around to Calgary and Vancouver. Then it shifted to periods co-hosting the morning show and pretty much constant exhaustion (it really was not for me). I am a person who thrives when I am able to have a routine and it looks like now I can finally get back into one.

Right now, I can’t wait to get back to the gym when I get back to B.C. But, I can promise you I won’t be taking daily update photos of my journey to fitness. I won’t even be blogging about it.

Right now I do not have a goal for working out. I always try to set goals for things I do, maybe I will try a natural physique competition next year? I do want to run at least a 5k this summer. Maybe that is my goal…

San Diego Part Three: Balboa Park

Pretty much everything we have done on this trip we have done on previous trips to California. I would go as far as saying has been the greatest hits of trips to California (without Alcatraz).  

Our days here in La Jolla have started the same way they did last year, a trip for coffee to the Brick and


Bell every morning and then walks down to the beach and around town (except for our side trip to Anaheim).  The only real exception is that the weather has been a little wild yesterday and today. We lucked out during our adventure yesterday the sun poked it's head out and the skies cleared if only for a little while. More on out adventure yesterday in a minute... 

Mitt Romney is tearing down his beach house down the street from the condo where we are staying and building a new home three times its size and I understand why, La Jolla is amazing. I could live here and walk the shore everyday. I love watching the seals and sea lions. Yes, sometimes the smell is disgusting, but over all La Jolla is wonderful.

San Diego as a whole is amazing. I think it is my favourite place in California that I have visited so far (apart from Disneyland, but that is not a real place).

One thing that we had not done in San Diego was visiting Balboa Park. We visited San Diego Zoo (which is in Balboa Park) last year while we were here but that was as close as we had come.

Lets just say, I was a Sour Sally when we made plans to walk Balboa Park yesterday. My legs were exhausted from a full day at Disneyland the day before, but as soon as we pulled up to the park I was happy we were there.

We walked around the magnificent park and took it all in, I was in absolute awe over the spectacular architecture. It is so hard to believe you are in the middle of a city when you are in Balboa Park!

We did not go to the Museum of Man, the exhibits looked very interesting, I am kind of hoping to go back. They were showcasing historic exhibits on beer and torture mechanisms, is it weird that I find that really intriguing? They also have Ancient Egypt exhibits; a very interesting mix.

We ended up visiting the Museum of Natural History at Balboa Park and taking in the ‘Real Pirates’ exhibit. It was very cool, we all agreed that we like that they simply focused on the adventures of the Whydah and gave some background information on pirates rather than going all over the place with various ships. If you ever see this travelling exhibit you should check it out, you even get to touch real pirate treasure, very cool!

You can also learn a lot about local natural history at the museum with their typical exhibits. We did not focus too much on the normal exhibits; we went to the Museum of Natural History in New York when we travelled there this summer. It was still a very informative and hands-on, a great place to take children.

I imagine I would spend a lot of time at Balboa Park if I lived in San Diego; it is truly a beautiful place. It is almost as if you are transported to another place while you are visiting.  I don’t think I would mind running daily if I had a place like that to run to!

Now we are off to do a little shopping in this wild weather, grab some In-And-Out Burger and hopefully a scone!

Fingers-crossed tomorrow will at least not be so windy and rainy, right now it feels as if a palm tree could come crashing down through the glass windows of the condo at any minute.

They even had an Albertosaurus!

San Diego Part Two: Letting Our Disneyside Out!

This a very fitting 200th post, a celebration of sorts in blog form! 

Yesterday we let our Disneyside out.

Yes, we got our Disney freak-on in Anaheim. Kevin’s parents gave us the amazing gift of passes to the parks for the day and my parents paid for our night at Disneyland’s Paradise Pier Hotel. I’m not going to sugarcoat this; it was probably the most expensive 24 hours of my life.

Was it worth it? Ah, hell yes! 


We checked into the hotel, made our character breakie reservations and then were on to Downtown Disney.

Lets just be clear right now, there have been a lot of white lies in the past couple of days. Not the dangerous kind, the saving money kind. The worst part is that cashiers are total enablers; during our trip to the USS Midway they convinced us that we were students.

At Disneyland they assumed we were celebrating something, Kevin said my birthday was coming up and BOOM they gave me the birthday pin. EVERYONE in the park said “Happy Birthday” to me for the next 36 hours. They gave Kevin an “I’m celebrating” button as well, which he is with his recent military news, but he refused to wear it. Princess Aurora even sent me down a “Happy Birthday” signed photo; it is embarrassing how happy this made me.

