Chris Botti

i got to attend my first concert at the Montalvo Arts Center. i always hear about the place but have never been! i think a year ago or so there was a concert there that i wanted to attend, Randy Newman! ugh. but i didnt get to go *sad face*. the other night my friend text me if i still wanted to go to the Chris Botti concert, i said yes! why not! Montalvo? jazz music? live music? im there! ive heard some of Chris Botti's music before but dont listen to him religiously. my friend on the other hand, loves him! anyways, it really was a night of first for me! Montalvo and Chris Botti. i really wish i snapped some shots of the mansion but i really had no time. i want to take a day, go back and just photograph that gorgeous place.what i loved most about the concert in Montalvo was how personal it felt. it was a pretty small theater area and i loved how the stage was just so close to everyone.

i was seriously gushing at all the musicians and guest singers! i cant even begin to tell you how incredibly talented these people are. the first to appear was Caroline Campbell (sounds like a beautiful old school hollywood actress, huh?) well, she was very beautiful and the most talented Violinist ive ever seen/heard! so incredible. she had a solo that just blew my mind and ended with a standing ovation. second was Sy Smith! i mean.. i cant even begin to describe this womans voice. maybe, EFFORTLESS. and im really not exaggerating. please take the time to listen to Sy (and Caroline)! you will not be disappointed! Once Sy set stage, everyone immediately fell in love with her. not only with her voice but just.. HER. she was so spunky and fun! i would love to see her again! third on stage was the handsome George Komsky! an opera singer with a beautiful voice. George has performed the national anthem at the ATT Park as well as the San Francisco 49ers (HOLLA!) vs the New England Patriots game (in 2012?). it was that football game where Chris Botti discovered George and contacted him to become apart of his tour. so awesome! i must also mention how AMAZING the entire band was. Billy Kilson (drummer) was so BAD ASS.

at the end of the concert everyone seemed so quick to leave (maybe to catch the shuttle? but there really was no time limit for it. or maybe that the crowd was a bit older? haha. no idea). but my friend and i (along with like 20 or so people) stayed while we watched the techs clean up the equipment on stage, the line to the shuttle grow and uploaded photos onto our instagram. my friend had seen Chris Botti at Montalvo before and mentioned that he came out in the back to sign autographs. so we waited and im pretty sure all those folks that left had no clue about it. haha. so we went to the restroom and then made our way to where Chris Botti was. my goal the entire night was to get a photo with George Komsky. even standing 2 feet from him i just couldnt get myself to interrupt his conversations. so i waited and waited. but, FAILED :( i did, however, get my autograph from Chris and so did my friend. she also got a photo with him! at that time i was bummed about not getting my photo with George that getting one with Chris wouldnt have been the same. haha. lame, i know.

it was a really great night! i really want to attend another concert at Montalvo and to also see Chris Botti again!! i made a Chris Botti sample playlist on my Spotify if you want to take a listen, here!


--
Rosa

Birthday Weekend

its friday! yay! also, its exactly one month since my birthday, so i decided to share photos from my birthday weekend trip. last month i went to Disneyland for my birthday weekend. it was so much fun! i took my nephew with me, which was 10 times better. my favorite people in the world are my nieces and nephew! i was bummed that my oldest niece could not come with but was still stoked that my nephew was able to go. as for my youngest niece, well shes only one so i couldnt bring her. haha. overall the trip was a blast! my nephew and i had such a great time.. the car ride and all! the only downfall was me driving the entire time. i was completely exhausted. haha. next time i will at least have another adult with me so we can switch off.

we left on a friday, around 5pm or so. we decided to make a trip to San Luis Obispo where my cousin lives and crash there for the night. ive never been to SLO and i completely fell in love with it! my cousin took us to a BBQ joint and it was really delicious. im still craving that corn bread pie thingy. i really dont remember what it was called exactly. but it was good! haha. My cousin then took my nephew and i on a tour at the auto shop he works at.

one of the first things we did when we arrived was get a Dole Whip. well... actually the first thing i did. haha. we went to go ride Indiana Jones, which was actually closed at the time :( the one ride my nephew and i could not stop talking about on our way there.. was closed. not to mention that the last time my nephew was at Disneyland, he was too short to ride it. it was a huge bummer. anyways, back to the Dole Whip. Walking back to Tomorrowland, i seen that there was no line to get a Dole Whip.. so i took it as a sign and got my very first float! man, it was amazing. Another thing that i HAD to do, was get a photo with Captain America. SUCCEEDED! Hes not the real Cap but good enough!

