East Coast, 2016

DAY 1 :  December 19th, 2016
Today I flew from Hawaii to the East Coast (YAY) on a direct flight, which took a little over 9 hours. Although 9 hours is pretty long I think I prefer direct flights so I can get the plane travel over with. The only hard part about it was the last hour when I started getting fidgety. I have been looking forward to this trip for over a month now so the excitement definitely held me over.

When I got into the airport my best friend from high school (and college) picked me up! It was super nice to see her again after half a year apart! We spent the morning getting ready and driving up to meet our boyfriends. Who luckily go to the same school!

 

After picking up our boys we went to eat lunch at a nearby restaurant called potbelly's. My friend's boyfriend was really craving their buffalo mac and cheese. I forgot to take a picture of our food because I was so hungry! At this point I hadn't eaten anything since dinner before my 9 hour flight. (17 hours before!) I ordered a buffalo chicken sandwich and my boyfriend ordered a coffee shake and a Spicy Italian? I think. We both ate everything. 

After lunch we proceeded to check into our hotel. I was really liked the size of the room, especially with the kitchenette provided.

 

After seeing the room we decided to do a bit of errands. We also got a small Christmas tree to decorate our room since we'll be here for the holidays. Decorating and unpacking luggage is definitely are definitely ways to make a hotel room feel a little more homey. I made sure to unpack all my clothes and put them into the drawers and closet provided, on my first day. 

I wish I had a video of my boyfriend trying to wrap the lights around the tree. He was getting so frustrated because he kept running out of lights before he wrapped it around the whole length of the tree. It was so cute 😂

While we were out doing errands we also stopped for dinner and a movie! We got to see the movie "Moana" which was produced by Disney. The story line is cute and is meant for children, but my boyfriend and I wanted to watch it because it is based on the Polynesian culture. (And there are some similarities to Hawaiian Culture.) When we walked into the movie, there was only one other family there. The family had little children though who were loud and very cute when commenting on the movie.

For dinner we ate Red Robin, a chain we don't have in Hawaii. I actually don't eat much American food at home, so it was a change for me to go to a restaurant like this. The best part about this place is that it comes with bottomless sides. I got sweet potato fries and my boyfriend got garlic fries. I couldn't even finish one but he got his money's worth!

 

After dinner we called it a night and headed back. All and all it was a great first day back with my favorite person 😊💕 I can't wait for the days to come.

 

DAY 2:  December 20th, 2016

Today started off with a bit of confusion. My boyfriend was only free between the hours of 1400-2000 so my best friend and I had made plans to hang out in the late morning and pick up my boyfriend when he was done. We were then all, 3 of us, going to visit the Christmas market. However, she got a bit overwhelmed when her boyfriend's plans kept changing and ended up not coming out at all 😞 

What ended up happening was her boyfriend went with his brother & uncle as a boys day to a shooting range and I went to run more errands and do some Christmas shopping at a nearby mall. My friend isn't too fond of waiting around and being by herself so she ended up going home. I guess that's where we differ a bit. I have no problem shopping or studying on my own in my free time. It's almost a way for me to recharge. She, on the other hand, is a social butterfly. On the upside, her decision gave me extra time to get ready and put together an outfit for the day.

I was also able to get some free breakfast downstairs. There were bagels, cereal, yogurt, muffins, juices and coffee to choose from! I just ate a blueberry bagel because I wasn't all that hungry. They also had toasters and hot water available which I used!  

At the mall I was able to find an evergreen/cedar balm candle for my hotel room! It was half off and my boyfriend and I thought it would be a good way to feel even more at home. I don't really think you're supposed to use candles in hotel rooms... but it doesn't cause any smoke and we only use it when we're both there. Him and his family always get real Christmas trees and I think it's one thing he really misses, so the candle helps 😊 I was also able to pick up a few more car fresheners for him as well as a headlight that needed to be replaced. I laughed when I texted my boyfriend about the headlight. I asked, "Do you know how to change it? Or should I have the guy here change the light?" and my boyfriend responded: "No, no, I'm a professional at it, I just watched a video on youtube." But he was right! he was able to change it without a problem. 