Downtown Disney is the perfect place to have a date night. We did a quick trip down, checked

 everything out and made our dinner reservations and then did something ultra-American we try to do every time we go to the States… we went to Walmart.

 

I’m kind of kidding here, but it is different. Going to Walmart and McDonald’s is something we do every time we cross the border; it is like they are on steroids in America when you compare them with their Canadian siblings.

Also, I find it super entertaining. Everything is so cheap and so large. We even managed to find old Ed Hardy clothes at the Walmart we visited in Anaheim, I’m not sure if someone was just embarrassed to be wearing Ed Hardy and ditched what they were wearing for Walmart duds or if they are really selling it. Regardless, American Walmart is a fun and cheap excursion.

Date night at Downtown Disney was great. We had our favourites at Rainforest Café (I totally hid that damn birthday button so that no one would sing to me). After our trip to the jungle we went to ESPN Zone and played the most advanced sports arcade games.

I was a little disappointed that they no longer have the hockey shoot-out hockey game, but they have all kinds of new games since we last visited.

Kevin set the daily record for the hardest pitch at the pitch cage. He got a free game for his impressive pitching and then broke his own record… twice. He struck out A-Rod!

I was not so good at any of the games, but was kind of addicted to the Quarter Back passing drill and the putting station.

Next we were onto Disney’s California Adventure and then Disneyland in the morning. We got up and did some character dining at the hotel and were greeted by Mickey and then Minnie, Pluto, Stitch and Daisy joined us. At this point cost had gone out the window, considering we had paid so much to stay the one night at the hotel. The breakfast was decent, the same as the character dining inside Disneyland at the Plaza but not worth it if you are going for the food. I learned long ago that with Disney your not paying for top-notch whatever, you are paying for the experience. When you get character dining out of the way you do not need to worry so much about lines for character experiences when you get in the park. More on this craziness later…

We arrived for our extra hour of magic in the park at 9am.  We were excited that it was an extra hour in California Adventure rather than in Disneyland because we had done that one our first trip in 2011, this gave us time to get everything in (including the new Car’s Land) in California Adventure.

We were really excited about Car’s Land; Radiator Springs was being built when we last visited. Unfortunately, during our magic hour nothing was open yet. The racer cars already had a 30-minute line and were not yet operational (remember, the park has not officially opened yet) and the fast pass machines were not open. This was the only ting we didn’t get to do during our whirlwind day at Disney.

We dominated both parks all day. We started at 9am and did not sit down more than 10 minutes, not even to eat (note: we are both paying for it today). Our day at Disney had a rough start though, one of the first rides we went on was Grizzly River Run. The last time we visited the park it was the last ride we went on, it had been closed our entire trip but we managed to get one run in. This time we got to experience it in the light. 

We have both learned a valuable lesson about me on rides; I am a total jerk. I duck whenever water is involved and hold on to whatever is near (hands, shoulders etc.) for dear life when on roller coasters. As we spun down this (what I call) flume style ride I saw that we were going to catch water from behind, so of course I ducked into Kevin so he would absorb all the water (again, I am a jerk) and BOOM fist in the face. Kevin totally (accidentally) punched me in the face. Giving me a wonky eye all day. 

Now, I am a huge fan of everything Disney. Walt Disney is in my list of heroes, but every time I visit Disneyland I am blown away by people who take it to the next level, I’m not sure how they have the ability to spend so much of their paychecks on the paraphernalia in the parks (let alone how they find mates to procreate with, that also blows my mind).

For me, I am not sure what will happen when I actually get to Disneyworld. I am a little disappointed by the amount of characters out in the park at Disneyland. We got in line to start waiting for a meeting with Merinda, it was half an hour and after two minutes we ditched. If you think that is bad the line for Elsa and Anna from Frozen was never under two hours while we were there. That is just straight crazy.

Our perfect day in the park was highlighted by a trip to Car’s Land to ride the new tire bumper cars. We were waiting in line when a two year old little girl with hair as white as mine was when I was a kid started talking to me. She was adorable and so smart! Unlike 90% of the kids in the park she was not in a stroller and she was forming full sentences. We were so unimpressed when we saw a kid about seven or eight in the hotel elevator point to the poster on the wall and ask her mother, “What dat says” (what was worse was no one seemed phased by her not being able to read or talk at all). This kid was a small blond blessing, faith in humanity restored.

