Oh, to be a kid again...

I was trying to figure out what my next blog post would be because I've had a lot of things going on lately! My first thought was to report about my trip to Dallas to work for the NBA during All-Star week. While it's definitely blog-worthy, I decided I'd rather talk about how I abadoned all responsibilities this weekend to re-live the life of a child...and it felt so good!

On Saturday, a couple friends and I traveled down to Santa Cruz to hike around Castle Rock State Park. We went for the purpose of a good hike, but ended up spending the majority of the time playing on, around, under, and in the rock. It's an amazing natural phenomenon - a rock about 3 stories high and about 30 yards wide, with tons of caves and divets everywhere. While there were a ton of serious rock climbers scaling the 3 stories of height, we had tons of fun climbing up and around the outside, taking pictures in the caves...







Even though it took us nearly an hour to get there, it was well worth the trip. We even stopped at a local diner/biker bar in the woods to eat some lunch afterwards...so nice to get out of the city!

On Sunday, after a great run of sunshiney weather, the rain picked back up again and brought the waterworks to San Francisco. After hoovering under a strained umbrella throughout the day, I realized that as we grow up and gain responsibilities, we unfortunately lose the fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants mentality that made life so fun as children. The little kid in me won the battle - I dropped the umbrella and ran around in the rain for about 10 minutes, letting loose all inhibitions to just have fun. It was such a freeing feeling to shrug off all "adulthood" and just act like a kid again... I highly recommend it!

I got a brand new pair o' rollerskates, you got a brand new key...

Bucket List Item #68 - Attend a 70's themed Rollerskating Party in San Francisco

Last night's festivities are a great example of a time when I'm reminded of all the fun things that life has to offer. So far, I've been able to cross off some pretty amazing things on my bucket list -

- Smoking a blunt in Bob Marley's Inspiration chair in Jamaica
- Throwing a pitch from the SF Giants mound
- Jammin out to Eric Clapton live at Royal Albert Hall
- Eating a delicious catered lunch with my family at Neverland Ranch (not to mention touring his house and playing on all the rides!)
- Sipping on a beautiful Beaujolais wine while watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle
- Touring Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam (then, of course, visiting an Amsterdam cafe :) )

And in this mindset of living life to its fullest, I jumped on the opportunity to do something I've never done before - attend a rollerskating 70's party. Not only was it everything I'd hoped it would be, but it was one of the most fun things I've done yet!

The art gallery where the party took place had been turned into what I would imagine to be a spitting image of a club in the 70s. The 100+ people were all decked out in gold, white, short shorts and afros...and for some reason there were a bunch of clowns (side note - apparently it was a guy's birthday party, but the more I drank, the more scary the clowns became).

The funny thing about the event was the sheer contradictory of it all. I'm fairly certain most of us hadn't rollerskated for decades, yet we weren't afraid to down a few shots and put ourselves on wheels. You didn't have to look further than 5 feet during any part of the evening to see someone eating it hardcore. In fact, at one point, a big bear of a man rolled straight into the ground in front of me, flailing his arms about and taking down a few innocent bystanders while socking me in the face. I was hoping for a black eye battle wound, but ended up with a wimpy little bruise on my nose.

Lesson learned from Bucket List Item #68 - always say yes to something random and fun!

"Something" for the Music Lovers

I forgot my phone/camera at home today so I decided to post, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful songs ever. It's amazing that it was released way back in 1969 but it's still so magical to this day. The video is hilarious at first, but watch it all the way through and try to tell me you don't start thinking about the loved ones in your life...

oh mother...nature...

This weekend, I kickstarted the idea to force myself to see the beauty in everyday life. It wasn't hard - I went hiking in Marin at Cascade Canyon, a little path that ran alongside this river to the heart of a waterfall... it was gorgeous.