Back to Reality

Happy Tuesday my lovelies!  Today is my first day back to work, and thank goodness I get to work from home.  It helps ease the transition from vacay mode to "throttle fully open" and charging back through life at light speed.  *sigh*.  I pretty much spent the last 4 days recovering from the Maui trip, with the exception of Saturday.  It was my first official training day for TnT NWM, and I was up at 6 am to make sure I was on time, and I went on my first party bus in over 5 years (O_O) for my baby cousin's college graduation and birthday.  I. was. BEAT.  I also wanted to finish reading the 50 Shades of Grey series (which btw is effing awesome.  Highly recommend!)

The moment we touched down back on the mainland, and as I was driving home from the airport at 11 PM PST (while we're still majorly on island time), I felt the rush of my to do list clouding my head.  And instantly I wished I was back on the island.  It's the laid back lifestyle I desire, not the going 100 mph one.  It was awesome going at a leisurely pace and not feeling as though I had to constantly be doing something.  We didn't even get to do everything I wanted to do on Maui, so a trip back will definitely be warranted.  And next time we'll be staying 10 days, not 7.

Anyway, I just wanted to get a quick post up to say hi and to let you know I'm working on pic edits.  I have lots of shots from Maui that I'm itching to share, as well as posting my happy birthday wish to my Lil Man, who is now officially 2 years old.  Stay tuned!

Me Ke Aloha,
Reeze

Maui No Ka Oi: Days 1 & 2

Alooooooooha!

It's about 11 in the morning here on West Maui, and my boys are taking a nap before we head out for the day.  So far, this trip has been absolutely amazing, and I'm in my happy place.  It's so peaceful here, and I love being able to look out at blue skies and hear the waterfall that flows beneath our lanai.  I'm feeling very zen, and I'm loving it.

We've had quite the adventures the past two days, and I've been camera happy.  Warning:  this post will be very photo intensive, but I'd love to share these images with you.  Of course pictures don't really do the actual memory or experience enough justice, but capturing the moments are priceless.

Upon arrival, we kept it pretty low key.  Checked in to our condo at the Honua Kai Resort & Spa, which is absolutely fantabulous, and just took the time to get acclimated.  Adjusting to the 3 hour time difference had Lil Man a bit cranky so we have to cater to his schedule.  But he's getting there, and he's having a blast.

Once we got into our room, clouds moved in and it drizzled a little bit.  Which isn't a dampener when you're on the islands...especially when you get to see a full on rainbow like this one, from your lanai.

Our condo is beachfront, and while dada cleaned up a bit, Lil Man and I took a little walk to explore.

Disguising restrooms into a rock formation is genius

First time ever in sand

Leaving footprints behind

His first ocean encounter

Nothing beats this

The next morning we were up in the wee hours of the morning and journeyed up to the top of Haleakala. Big Man got carsick and it was freezing a$$ cold and super windy, but I'll never forget this experience.

The sun coming up on the horizon.  I teared.  Such an emo mess.

Lil Man and I on top of the world

After Haleakala we had breakfast at Kula Lodge, which was beautiful (pic to follow), and spent some time at Baby Beach.  Lil Man had a blast in the ocean with mommy while dada stayed a safe distance away on a beach chair.  lol.  Then dinner at Mama's Fish House in Paia, which was phenomenal and by far the best dinner I've ever had.  I of course took way more pics than posted but putting up 250 pics will take way too much time and be boring.  So I won't.

Days 3 & 4 coming soon!

Me Ke Aloha (with my love),
Reeze

Bad Mommy! You can't be late!

Happy belated by a day Mother's Day!  Yeah I suck.  I totally meant to do a quick "Happy Mother's Day" post yesterday, but just couldn't get around to it.  I did however, celebrate the impending motherhood (to TWINS nonetheless) of a friend of mine, who just happens to be my man's cousin's wife.  And had a great homemade dinner of ribeye fatty deliciousness and huge prawns.  My man knows me well.  All in all, Mother's Day for me this year was very low key, and to be quite honest, perfect.  Last year was a total fiasco which I had no desire to recreate.  This year, we will be continuing the celebration in Maui, so low key was all I needed.