When I picked him up at 1400 we went to eat Panera. My favorite place on the mainland. Soup and chicken wings are probably my 2 favorite foods so Panera is right up my ally. It's also a chain we don't have in Hawaii. I ordered broccoli cheese soup in a bread bowl! It was awesome especially with the weather being 28 degrees! 

After lunch we grabbed some coffee and went to the mall to pick up gloves. We're going on a couple hikes within the next few weeks so we both got some water and wind resistant outdoor gloves. The gloves were also on sale! (So many awesome sales now that the holidays are near!) We also went shopping at the commissary and got some food for us to cook during the week. However, because we were pressed for time tonight we had to pick up food to eat for dinner. We drove a couple miles down the road and came across a Thai restaurant. It was a small family owned business and we ended up ordering pad thai and panag curry to go. While we were waiting for the take out my boyfriend asked the owner (working the register) "how long have you guys been here?" and the owner responded "today makes.... one week." We were both so surprised! It was definitely not the answer we were expecting. At first we were skeptical because the owner was Haole (apparently there are a lot of americanized asian restaurants around here) but he introduced us to his his wife who was the cook in the back. She told us that she had just moved from Asia last year and had a very heavy accent. She could also tell that my boyfriend and I were of Asian descent 😂

We took the food to go and ate in our hotel room. The panag was very good! So good that I actually poured it on my pad thai when I was eating my noodles. We didn't finish all our food either so we will eat it for lunch tomorrow. 

Throughout today my boyfriend mentioned how it feels like we're grow ups, living together as a family. And now that I think about it, it kinda does. I thought I was actually going to hate being lonely in a hotel room but it feels almost like my own apartment. We make food together and eat it at our table by our christmas tree. Our drawers and closets are filled with our clothes, we plan errand runs and pick up and drop off times around his "work"; which is really good for us! We finally get to see what living together would kinda be like (after 7 years of dating!).

DAY 3:   December 21st, 2016
Today ended up being somewhat of a lazy day. At first my boyfriend told me he had work from 1200-1600, so we had planned to eat breakfast together in the morning and then I would drop him off at work. I was then going to pick him up after he was finished and we were going to go to a climbing gym. He ended up coming over in the morning for breakfast as planned but he mixed up his work time. Soon after I dropped him off at school to work I got a call from him saying he actually started at 1600 and went till 2000. He felt super bad for the mix up especially because I had asked him 3 or 4 times if he had the time correct. (He messaged me earlier in the week with the correct times). Luckily my hotel is super close so I just turned around and picked him up.

Early Morning Sky

Because we only had another 4 hours we didn't really have time to hike or climb like we wanted to. (The hikes and gym would have taken about an hour each way to get to). Instead we decided to head out to REI, an outdoors store we both love. It was my first time actually going to the store in person. They don't have any stores in Hawaii, so I usually just order through them online. It was awesome to get to see all the equipment they had. My boyfriend also bought me my Christmas gift there! He wanted to make it a surprise but he knew he couldn't buy what he wanted without me trying it on.

He ended up getting me some climbing "essentials" for our outings in the next couple weeks. I can also use them at the climbing gyms we have back on Oahu so I'm excited for that. Now I don't have to rent them for 15$ every time I go! I was very ecstatic and I can't wait for this Friday! 

After leaving REI we stopped at IKEA, just to look around and get lunch. I ended up just ordering a cinnamon roll because the smell was too hard to resist. Plus they were only a dollar 😱

 

Our original (Or i guess backup? after the time mixup) was to go to REI and then play frisbee golf at a nearby course. However we spent a little too much time in REI and figured stopping by IKEA would be faster and give us more time to get my boyfriend to work. 