Kevin started calling the little girl “Little Kate”. We boarded the ride and learned the controls for this new cool contraption; it is essentially like bumped cars without having anything but your body to steer. As soon as the ride started going Kevin made it clear he wanted to hunt down “Little Kate” and bump the crap out of her. I could offer little resistance if I wanted our tire to travel anywhere. Next thing you know we see “Little Kate”, her face lights up as she waves (I of course wave back) and then BOOM!

Our favourite food in the park, pomme frites! 

Unfortunately our day did not last too much longer at Disneyland. I think I may have hit my peak for ride tolerance, everything seemed darker and bumpier than it did last time. The entire day was spent fighting headaches and bouncing from rollercoaster/intense rides to less intense/story rides. Yup, I am turning into a big baby. After about nine hours in the parks we had enough. This was mostly my call, I felt sick the entire room home after our trip on Goofy’s Sky School rollercoaster. The entire ride home I had to fight the pukes.

With that being said, it was still an incredible day. I’m not sure what was wrong with me; I think I was just not ready for all the carby foods combined with the rides.  I am quite sad that we did not get to see World of Color (my favourite part of a day at California Adventure), but next time!

The gross sickness even interrupted something I absolutely love doing, driving down the highway listening to the radio! When we finally arrived back in La Jolla after the most expensive 36 hours of my life, nothing was open for food so we went to bed hungry. I was not impressed! There were not any real low-carb options open after 9pm!

PS. Subway does not count, it is absolute garbage… there is a sub in the States that has Fritos in it! Healthy my ass…

We sure are not going hungry tonight! We just had amazing veal chops with roasted cauliflower and sweet potatoes; and wine of course (hence the sass on the Subway rant).

My next Kate’s California Adventure blog will talk about Balboa Park and misty surf days in La Jolla!

San Diego Vacation Part One: USS Midway and Coronado

I love California; this is my fourth trip to Cali in the past three years.

The first was after graduating from StFX, we went to Anaheim to visit Disneyland.

The second was to San Fran and Napa and Alcatraz.

The third was at this time last year to San Diego. We also visited Laguna Beach and made a quick trip into Anaheim to check out a Ducks game.

This year we are back in San Diego, we did again go back to Anaheim and visited Disneyland again.

But, lets stop in San Diego first. We did a lot in our first couple of days, we visited Kevin’s favourite stop in San Diego the Midway and then spent the afternoon at one of my favourite places, Coronado.

The USS Midway Museum is very interesting, now that we know Kevin will swearing in to the military in a couple of weeks it makes it even more special. This is the second time we have visited the Midway and some of same Veterans who served on the Midway were there telling the same stories that they were telling last year when we were visiting.  We did see some new parts of the Midway, but we did not spend as long on the ship as we did last time.

I clearly did not learn a key lesson from the Midway last year. If you ever go to the Midway do not wear a free flowing dress or skirt, I imagine something a little tighter fitting would be better than my choice of dresses. But, with all of the vertical latter type staircases it is not prime dress wearing space.

There are a lot of great photo-ops on the Midway and lots to learn. There are free audio tours so you can walk around and pick and choose what you want to listen to depending on the zones. Also, you can take guided tours through different areas of the ship and check out discussions on the deck about varying elements of working on an aircraft carrier.

I think the USS Midway is a great place for everyone to check out at least once; it also has a great view of one of my favourite statues, Unconditional Surrender or “The Kiss” as some people call it. I absolutely love it! Lots of people say it is a must to take a kiss photo at its feet. Unconditional Surrender is a gigantic recreation of the iconic photo taken at Times Square in New York.

After visiting the Midway we took the terrifying bridge over to Coronado. I love Coronado, you may recognize the incredible Hotel del Coronado from the Marilyn Monroe film ‘Some Like It Hot’. You can feel all of the history when you walk through the door to the hotel; the beach is absolutely incredible as well.

If you are a big Marilyn Monroe fan you will love Hotel del Coronado, it is a Mecca of Marilyn (in a classy way).

I love roaming around Coronado; it is like taking a trip back in time. We have taken a little break from keto living over the past couple of weeks in preparation for a big cut coming up when we get back to B.C., so we enjoyed milkshakes at a 50s style Diner (jukeboxes and all)!

Coming up in my next blog all the details on the most expensive night of my life and turning into a five year old at Disneyland.