NYC Part 1

New York City!!! A few weeks ago Kelly, Mom and I met up in NYC for a girls trip. Seven years ago when I was 16, we all went on a girls trip to NYC. So needless to say we were long over due for another trip.

Mom and I flew in on Thursday and met up with Kelly in the city. We dropped off our bags and got right to site seeing and shopping.

Mmm... Magnolia Bakery was amazing... 

Red velvet cheesecake with an Oreo crust

 We love NYC!

Giant Nike Store

Our first night there we went and saw the Broadway show Once. It's a musical of a love story based in an Irish Pub. The accents were so fun! During intermission the audience could go up on stage and order something from the Pub on set. Kelly and I got waters :)

We walked so much that first day that we decided to use pedometers the next couple days just to see how far we walked. Part 2 coming soon.

Michigan Adventures

Michael and I are living in Grand Blanc, Michigan while I am interning at the Hurley Medical Center in Flint, MI. We live about 45 minutes from Ann Arbor and Detroit.

I wouldn't say we love living in Michigan, but we are making the most of it. There's not much going on where we live, but there are definitely some cool places around us.

One of the first Michigany things we did was go to the National Auto Show in Detroit. We had a blast sitting in tons of fancy cars and seeing the crazy concept cars.





For lunch we ate at Slow's BBQ. The best BBQ place in Detroit!



The pulled pork sandwich was incredible! North Carolina style with cole slaw and pickles. Mmm...


Michael and I really like Ann Arbor. It's a cool college town with lots of restaurants and shopping. The BEST place to eat in Ann Arbor is Zingerman's Deli. The deli has an in house bakery so all of the bread is baked fresh daily. They import all these amazing cheeses and meats for the sandwiches. It's incredible!!

For Valentines Day I got Michael tickets to see the Detroit Pistons when they were playing Sacramento. We were the only ones cheering for Jimmer!!!

More recently we went to a Jazz concert at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall. We of course got Slow's BBQ for dinner and then finished the night with some Jazz. It was too dark for a picture of us. But the symphony hall was beautiful.

Needless to say we can have fun anywhere we live. More to come on Michael working in Cleveland.

Park City

In March (I know... I'm always behind) Michael and I flew to Park City to meet the family for a ski trip and Duke's baby blessing.

We stayed right in Downtown Park City. We had a blast! The weather was really warm, which I love, but the snow was a little slushy, which stinks. Pretty much everyone has converted to wearing helmets. We like to keeps our brains safe, plus they are comfy and have headphones built right in! Kelly and I have both reverted back to skiing from snow boarding.

We did our annual sushi night! I made around 25 rolls with the help of my sous chef, Dad. It was so delicious! We had spicy tuna, spicy crab, california, tempura, and eel rolls.

Friday night we all drove to the Gruber house in Alpine for Duke's blessing. It was great seeing all the Gruber's and having both families together. Yeah for little Duke being blessed.

Veronica and Nate came up for a day. It was so fun! We've missed hanging out with them so much. Saturday night the boys all went night skiing and the girls went shopping and walking around downtown. We happened to find a few art galleries with free cookies and tea. Mmm... I love appreciating art :)

More Michigan adventures to come!

Michigan

On November 6th last year I was accepted into a Dietetic Internship at the Hurley Medical Center in Flint, MI. So... starting in January this year, I am a full time intern. The program is 9 months which has me graduating in September. I will be spending 7/9 months in the hospital rotating through all the different areas: Diabetes, Cardiology, Renal, ICU, CCU, Pediatrics, Trauma, Burn, etc. The other 2 months are rotations like School Foodservice, WIC, Dialysis, etc. The best part is wearing scrubs and a lab coat around the hospital. I look legit.



I am loving my internship. I'm not in one area longer than 3 weeks so things are moving pretty fast. While I am interning, Michael is receiving responses from Law Schools. All we know now is that he will be starting law school in the fall, somewhere :)

Florida Christmas

I started off December taking a Wilson cake decorating class with Mom. We had so much fun and learned a lot.



Mom, Dad, Chris, Michael, and I all spent a day at Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. The first thing we did was go straight to Harry Potter World! We found out that butterbear is most delicious is slushy form. It has a yummy butterscotch flavor.





Michael doesn't love going on roller coasters like I do, so Chris was my coaster partner. There were no lines so we just kept going and going. It was great!



We got our kinect dance on!



We went for a bike ride on the trail.



Golfing at the country club.





Followed by dinner at the country club.



Little 500 Go-Carting! Chris is the best.



The boys all went to a Magic Game together.



We went walking around Downtown Disney.



And went to a dine in theater to see Mission Impossible. It was so fun eating in the theater without having to be sneaky...



Dad took us all to the Quail Creek Plantation so shoot some sporting clays.







We had a good old fashioned Spencer family fish fry. Mmm... Grandpas famous hush puppy recipe.



Christmas morning we started things off with our traditional pancake griddle breakfast. It was delicious!



Then we opened all the great presents Santa brought.



We also played the chimes and broke a piñata on Christmas eve. We did a ton of fun stuff. Great Christmas in Florida.

Recap

Hello to the five people that read my blog. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write something. This is my MEGA post to catch you up on the last 5-6 months... So here goes.

My sister Kelly was married on August 11th to Robert Kandle. It was a small destination wedding on Catalina Island. Kelly was a stunningly beautiful bride. And they both looked so amazing and happy together. As the maid of honor I was running around like a crazy person making sure everything was perfect for my sister.





My Mom made the most amazing and classy candy table. It was picture perfect.


After the wedding Michael and I drove up to San Francisco for a little vacation. We did everything. We visited Berkeley, went to Fisherman's Wharf, ate sourdough bread, went shopping, ate delicious pizza, walked across the golden gate bridge, got breakfast at Dottie's, and ate the best ice cream I've ever had. We pretty much ate our way through the city.





We stayed with our friends from Tonga, Mike and Missy. We had a blast hanging out with them!



In October our good friends Jason and Emily Gruber flew out to visit us in Hawaii. They stayed with us for 2 weeks! We had so much fun. The boys surfed like crazy. Me and Emily soaked up a lot of sun. Emily and I had some crazy rides on my paddle board trying to film the boys surfing. We had a campout on the beach with a bonfire and smores. Emily scored us free tickets to the PCC. We walked around Aulani the Disney hotel and shopped at the Swap Meet. Hiked to a waterfall jumped off rocks. We ate at all the old favorites: Hukilau cafe, The Seasider, Haleiwa Thai, Shrimp truck, Matsumoto's shave ice, and the malasada truck.





On October 17th my nephew Duke Kai Spencer was born!



In November Mom flew out for a little Hawaii vacation. We did a ton of fun stuff. Hiked Diamond Head, paddle boarded, ate at all the best places. Mom fell in love with paddle boarding. After Hawaii Mom and I both flew back to California to meet little Duke.




On November 6th I found out that I was ACCEPTED into a Dietetic Internship at the Hurley Medical Center in Flint, MI. More to come on that.

On November 18th my friend Danielle was married in St. George, Utah. She was beautiful and looked so happy. Annalise and I were bridesmaids and had so much fun at the reception and open house.



On December 13th my friend Alyssa Coles was married. She looked beautiful on her big day. The reception was at the Winter Park Farmer's market. We had a great time eating 4Rivers and dancing the night away.



Mom and I teamed up to make Alyssa'a dessert table complete with french macaroons, cupcakes, and lots of yummy sweets!



Next post will be on Christmas in Florida.