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Cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge!
Whenever I have visitors coming, I try and get a car for review purposes. As I’ve stated many times, my 2007 Mazda constantly needs a lot of work done, and it kinda makes my butt numb after driving it for more than an hour.
Stepping up the luxury, I received the 2016 Lexus IS200t to review for the entire time Zach was here.
Zach is my ‘little’ neighbour from Newfoundland, who is now basically a giant at 8 foot 10. K, not really that tall, exaggeration considering I still think of him as little zacckie. He literally grew up next door to me, and I even remember the day his mother brought him home. In fact, his Mom helped me pick out my wedding dress and our wedding rings within that 6 day planned wedding. So, we’re close! And he came to visit us for a couple of days. So hellooooo of course I’m going to tour around. I love playing tour-guide, especially with people who haven’t been in California EVER. So showing people the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, and seeing their reactions is something I really love watching.
You gotta visit Baker Beach, it’s where Jessica first showed me the Golden Gate Bridge when I first moved here. Except, you have to go in the early morning, since it becomes a nude beach for the elderly men. No joke.
The first day we did a small bit of touring around San Francisco, but saved the majority of it for the second day. But we were pretty hungry by the time we got to the city since we got stuck in commuter traffic for a bit after collecting him from the airport. I scoped out Yelp and found that Dottie’s was a nice spot to eat (looked really rundown and sketchy from the outside). But it ended up being closed on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s. Lame! We ate at a small spot next door, that had freshly squeezed orange juice, and it was absolutely delicious. I don’t remember the name of it. But… it’s next door. hah.
After spending a few hours in San Francisco, we came back to our house and relaxed for a bit before touring around the San Jose area and seeing downtown (and having a bit of coffee at San Pedro Square!)
Second day: We drove up from South Bay, and parked the Lexus IS200t (I had it to review for the week), in Fort Mason (thanks to Lauren for the recommendation — it’s $12/day!). From there, we walked about a kilometre down to the main touristy area, to rent bicycles near Pier 39.
Tip: Book your rented bikes online so you save 20%Â off the day pass, I mean it adds up! We went with San Francisco Bicycle Rentals, and the guy who ran the bike rental business, surprisingly knew exactly where each province in Canada was. Impressive! By the way, you don’t pay til after you return your bikes.
Sidenote: the coffee, and iced lattes are pretty tasty at The Warming Hut.
I’m so glad Zach came up with the idea to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge! It was so much fun. That entire day was just stellar.
Cycling out and back from Pier 39 to Golden Gate and back took a solid two hours, especially when you want to photograph some places… like this bird stealing a napkin out of my purse when I was trying to take a picture of Zach taking a picture. Buggar!
Favourite photo I’ve taken all this trip:Â 
Found the Mrs. Doubtfire house!
It was a long, fun day in SF on his second day here. In fact, we ended up meeting up with my friend Tanya, from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario and heading to a comedy club! Man, I hadn’t seen her in three years. We went to Punchline (getting there was a little sketch as it was up a few flights of stairs, and you turn a corner and there’s kind of a scary homeless dude without shoes laying right in the middle of the stairs!), and that spot apparently was the place where many famous comedians started out (you can google it lol)!
Zach’s second last day and my last day with the Lexus IS200t, we drove to Santa Cruz. A completely different world just two hours south of San Francisco. SF is “the city”, all sorts of vibes there. A huge city, a little hard to navigate. Fun rollercoaster type hills, all sorts of diversity and so much to see/do. Santa Cruz is like the epitome of laidback surfers and bike riders who never seems to work, and everyone seems to be super happy (or maybe high). We didn’t officiate any plans per say, for Santa Cruz — just to check out a new-to-me coffee shop, and walk around and enjoy the day. And that’s exactly what we did.
Lunch on the Santa Cruz boardwalk.