To all of you fantabulous mommies holding it down, I applaud you and hope you had a great day!

XOXO: May Birchbox and Gossip Girl

I think it's way better for me to stop anticipating receipt of these subscription stuff.  When they actually show up in the mail it's a much better surprise than if I were stalking the mailbox everyday.  So yes I was very happy to receive my May Birchbox in the mail the other day!  I am lovin' Birchbox like no other (probably why I didn't even bother with doing a MyGlam post for the April bag), and each month reinforces the fact that Birchbox is awesome.  Perfect example of doing it right!

Anyway, this month has a Gossip Girl theme behind it, and the box itself was so cool!

Ok Aperture, huge watermark?  Anyway, this is the Gossip Girl box sleeve

One plus that Birchbox has over MyGlam is they don't stuff the package with unnecessary inserts.  One card, simple descriptions.  Nice and clean.

This month's contents.  Includes a blank card with the Gossip Girl signature sign off XOXO... you can order these from the site as well.

Add one to the Sh*t List

I'm a black-eyeliner-on-my-top-lid junkie.  It's pretty much  my standard everyday go-to look, and I've been doing this since I began wearing makeup in junior high school (aka middle school for today's equivalent).  These days my staples consist of MAC's Fluidline in Blacktrack and Smashbox's angled eyeliner brush.  I think my eyes look like a deer in the headlights when I don't have my eyeliner on, and since I'll be spending lots of time at the beach during my upcoming trip, I wanted to find a good waterproof liner that I could bring along.  Though I love my fluidline, it's not waterproof and I don't want to even bother with it since I know it'll practically have no staying power.  So enter Almay's Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner.

credit

I HATE this product.  I had problems right from the get go.  I've been applying eyeliner for practically half my life so I'd call myself an expert in that regard.  And this stuff sucks.  It didn't apply smoothly so I had a jagged line, and it dried too quickly leaving me almost no time to fix the crooked edges.  After messing with it for almost 20 minutes trying to get it to look decent, I gave up, grabbed a cotton ball and eye makeup remover to get the racoon stuff off my lids, and went back to my staple (which btw I applied in less than 2 minutes).  I should've just thrown it in the trash, but since I was already running late to get to work, I just tossed it in one of my makeup drawers, where it's still sitting.  At least it was only about $5 bucks (which is less than my usual Starbucks order).  If you have any suggestions on a good waterproof liner, I'm all ears!

Did I mention my trip is in one week?  This time next week we'll probably be preparing for landing!  If you're following me on instagram (mommareeze), you've probably seen my countdown pics.  So essssited!!  And yes, I am planning on blogging while I'm there so stay tuned for Maui adventures and lots of pics!

Another Lazy Sunday in the books

At this moment the house is peaceful.  Most of the windows are open in an effort to air out any Winter staleness.  Sounds of distant cars are the only things audible.  And it's fabulous.

My boys are taking naps as the Giants wrap up a game (that they were winning in the bottom of the 8th the last time I checked), and I, for the first time this week, feel like I don't have to do anything.  Anything at all.  But think.  And then I start thinking of the upcoming week and my to do list.  I used to be all gung-ho about finding the newest iPhone app that would help me organize my thoughts and to do list.  I've gone through so many, both paid and free, that I couldn't even begin to tell you which ones I have not tried.  Lately I've been using the To Do app that came with iOS 5, and while it's ok, I'm sure there's something out there that can really keep me organized.  I can't NOT use some kind of organizer now.  It's getting to be just a little too much.  And if being organized helps clear all this clutter in my mind, then yay!

I don't have my phone near me (shocker), so I can't check the countdown app for the exact #, but next Thursday morning, we'll be on our way!  AHH excited much?  Yup!  In order to make things less overwhelming on myself, I started packing and organizing.  Yes, about 2 weeks early (if not more).  And damn, I've spent a lot of $ "preparing" and we haven't even taken off for the airport yet!  Oh well.  I'd rather spend the money here, than buy it there and spend more than I should have just because I should've waited.  Or whatever other reason.  It's expensive there.

