I Run Like A Girl

Happy 2020 friends!!! I hope you all had a memorable night into the new decade. My new years consisted of watching stand-up comedy while sipping CBD ginger tea, and I couldn’t have been happier 🙂

On the theme of relaxing, let’s recap these past 2 weeks in my upstate New York hometown with my entire family. My time here has been so relaxing yet filled with a lot of excitement – 2 weeks flew by as there was always something going on in the house. It was just what I needed to unplug from work, stay in one place, and spend quality time with the ones I love most – I could easily do another week here!

Most of our days were spent hanging out in the living room together. It was nice to keep each other company while reading, writing, watching videos…

My mom is the puzzle queen.

We played lots of board games. Bananagrams became a family favorite – we were obsessed!

Lots of self-care ❤

Every night we gathered around the tv for a family movie night. Some favorites: Blue Jasmine, Marriage Story, Still Alice, Independence Day, The Report, The Post, and more!

Me and my sibling’s favorite tradition: decorating the tree while blasting Christmas music.

Funny story: every year me and the sibs spend forever trying to set up the Christmas lights. And every year we ask my mom for help, and she tackles it in 5 minutes (our whole family studied engineering but she is the only electrical engineer!).

Our family likes to go crazy with presents… 🙂

How I knew I would be a blogger…these are the stacks of journals I wrote in every day from 2004-2011. I never skipped a day! I hadn’t gone back to them in ages and it was quite entertaining reading through my teenage years.

 

Some running happened. Can’t believe I use to train for marathons in this weather! It was in the 20’s in my hometown. I’ve definitely become a wimp after living in SF. 😛

SO much yummy food. We crammed all our family favorites in two weeks. Mom made her famous dumplings.

And other Chinese classics 🙂

And hot cocoa.

I made my famous tiramisu and tres leche cake.

Hot pot for Christmas and New Years dinner. For years, we were cooking American classics on Christmas, but finally we decided we just didn’t like them. So we went back to hot pot. 🙂

We had lots of family outings at our favorite restaurants. In all the cities I’ve ever lived, I still haven’t found better sushi than this hometown spot ❤

Hit up the yummy pho restaurant.

My favorite tradition with bro: visiting the local craft beer store and picking out our own custom six pack. 🙂

We spent a lot of time at our hometown church. Christmas is always the most festive time of year. ❤

My brother and I got roped into helping out on the praise team (we use to actively serve in high school). That’s me on the piano on the left!

Hard at work at Barnes and Nobles.

Lots of snow on the ground. It was a pretty site.

Me and sissy went on a shopping + pedicures date.

Jason, one of my best friends from high school, was in town. We caught up at a hip coffee shop downtown. Jason is about to finish PA school and I’m trying to convince him to move to California! 😉

And that sums up my two weeks in New York! I’ll be wrapping up the holidays by spending the weekend in NYC to get some quality time with Christine, Anna, and Ben. I can’t wait! ❤