Frisbee golf outfit, although we didn't get to play 😂

We left IKEA around 1500 and got my boyfriend to work with some time to spare. Luckily he got scheduled to work with one of his best friend's so he wasn't too upset going in at this time. While he was at work I tried to get some work done myself. I have a TON of studying to do for my boards/licensure exam this coming summer. I also just found out I got placed in the NICU for Spring Semester!! So far I am the only one in my class that got assigned to a critical care unit. (They base unit placements off GPA, class standing, outside involvement, etc.) And although I am super excited I need to review a ton of things before I get on unit such as infant vitals, drip rates and dosages. So the free time I have been getting has been very beneficial.

After my boyfriend was finished working I met in town to grab dinner. I figured that we would be walking around in the town a bit so I changed into an outfit that was warmer.

He wanted to take me to a restaurant he frequents called Iron Rooster. I ordered a chicken salad and he ordered a breakfast burrito because they serve breakfast all day! 

He couldn't stop laughing 

Before we left we also ordered a pop tart for dessert! My boyfriend said that the restaurant was famous for them. They change the flavors every season and right now there are 3: brown sugar, mixed berry, and gingerbread stuffed with cream cheese. We went with the mixed berry.

Better than it looks! Especially warm

After dinner my boyfriend said he wanted to show me a cool spot in town to take pictures. Walking around the town to see the lights and decorated trees was awesome. I think walking around in the cold (30 degree) weather also makes it feel a bit more like Christmas. When we got towards the top of the street my boyfriend turned to show me a hidden walkway filled with lights! It was super pretty 😍

To end the night we went back to our hotel room and bundled up for a bit while watching the netflix series "Stranger Things". What a great way to end a perfect day spent with my best friend 😊💕

DAY 4:  December 22nd, 2016

Today was such a fun day! To start, I picked up my boyfriend around 8 AM and we came back to the hotel and took a nap (He had work from 4-8 AM and we both needed to catch up on sleep). We woke up around 10 AM to start getting ready for the day. We ate blueberry bagels from downstairs and some raspberry lemonade we picked up from the commissary for breakfast 😋 Then we headed down to DC for the day! We started out by going to the holiday Christmas market near the national mall which opened at 12 noon. 

Outfit for the Day

The market was located next to the International Spy Museum 

There were holiday food tents as well as accessory and art vendors

The market was not as good as I thought it was going to be. I was expecting more food and holiday decoration vendors. However, majority of the tents were filled with jewelry and paintings. One of the vendors did ask to take a photo for us though! She said "I'm from Hawaii so I always offer to take pictures when it seems like people would like me to." I ended up telling her I was from Hawaii as well. I guess the Aloha Spirit really is something engrained in you, once you live in Hawaii 🌺

After we spent maybe 20 minutes at the market we made our way down to the national harbor to the ICE exhibit. ICE was located in the Gaylord Center near the national harbor. The exhibit held 2 MILLION pounds worth of ice sculptures. It was super cool to see! We also got to see a man carving out a bear ice sculpture.

Ice sculptures of different countries.

Slide made out of Ice! I wasn't allowed to go down because I was wearing "heels" 😧

Boyfriend with 2 human ice sculptures

The theme was "Around the World"

Our faces are discolored in this one! 😂

Holy Nativity Ice sculpture scene!

Gaylord Center that ICE was located in

The exhibit was fairly big, we stayed in for about half an hour before we felt like our fingers were going to fall off. There was Christmas music playing in the background and lights and decorations covering the ceiling. It was also 9 DEGREES. I always get cold in winter weather but rarely do I see my boyfriend get cold (he's a little more used to it), but today in that exhibit, he was freezing too.

There's a Shepard Ice sculpture behind us

After the ICE exhibit we decided to go to the outlet mall we had passed on the way. My boyfriend has been searching for a pair of polarized sunglasses since he lost his kayaking last spring break. Luckily he was finally able to find a pair that he liked! They have square frames and reflective blue lenses. I was also able to find a nice pair of crossfit shoes at the Nike outlet so we both left happy 😀 We also grabbed some coffee and small snacks to eat for lunch.