On the final day, we did everything that you just had to do when in the Bay Area, California: see all the tech companies. We swung by Google HQ, Facebook HQ, and Apple HQ, to check them all out. I’m pretty sure I drove us to the incorrect Facebook location, because sweet moses that huge parking garage/structure looked like I was driving into a prison! Needless to say, we didn’t stay too long, nor get out of the car – haha! We also went to Stanford too, which is a gorgeous and absolutely massive University Campus. 
I think he enjoyed himself. Plus, I love having guests! Who’s next? :)
Huge thanks to lexus for providing us with a vehicle to review for the week.
#SpiffyClaus came to town
A number of months ago, I knew I wanted to do something special for the Newfoundland YouTuber’s back home. It’s a little difficult to gather everyone together at once, but I thought the prime-time would be right after Christmas to have a little get together and catch-up while I was home. Although, I’m only getting around to publishing the post now, because of this reason and the fact that it was difficult to sit down at my computer and write a cheerful post when I wasn’t feeling up to it. It’s only been 5.5 weeks since my Father has passed, but each day is different, so I thought I’d hop on here this morning and tell you how the #SpiffyClaus event went down! :)
I contacted a few of my favourite Canadian beauty and PR companies, asked if they wanted to participate and send samples/goodies for the gift bags I would be handing out to the girls. Then asked for it all to be delivered to my parents place Newfoundland. Annnnd, this is what I was greeted with, when I arrived back on Christmas Eve. Woah!
On the 28th of December, I ended up putting together the gift bags for everyone. My Mom helped pack the bags with me, and my Dad helped me balance our dining room chairs so I could get this aerial shot of it all, haha.
So many favourites from the gift bags.
Farley Co outdid themselves with a ton of goodies, but I love the huge bottles of Bioderma, and especially the personalized Minted notebooks with everyone’s YouTube username on them. They’re all matching!
I suggested to the Newfoundland YouTuber girls that we all meet up for an evening coffee on December 29 at a local coffee shop. We ended up going to Coffee Matters on Harvey Road, St. John’s. Fun fact, this was the same coffee shop that my husband and I met up with our justice of the peace, the day before we got married! I think everyone had an awesome time, I mean —why wouldn’t they? Lol. They all got two sets of goodie bags because everything wouldn’t fit in one gift bag. It was awesome! And so nice to catch up with them all, I hadn’t seen them in a few months.
Look at the loot each person received:Â 
If you haven’t watched the YouTube video that went up about it, here’s mine!
A huge thanks goes out to all the brands that participated, I couldn’t have pulled it all off without you guys!
- Minted notebooks
- Body Shop crackers + Body Shop gift box set
- Make Up For Ever smoky extravagant mascara, translucent setting powder, eyeliner
- Bioderma micellar water
- Schick Hydro Silk razor, and Shick Intuition razor
- Scrub Inspired body scrub
- Smashbox photo finish primer water, Full exposure travel sized palette
- Benefit lipstick and Benefit They’re Real mascara/eyeliner combo
- Daiso Japan foot moisturizers
- PK Communications for the GOSH Cosmetics blushes and lip products + ORLY nail polishes, nail files
- Farley Co: KISS eyelashes, Inecto hair oil, Real Techniques sponges, COLab dry shampoo, 7th Heaven mud masks, and clear makeup bags
Our spontaneous trip to Monterey and Carmel
We had some of our Canadian friends come down to visit us a few weekends ago. I gotta tell you. I love it when visitors come to stay at our place — I enjoy hosting friends and family, plus our home looks really awesome for a few weeks there after — dusting is completed, the floors freshly washed, it’s all around a nice feeling.
Olympians lined up. Who can spot Kara Goucher?
While I had the Lexus NX200t to review for the week, we decided to join our Canadian friends as they drove south to Carmel + Monterey for the weekend. Their plan was to run a half marathon, and then finish their drive back down to SoCal to visit more friends.
