Holidays!

I must say, it feels weird to say Christmas has passed. There is always such hustle right before the big day, to get cards out, packages sent, phone calls made, that by the time the day has passed me by, it feels like it never happened. That everything was just a big blur. I might feel that way, because I had such a busy weekend. It feels weird to have it wind down.
I spent my Christmas Eve night with my brother, his wife, and their son, Owen. We had a lovely dinner. The next morning, I headed back down to Venice to their house to watch Owen celebrate his first Christmas. Needless to say, an eight month old baby gets more excitement out of the wrapping paper, than the actual presents. It was still great joy to watch him partake in the holiday fun.
After spending the day with them, I headed down to Huntington Beach, where my Portland friends, Shannon and John Anthony were visiting her sister, Dawn, and Dawn's boyfriend, Mark at their house. Christmas night was filled with yummy pasta, bottles of wine, movies, and games. I had so much fun. I stayed the night and the next morning, we all headed to the Santa Anita Race Track for Mark's birthday. WIth bloody marys in hand by noon, we were able to place our bets. I pretty much broke even, which is a good thing. I spent what money I had left at the local H & M, because I felt it was my duty to give back to the economy. :) The rest of the weekend was topped off with cat-sitting for a friend and relaxing with bad Lifetime movies. Nothing beats that. At least I can say I survived another Christmas and only have a couple of more presents that need to be sent out fashionably late.

Back to Work

So, as you know, I just got back from a wonderful vacation (see below post) but now it's time to enter the real world. And in real world, I mean work. It took awhile to get back in the swing of things. I wanted to shut my office door and avoid contact with people all together, but for some reason couldn't get away with it. I did, however, decide to come back to work on a Friday, which was nice, my boss was out of the office and a lot of people were either already gone for the holidays are too busy in their own work to take notice of my return. Which gave me time to go through my 355 emails I had waiting for me. The good news is this week proved to add a little more fun into my day to day schedule. I got to cover The Biggest Loser Finale, which is always entertaining. The actual waiting process isn't. We sit in a freezing press trailer watching the East coast feed of the show and listen to other reporters comment back and forth. Then, 15 minutes before they reveal the winner, the press has to gather next to the stage and wait. As soon as the credits roll, we have to charge the stage with microphones in hand. It's a little maddening. Especially, since the winner had only 30 minutes to do press before hopping on a plane to do the Today show in the morning. Good news, I got the interview. It was quick, but that's just what I needed. In fact, I was able to grab all the interviews I wanted. It's almost a bit of a rush up on that stage. It's always flattering when Bob and Jillian remember me by name and Alison Sweeney makes her way across the stage to say hello. I must say. Not to mention, that damn show gets my tears flowing every time. So happy that Michelle won. The real tear jerker is next season's premiere, which airs January 6th, 8/7c. Ugh, I just plugged my own show on this blog.
Anyway, here's just a sample of what I did at the finale. There are a lot more on NBC.com. Ugh, there I plugged myself, again

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

I Am Baaaaack!

Don't you hate the feeling of coming back from a vacation. Why is that that the time it takes to actually get to your destination seems so long, but the vacation, itself, seems so short? I hate that. Well, this year, I made the pilgrimage to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The trip had been on my radar for awhile and initially being planned with a friend. The more and more research I did about the "Paris of the South", the more and more I was anticipating the trip. About a month before leaving, my friend had to back out due to financial reasons and was too proud to accept a loan, so I did the trek by myself and am so happy that I did. Not only was my experience amazing, but I was able to do all the things I had wanted to do, without the worry of a second person not having a good time. Of course, there were instances, I wished I had a companion to laugh with or to do a last-minute pub crawl with, but I survived. I had no big worries. In fact, the last two days of my trip, I had met an Aussie on my boat tour who was in the same situation, alone in Argentina. So, he and I teamed up, did our own pub crawls and went to a very nice dinner and had nice dinner conversation. Something you can't do by yourself, without looking like a crazy person. I visited museums, the Recoleta Cemetery, every district of the city, took a boat tour outside the city, took in a tango show, took private tango lessons, visited trendy hotels and restaurants for cocktails, drank delicious Argentine wine and did some wonderful shopping. I was impressed with myself for finding my way around, learning the culture, speaking the language and accomplishing a goal of always wanting to see this amazing city. Anybody considering a trip to South America should definitely look at the very cosmopolitan Buenos Aires. For those wanting to see my collection of photos, let me know, and I will be more than happy to send my album you way.