for lunch, i told my nephew he could choose anything on the park map. he chose the Village Haus in Fantasyland. Great choice! My favorite Disney character is Pinocchio (and Roger Rabbit. hehe) so i was super excited about eating there. The food was delicious. my nephew got pizza and i got a burger. neither one of us complained, we were satisfied! We got to ride a bunch of rides but not much of the big ones. i think for me, i was looking forward mostly to Indiana and i was just so bummed about it. We rode a lot of the rides in Fantasyland (which i never really get to do when i go with my friends), Haunted Mansion, Buzz Lightyear and i think we rode Star Tours twice. haha. Cant remember much else but we both had a great time!

for dinner we shared a turkey leg while we watched the Fireworks. it was grand!! not only was it such an awesome birthday present to myself, i loved seeing my nephews face and his excitement throughout the entire day! so worth it! i must also mention that Its A Small World finally opened. Every time i went to Disneyland the ride was always closed. i didnt realized how much i loved the ride. i was so happy and stunned by the designs in the ride. even my 9 year old nephew (who is such a boy) loved the ride. haha. we couldnt stop talking about it.

the next morning we made our way back home. but of course, we had to stop at SLO one last time. We had lunch this time with my cousin at Splash Cafe (i kinda prefer the one in Pismo better, shhhh) but it was still good! haha. he gave us a little tour around downtown and i finally got to see the gum wall. i thought id be more excited about it when i saw it but i was more disgusted. haha. i didnt even walk through it. >.< haha. i also finally got my Peets coffee (vanilla cappuccino with a bit of whip cream and sprinkle of cinnamon - its such a dream!). the entire trip i was only able to get Starbucks (its every where and its much harder to find a Peets) but when youre like me and have been drinking only Peets coffee for over a year straight, Starbucks doesnt even compare =/ i couldnt even finish my drink. i hate being picky. haha. but its coffee!

So, that was my birthday trip! i want to go back so bad but im not sure when that will be.
hoping 24/hr weekend! but we'll see! I was feeling a bit down about my birthday (im really dreading getting older) but it turned out to be one of the best! After that weekend, i had a birthday dinner two days after. i couldnt believe how many of my friends showed up! 30+! im still shocked about it. haha. our table was completely full at the Old Spaghetti Factory :)
After dinner, a few of us went out for drinks while we watched the SF Giants play. they won, by the way!
We stayed until it was midnight (my actual birthday) and they sang and we drank!
it was the best!!!

oh and by the way, if you were curious, im 27.
*tear*


--
Rosa De Los Reyes

Highway 1

What started off as a "hey, want to go to Big Sur?" ended up with a trip to Pismo Beach. I love my friends and their spontaniouness. It was the 5 of us and as we made our way onto 101, one of them asked "so, where are we going?". there was "Pismo?" and "LA?". We ended up deciding on Pismo since LA was a much further trip. We also left late in the day so driving back home would've been very tiring. We took Highway 1 for a view of the coast. Which was a brilliant idea! But also took a little longer than expected. haha. There wasn't much complaining since the view was incredible. We stopped about 3 times just to take in the view and savor it. here are some photos of our little adventure. Which resulted in eating the best clam chowder (ever) at Splash, trying my first Dole Whip (omg, heaven!) and just hanging out, listing to the waves. What a great start to 2014. One of my New Years Resolutions is to go on more adventures and this was one of the best days ive ever had.

 

 

--

Rosa Clementine

 

 

 

Home + Maui pt. 1

im both sad and happy to be back home! Im sure you can guess why I am sad (haha) I sure miss Maui's beautiful beach! When I landed back in San Jose, the cold weather hit me hard. Im currently fighting the sniffles. Although the warm weather and beaches were nice, I am glad to be home :) ive missed being bundled up, blogging, seeing my nieces and nephew and hanging with my friends. I also miss drawing! For some reason I just had no inspiration in Maui. haha. I guess my brain was in "vacation" mode, but still. im ready to start creating new pieces! First, I just need a fat nap ;) Im about to show you part 1 of my Maui trip! So.. get ready!

I went to Maui with my friend and her family! We stayed at the Westin in Kaanapali. A crazy beautiful resort! right outside our window was the view of the swimming pool(s) and the ocean! it was pretty awesome how close we were to the beach. I think I spent more than a couple hours in the water on our last day. haha. anywho, our first day was exciting.. because, well, it was my first time there! :) We did some grocery shopping for the week and then went to dinner at a place called "Aloha Mixed Plate". oh my, my meal was DELICIOUS.

Second day, well, I had to get my iced coffee! of course! During the whole trip I was missing Peets coffee really bad. haha. That night we went to downtown Lahina. Which I really enjoyed! We did some shopping, watched Frozen at a very tiny theater (haha) and had my first shot at Hawaiian Shave Ice. Frozen was seriously one of the funniest movies ive ever seen. I kid you not, I was laughing so hard that I was crying. haha. its also a very sweet movie. totally recommend it! As for Hawaiian shave ice.. OMG. best ever. We had it three times! haha.