My husband and I loaded up the Lexus Nx200t, with Alfie in tow (including his crate for him to sleep in at night) and made the drive down to Carmel-By-The-Sea, where we hunkered down at our favourite place, Hofsas House — you guys know that place all too well by now I’m sure, as this was my third visit to warm and welcoming Hofsas (see our 2 day honeymoon + girls weekend trip!).
Our room at Hofsas House this time, ended up having its own private balcony. It was excellent to have breakfast out there, overlooking the ocean in the distance, and it wasn’t too chilly either. A perfect time of year to pop down for a visit.
Can you tell Alfie was demanding satisfaction here in this photo? He’s getting a bit more bold lately, scratching your arm for attention or belly rubs and won’t stop until you give in. Mr. Bossy Boots is his new nick name you guys…I think it fits :)Â 
Minutes before registration to sign up for the the Big Sur Half Marathon closed, my husband casually decided he too was going to run the race with our 2 Canadian buddies. WHAT? I mean, how can you just do that without even training? Although, his everyday workout routine pretty much consists of hours and hours of exercise (whether it be biking or running) so I suppose that means he’s always in tip-top running shape for a half marathon the very next day.
However, I had made plans for us to have supper at The Grill (where we had our supper on our 2 day honeymoon just the previous year!), and I wasn’t about to cancel because he decided to sign up for a half marathon (many people prefer to have a bland carb loading meal before a race like that). But we dined at the busy Grill and had a delicious warm meal with dessert to boot.
He doesn’t like me posting many photos of him, so unfortunately no photos of him running the race were captured by me. But let me tell you how fast his lil’ legs can go. He not only bet his half marathon time (sub 1:20), but he came in with the Olympians. I literally screamed when I saw him, it was unexpected especially with our large supper the previous night.
After the half marathon was over, the runners all went back to their hotels, showered and got ready for checking out of the hotel + lunch. 
Hi Jenny!
Since we had Alfie, we needed a dog-friendly place (which isn’t difficult to find because I feel like Monterey and Carmel (basically all of California) is the epitome of dog-friendly places, including restaurants).
The 6 of us ate at this cute hipster spot called Wild Plum. A few of us got sandwiches, the rest got big ol’ yummy breakfasts. I always choose a sandwich over breakfast. How about you?
After we said our good-bye’s to our Canadian buddies, we wanted to take advantage of having the rest of the afternoon free, and not drive back up to South Bay just yet. So we ended up aimlessly driving the renowned, beautiful Highway 1 coast until I think we got to Big Sur. I haven’t got a clue because the bridges all looked the same. I’m sure we were close to it. Right? :)
I’m pleasantly surprised with the fuel efficiency of the luxury Lexus Nx200t, eats up about the same amount of gas as my little Mazda 3 hatch. Not to mention the Lexus’ gorgeous red interior. I made sure to drive the vehicle every single day the week I had it. Even took it to San Francisco on my last day, just to visit a new-to-me coffee shop. One thing that stuck out to me with the Lexus, is that when it’s in reverse, it of course has the rear back up camera — BUT — the camera shows you the wheel rotation. I don’t usually like to use back-up cameras (because I only have the car a week and don’t want to get used to it), but you bectcha bottom dollar I used it this time, it was too cool.
I even convinced a dude on Twitter to get the Nx20ot over another vehicle he was looking at, which I thought was kinda neat. I mentioned to him a few key things I thought were pretty spiffy looking. The front of the Lexus has a mean-lookin’ grill on the front of it, so it isn’t too “girly” looking. The cargo space in the back is limiting, so if you’re looking for a family car to store a bunch of kids hockey gear or suitcases, perhaps it’s not for you. Though, a fun and fast lil’ vehicle to drive with hip hugging seats. It’s not even that outrageous in pricing, considering it is luxury. This model is $43.3k. I definitely thought the MRSP would be higher.
Many thanks to Lexus for the car to review for the week, Hofsas House for providing a warm welcomed stay, and to The Grill for the wonderful grub.Â