Twas the night before..

Twas the night before the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.. or a gecko if you're where I am...

Friends.. I am so happy to share with you that Fall semester is OVER. The semester from hell.

Not even 24 hours after my last final I hopped a plane to the sunshine state and I've been here in refuge ever since. The stress of the semester made me ridiculously ill and so I've been taking it easy soaking up the sunshine trying to remedy myself.

And it worked - I'm almost good as new and just in time for Christmas!

Since I was feeling better and getting a little stir crazy in this beautiful place me and my family decided to have an adventure today.

We started out by heading to Siesta Key and scoping out Turtle Beach where it's said to have green parrots.. peculiar..

It was beautiful and peaceful and I want to go back as soon as possible.

We were about to leave when we heard very loud squawks.

As we turned back there happened to be 41 green parrots sitting on the telephone wires. I'm not sure how we didn't see them but they made sure that we didn't leave without a show.

After that we weaseled our way to Casey Key where there are VERY large mansions that I like to gawk at before we eventually found our way at Pop's Bar on the water for drinks.

It looks very shabby from the outside but it's like a hidden gem on the inside. We got a corner of the place all to ourselves with a cool table with a fireplace in the middle and my dad was even able to find the Vikings game on television.

After getting a good drink and a catch up on the game we headed back to downtown Sarasota to go to O'Leary's Tiki Bar on the bay with beautiful views of the sunset for dinner.

Since it's a a dog friendly city there were pooches all over the place and my mom made close friends with one named Abby... Go figure it was an awesome dog.

Must be the name.

As the sun set we decided to walk around the park to check on our yacht Big City.

Come on it's semi-believable right? No? Fine.

The sunset was the best one yet and left us ooo-ing and aw-ing all the way home.

I'll keep you posted on my adventures from here on out including Christmas.
(I may have just squealed I'm so excited!)

I'll be here another week before I get whisked off to Italy for two weeks.

Ciao :)

Instagram Catch-up

My life has been crazy...

I know I know it's no excuse but I seem to be juggling a lot stuff right now. However, my semester has graced me with a lull so I am going to show you some of what I've been up to (other than studying and working) through my Instagram photos.

Here we gooooooo!

To start with my sister and I headed down to Florida for a little fun in the sun and family time. It was a blast to say the least and it was so great to see my family. We are all very close so it was weird to be away from each other for over a month but that only made the time we spent all that more wonderful.

Oh... and I got to see that handsome guy right up there.

Since then it's mostly been studying, working, or being very good at wasting time with my roommates.

An example you say...? Well alright.

You asked for it...

Anyways moving on.

Since then I've gotten my hair done, grown an obsession with mustaches, and spent some time with my boyfriends family on Thanksgiving/Black Friday.

And now I'm here in the cold under my heated blanket hoping that the rest of the semester goes quickly so I can start blogging again on a regular basis.

So farewell for now ♡

Chino Latino

This past weekend was my very good friend Emily's birthday. To celebrate she didn't want to do the same ol' same ol' and go out in River Falls. So Emily, her friend Lucy and I skipped our way to uptown for some serious food and drinkage.

Emily chose the restaurant, which I had never heard of. Chino Latino.

It's quite a cool concept actually. They say it's "Street Food from the Hot Zones".

On their website they say this: "Chino Latino serves Street Food from the Hot Zones – the tropical belt that extends from the Caribbean to the Americas to Polynesia, on to Southeast Asia, India, Africa and back again. There’s no fusion cooking here. What unites our offerings is the power of their flavors, the emphasis on freshness and their embrace of ingredients and cooking styles common to the Hot Zones."

They have awesome menu's that are personalized if you reserve ahead of time and they have big and small plates for people to share. It's served family style also so you can get a little nibble of everything!

They also had a drink, sushi, and dessert menu.

It was super busy and had the best atmosphere. It is definitely a hole in the wall - literally. I've been to uptown many-a-times but I never knew it was there. If you're familiar with the area, the entrance hides under the sparkles that surround the MAC cosmetics store. It was quite dark which was my only drawback and the music was also quite loud - but at least it was catchy and upbeat!

We all shared Kalifornia Krab roll sushi and pan fried chicken pot stickers. Then we each got our own desert. If you look at the menu above I got hot funky love, Emily got the chocolate volcano cup, and Lucy got chocolate flandango.

IT WAS SO AMAZING! Seriously the best sushi I've ever eaten.

So given my fortune I maybe shouldn't have eaten the last pot sticker.....

If you read my post from a couple weeks ago about Muffuletta then you will be happy to know they are owned by the same people. In fact there's a whole slew of restaurants in the parasole family. Take a look at the website to see other yummy places to try!

I loved my experience at Chino Latino and will definitely be going back sooner rather than later.

Let me know if you try it!

xo

Dirty Hunters and Fresh Air

That's what last Sunday consisted of.

Saturday was homecoming so my boyfriend Mitch, his little sister Hannah, and her friend Lauren came up and spent the night at my apartment. We stayed in with my roommate Chelsey for the most part accept for a point when we danced our butts off at the homecoming dance for about an hour.

We slept in the next morning and had a full day planned. First we went to 'the falls'. It was shortly after I moved to River Falls last year that I discovered there were actual falls on the river and if you off-road it you can see them up close and personal. So we all got ready and we set off.

Side note: I was the only one smart enough to wear rain boots. Needless to say my Hunters came in handy.

The fall leaves were beautiful and once we were done at the falls we all got frozen yogurt at Yo-Joes in downtown River Falls. I'm a sucker for anything cake batter so I got that flavor with sprinkles. 

We then picked up some stray roommates on the side of the road and went to the middle of nowhere to an apple orchard. Unfortunately the you-pick season was over but we were still able to walk around and buy some apples and apple cider from the growers. 

After that we all went to dinner and called it an early night.

I love fall. The whole day was blissful. 

xo