Once we were done shopping at the outlets we decided to hit a climbing gym in DC and put my Christmas gifts to use! One of my boyfriend's favorite things to do now is rock climb so he was super excited to take me for my first time. We got to the gym and were super happy with the service and friendliness of the staff. There was even free parking! (Which is hard to come by in DC). My boyfriend quickly got belay certified by passing the gym's test (he already knows how to belay) and then he spent about 30-40 minutes teaching me to belay. He tested me a few times and the workers deemed me proficient enough to belay for him for the day. 🙌

Once we got onto the rock climbing floor we practiced a bit first. We climbed up half the wall and then lowered each other down to get the feel for it (mostly for me). The belay "routes" up are marked with difficulty levels starting at 5 intro and going all the way up to 5.12 (I think). You basically start at the bottom and are only allowed to use the holds in your specific route, designated by color. For example, the 5 intro route I chose had pink holds, so I could only grab and place my feet on the pink "rocks".

Some of the belaying faces

The yellow route on the left side of the photo is the last route I was able to make it up! It was a 5.7 difficulty and my boyfriend was super surprised when I did it. My arms were shaking the entire time and at times I thought they were going to give out 😦

You can see the difficulty levels marked here. This is when he was teaching me.

 Once we did about 3-4 belay climbs each we moved to the bouldering section of the gym. Bouldering is where you rock climb up to (about) 10 feet with no rope. So the floors are padded for falls. By this point my forearms were so tired I could only do the intro level routes.

My boyfriend is so good at bouldering that people were actually circling around to watch him. He has such strong forearms and grip strength... Not sure how he does it. He can literally go inverted and just be hanging by his arms...

This was the peg climb that people circled him to watch. A little boy even started screaming "daddy! daddy! look HE can do it!" 😂

He did scrape his arm on one of the routes though. Good thing the gym has free band aids! (apparently this happens a lot to climbers)

We ended up spending 3 and a half hours at the climbing gym! Once we left we decided to grab dinner at a nearby Buffalo Wild Wings where we also scored free street parking! YAY. We ended up having some left overs.

We ended the day in DC by visiting family friends in the area. My best friend from high school and her boyfriend had gone to Philly for the night to watch the Eagles game, but we got to see her boyfriend's parents for the first time this trip! They were happy to see us and loaded us up with a rice cooker, rice, chorizos, and some other food to take back to our hotel. They are probably the nicest people I know 💕

One of our Family friend's Xmas trees

To end the day we unloaded all our gear back at the hotel before I dropped my boyfriend back off. How eventful and fun! Now we just gotta rest up for tomorrows hiking adventure 😛😴

DAY 5:  December 23rd, 2016
Today the original plan was to wake up and go hiking in the 8 hours my boyfriend had before work. However when I picked him up this morning we both decided we should take a "rest" day to sleep and relax before the holiday weekend. It ended up being a good decision especially because he has to work again from 4-8 AM this morning. (It's weird if he works from 16:00-20:00 he also has to do 0400-0800 the next morning).

Our day started when I picked my boyfriend up at 7 AM and brought him to the hotel. We slept for about 3 more hours and then he decided to cook breakfast (since our family friends gave us Portuguese sausage and a rice cooker last night). We had the sausage, rice, and egg whites. 

After breakfast we hung out and watched a few more episodes of the netflix series "stranger things" before heading to the commissary. At the store we grabbed some steak, chicken, broccoli and fruit for this upcoming week. (We've been eating out a lot and have been craving home cooked meals) At the commissary we also got lunch for the day.

Outfit for the 40 degree weather today!

Chipotle Chicken Panini 

After our grocery run I had to drop my boyfriend off at work which he started at 16:00. I went shopping at a nearby mall for some last minute Christmas gifts and I also picked up chick-fil-A right before 20:00 (when my bf gets off work) for him and the other people at work with him. My boyfriend wanted to get food for the other people there because they let him pick his hours first. They also let him take off for christmas eve, christmas, new years eve and new years and covered all the shifts on those holidays. 