Third day was the 49er game! We watched it at the pool bar. it was crazy intense.. especially sitting in the middle of trash talking Seahawk fans =/ there were 49er fans there as well but the only seats available were next to the opposing team. I couldn't believe how much trash they were saying.. wait a minute.. I can. haha. In the end.. we won! :) i was so happy that day! haha. FYI: trash talking gets you no where ;)

Fourth day was Whale watching day! it was so grand! within the first 5 minutes a Whale was near us doing some jumps. i was pretty much jumping up and down squealing like a little girl. haha. it was a pretty awesome experience and such a relaxing boat ride! id love to do some whale watching again.

Well, that was part 1! i will post part 2 tomorrow or Thursday! :)

hope you all are having a fab December so far! guess what!? i haven't done any Christmas shopping! haha. ugh.



--
Rosa Clementine

all for Elfman

I think I can die now. I got to see John Mauceri conduct Danny Elfman's musical master pieces! Tuesday I went to Danny Elfman's Music from the Films of Tim Burton concert. I cant even tell you how many videos I have from it.. but youll see my next post full of them. haha. I made sure to not look up anything about the concert.. to be surprised of course ;) I knew that Danny Elfman would be there.. but didn't know when he would come out. of course, my thought was.. "hes going to come out and sing as Jack Skellington". And so he did! BUUUT there was also another surprise that I definitely did not expect and since there are people who follow my blog and are going to the concert tonight I will leave the surprise out of it until my next post (I took a video of it)! hehe.

I am, so happy I bought my ticket and made this trip to LA. it was definitely one of the most exhausting trips but VERY MUCH worth it. it was just my friend, Stephanie and I, we drove to LA Tuesday (concert day) starting from 6am-ish. We arrived around 1ish and killed time in Santa Monica! ive have never been so it was definitely exciting to go there. we walk around The Promenade and the Pier. And while walking to the pier there was a young man selling popsicles out of a brown box (ok, the box was actually nice). He kept yelling out "wanna try a popsicle" "its organic" and lots of people kept passing him by but my friend and I decided to stop. I don't know why, maybe it was because he was incredibly handsome (he really was), but we did and we learned more about the popsicle. He and a friend are trying to start a business selling these Organic and fresh popsicles! they were quite tasty! im mentioning this in my post.. because I love that they're trying to make this dream happen. I mean, standing outside trying to sell them to people must not be easy. so props to Soleil Pops!

ok, back to the day.. we didn't leave Santa Monica until 5 and got to the hotel before 5:30! So we had enough time to just lay a bit and get ready. we got to the concert at around 7:40, by the time we finally got in and sat down in our seats it was about 8:05 (concert started at 8:15)! I didn't want to miss a thing ;) yeah.. my concert photos kinda suck.. wish I had a fancy camera instead of my iphone. but im glad I captured a bunch on video! I didn't go all crazy with an Elfman and Burton theme wardrobe but I wore this lovely hand-made & hand-painted pendant of Victor Frankenstein by a talented artist named Diana. LOVE IT. I love that there was a guy in a full on costume of Beetlejuice though! so great! haha.

Everything about the concert was just AMAZING. the best ive ever been to and the best thing I have ever experienced. My favorites of the night was probably Pee Wees Big Adventure, Big Fish and Beetlejuice.. but I mean.. all were FANTASTIC!! I mean, I cant forget about Danny Elfman singing his heart out! WOOOOOW! im still watching the videos and reminiscing. *sigh*
we got back to the hotel around 11:30ish or 12, cant remember. went to bed a little before 1 and got up on Wednesday morning around 4:30am, drove back home, got back around noon and went to work at 2pm! it seriously felt like the longest day and half everrrrrrrrr. but it was day trip to remember! and I did it all for ELFMAN!

oh yeah.. HAPPY HALLOWEEN :)
Im wearing my costume as I type.. im Shaun from Shaun of the Dead. hehe.
also, you should go check out these AWESOME Tim Burton inspired cocktails over at Ahoymiss!
THEY LOOK AWESOME, DEE! if I drank alcohol I would definitely be whipping those up! :)

touristy

ive lived by San Franciso my entire life. ive been there so many times. yet, it always seems so brand new and I seem to act like a tourist every time I go. haha. This past Saturday me, Bonnie and Michelle went. I feel like the trip was much more memorable then usual because I got to ride the cable car for the first time! I had no idea that it led you near the Pier (which is where we wanted to go). We did some shopping then took the trolley to Fisherman's Wharf. What an experience. its seriously so cool and only cost $6. For dinner we ate at Joes Crab Shack, then watched the fireworks that were held at Pier 39 (theyre having it every Saturday at 8pm of this month!), went to Ghiradelli Square & got the most delicious hot cocoa! mmm. What a fun Saturday! :)

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