At 20:00 I dropped off the food and then picked my boyfriend back up. Neither of us were very hungry so we decided to catch the 20:20 showing of the new Star Wars movie, Rouge One. The movie was good! Even though we both fell asleep for a couple minutes in the beginning. (The beginning was a bit slow for us because we didn't know any of the characters or what was supposed to be happening) We both really liked it in the end though! 😊

Blurry Pic coming down from the theater 

Overall it felt like a short but needed day. Luckily my boyfriend's work days are almost done! He front loaded them so he could get them out of the way in the first couple days of my arrival (Just needs to hit 40 hours over break). Tomorrow we will be going down to DC for a Christmas eve dinner at our family friends house!

DAY 6:  December 24th, 2016

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE! Today I picked up my boyfriend and we went on a double date with our best friends to the climbing gym! When we arrived the boy and I quickly got belay certified (my boyfriend got certified last time, and the girl we went with wasn't interested) and then we started!

Couple we went climbing with

Boyfriend attempting an 5.11D climb

 Like last time after we were done top roping we went over to the bouldering walls (climbing without ropes). But by this time our hands were pretty beat up so we only stayed for about 20-30 minutes here.

Friend attempting inverted bouldering


Once again the boys impressed everyone in the gym with their grip strength...

After we spent about 4 hours at the gym we went back to our family friend's house to get ready for dinner. We made homemade pizzas for dinner! The boys all made chipotle chicken and BBQ chicken pizzas. So fancy.

 

The pizzas were really good! Even though some of the ones the boys made were super heavy and they ripped apart when you picked them up 😅

Dinner Table Set Up

One of my favorite parts about tonight was the dog our friends are watching! He is a big black lab that is an ex-marine EOD dog. He's the cutest.

 

DAY 7:  December 25th, 2016

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! 💚 Today marks a week since I left Hawaii. Time is just flying by. Today my boyfriend and I volunteered at a Women's Shelter in Baltimore, Maryland where we helped prepare and serve dinner. I wasn't able to take many photos but I did take one of the dinner table set up.

There was a total of 22 women that came to eat and my boyfriend and I actually got to eat with them once we were done serving. The meal consisted of turkey, ham, rolls, corn, peas, potato, stuffing, and a bunch of different desserts. My boyfriend helped a lot with moving heavy furniture around while I mostly helped in the kitchen. It was funny, the man I connected with most while serving and cleaning up, just happened to reveal to me in the last hour of the evening that he had just opened a new NICU in Maryland! What are the odds. I guess you never know where you'll find job connections.

After about 5 hours of volunteering my boyfriend and I headed down to our family friend's house again where we had Christmas dinner. We ate prime rib, rice, chicken, pasta, salad and these new brownies. Needless to say we were stuffed our two Christmas meals. 

Best Gift I could've asked for 💕

2016 vs. 2012

DAY 8:   December 26th, 2016

The day after Christmas my boyfriend and I had another lazy day where we mostly slept and ate 😅 We made our own breakfast, ate panera for lunch and had Davis' Pub for dinner! 

Breakfast

His first bread bowl EVER

Dinner 

Buffalo Chicken for Dinner

Crab Pretzels that my boyfriend said this restaurant is famous for

After dinner we face timed with our families for Christmas gift exchange! We got to open gifts from them and we got to see them open our gifts, to make up for not being together in person.

Gifts from our Parents

DAY 9:  December 27th, 2016

Today we went on a triple date with two of my boyfriend's best friends. We started by going to a place called Top Golf in DC. Top Golf is a driving range that has heaters and tables directly behind the driving area. It was pretty cheap to play (5$ for a day pass) and the couples could share a day pass between the two of them. 

Photo from TopGolf Website

Once you purchased a game day pass you could go over to the golf ball machine and insert your pass. (The passes looked like credit cards with your name on it). Once inserted, the machine would microchip the balls to your name. This was awesome because when you hit your ball it would show you your stats next to your name.  

We played 3 games total. 2 as couples and then the last game as boys vs. girls. The funny thing was that the boys promised us to "win" they would have to beat our score (the girls score) by 2x the amount. (Because all of them have some golfing experience). BUT THEY DIDN'T COME CLOSE. The girls ended up winning, even without their little bonus scoring. They ended up having to buy us lunch for losing the bet 👅

Girlfriends = Golf Distractions

WINNERS

After Top Golf we hung out for a bit at a family friend's house in DC, then made our way to the National Christmas Tree and the DC Ice Skating Rink!

The National Christmas Tree was located across the white house and have 50 smaller Christmas trees around it. Each of the smaller trees were decorated by a particular state.

The ice rink in DC was located a bit farther down in front of the national museum of art. They sold tickets for 2 hour time slots on the hour. Luckily we went on the warmest day I've experienced here (60s) so we weren't miserable walking the national mall and skating.

They had the ice cleaned for our time slot 

Waiting for the ice to be cleaned

I was surprised with the spotted dog ears "OH THEY'RE SPOTTED"

DAY 10:  December 28th, 2016

Today I got to go on my first hike in Maryland! I went to the Great Falls trail which is really a ton of different trails that start along one canal. It was a bit cold so I dressed up in 3-4 layers. Luckily it was sunny at the trail summit though, so I was able to sit up there for a bit and not feel like I was going to get frostbite.

Big Canal that all the trails stem from

Summit of the trail looking over the Potomac River

Stream Crossing on the way down 

Down near the river on the way back

After the hike I got to go outdoor rock climbing! This was probably one of the hi lights of my trip just because I have never done it before. I got into rock climbing with my boyfriend and up until this point we had only been able to go indoors. And let me just say indoors is WAAAAAY Easier. There are no nice cup holds for your hands when you go out door climbing. I definitely surprised myself when I got all the way up my route.

We went to Cedar Rock, a pretty famous rock climbing area in Maryland. We chose this spot because it was only a minute's drive away from where we had hiked!

Rock Face I Chose to Climb

VICTORY POSE

My other friend also came and was able to climb one of the faces!

We actually climbed until it was dark! What a fun and tiring day 😅

DAY 11:   December 29th, 2016

Recharge & Rest Day. I ate a lot 😋

DAY 12: December 30th, 2016

TODAY I GOT TO GO TO NYC!! I left Maryland at 7 AM and arrived in New York at about 11 AM which meant I was gonna get a full day in! Apparently 11 is "early" in New York so I was able to get an early bird rate on parking! It ended up being 40$ for the entire 9 hours I was there! Which is pretty unheard of in Times Square.

Once I got to the city I immediately stood in line for discounted broadway tickets at TKTS. This is a booth on Broadway Street that sells "day of" tickets for 50-70% off. (They are the tickets that did not originally sell). I was able to get a matinee showing of Fiddler on the Roff for 40$! I was also in the Orchestra section which I thought was unreal for the price I paid! 

Broadway Street, you can faintly see the ropes marking off the TKTS counter. The line gets HUGE, luckily there were only about 100 people in front of me so it didn't take more than 15 minutes.

After I bought the tickets I went to eat lunch at a Japanese restaurant right off of broadway. It had gotten tons of great reviews for their Tan Tan men which I haven't had in forever! (I eat ramen all the time in Hawaii)

Once I was finished eating I had about half an hour to kill before my broadway play so I popped into some of the huge stores on Broadway. They were all PACKED with people.

I arrived about half an hour before the play started and this was my view.

The lady sitting next to me was complaining because she couldn't see over the man's head in front of her. She kept saying "why am I paying 180$ to sit here and not watch anything". (At least that confirmed I got a good deal on the tickets 😂)

After the broadway play I walked down to the Rockefeller center to see the Christmas tree! As soon as I got there the FIRST FLURRIES OF THE SEASON STARTED FALLING. It was like a dream scene out of movie. Standing under the christmas tree for the first time and you look up and snowflakes start falling from the sky! 

After spending some time at the tree I grabbed dinner and went up to the top of the Rockefeller center or "Top of the Rock" to see the NYC skyline. Thankfully I brought my Nikon DSLR with me (I debated for a while) so I was able to take some long exposure shots for the memories. 

Empire State Building 😍

 

I ended up leaving NYC around 20:00 and got back within 3 hours. It was such a perfect day! I fell in love with the city and can't wait to go back. Although... I'm not sure anything will top that snow fall timing.