Anyway, majority of toiletries are packed.  I'm planning on doing a packing post, but we'll see.  I'm in no way an expert packer, but I have a system that works for me.  And though it's not exactly packing "light", I do make sure I only bring what's needed.  And unfortunately what's needed is quite a bit of stuff.

Alrighty then, I just caught myself spacing out so I'm going to sign off for now.  Hope you're enjoying your Sunday's!

My First BzzAgent Campaign: Neutrogena Goodies!

I love Neutrogena.  I love their products.  And for my first ever BzzAgent campaign, I'm super happy it was Neutrogena products!  How.  cooooooool.


If you've never heard of BzzAgent, it is basically a product review service with a twist.   There are no subscription fees.  It's absolutely free, but there are rules.  Oh, and some campaigns charge a small fee, but usually at 80% off regular price.  So you sign up to become a "Bzz (pronounced buzz) Agent", and answer a bunch of surveys.  The surveys help them narrow down which campaigns you'll be invited to participate in.  And if you're interested, you sign up and get a goody package in the mail a few days later. Pretty awesome!

So this first campaign was for Neutrogena, and I received the following products:

Score!

First up, I received 3 Revitalizing Lip Balms, in different colors.  These were opened up and immediately thrown into my Hawaii toiletry bag.  I'm a lip balm junkie.  Maui is not the place for lipstick.  These will be my must haves during my trip!

Next up we have the Healthy Skin Brightening Skin Perfector (aka concealer).  I'm intrigued.  I'm beginning to become obsessed with concealers.  We shall see!

And here we have Neutrogena Nourishing Eyeliner.  One end is a rubber tipped smudger.  I'm a die hard Urban Decay 24/7 Perversion gal, but for blogging sake I will give this a go.  Unless of course, someone would like to claim it before it's used? (close friends, this goes to you).

Less than two weeks to go and I'll be on a beach with my toes in the sand and a bowl of poke in my lap.  I cannot fucking wait.  (*excuse the profanity*)

Yay my brother's in town!

I can't remember exactly, I think maybe 3 years at least, but my middle older brother (out of 3, I'm the baby girl), up and took off to MIAMI.  Punk.  How horrible of him to pick up and move clear to the other side of the country, living it up in such a horrible city with horrific humid weather, superficial plastic surgery ads romping everywhere, crystal blue water and gorgeous beaches, awesome food...note the hints of jealousy here?  Ugh.  I hate him.  But LOVE that he's home for the week!

My brother and I don't have the best of histories.  We were your picture of sibling rivalry growing up.  He cut off my long gorgeous eyelashes when I was little, because "they're too long."  *note, they've never recovered and I will never forgive him for it! *shaking fist*.  I poured water on his bed while he was sleeping to make it look like he pee'd in the bed.  We fought.  At times passionately.  And physically.  We've hated each other's guts, and I've cried on his shoulder.  We've gone the spectrum of feelings towards another human being.  And despite it all, now that we're grown and matured, I'd say we're pretty tight.  And having him home is actually helping me, despite my apprehensions that he'd just add to the stress of my life lately.  Total and complete opposite.  And I'm going to be utterly heartbroken when he leaves.

Now, Lil Man is known for the ultimate stranger danger.  He's starting to warm up to people, but usually his "warm up" phase is at least 30 minutes.  For whatever reason, he had absolutely no stranger danger with his uncle.  And it absolutely warmed my heart.  From the moment my brother walked in the door, Lil Man took to him like a bee to a flower.  He started acting up to show off, and would do some random movement or action, and then check to make sure that his Uncle Miami was watching him.  They played. They hugged.  And it was the best thing to watch.  It always makes me sad that my brother can't always be around.  There are so many times I wish he was here to share a bottle of wine and talk like we used to. But I'll take what I can get.  (Bro, if you're reading this, when you get back to Miami we'll have to schedule Skype wine and chat dates).

Anyway, I've been a minor papparazzi since my bro has been here.  These shots are priceless to me.  Aside from watermark, they are unedited.  Their raw nature is what appeals to me.  And I think they don't need any editing.  Please enjoy.

I'm almost 2!

Now, these next two shots had me absolute cracking up!  I think he's getting used to being on the other end of my lens, because he's now beginning to pose and smile on command.  Holy hell, stop growing so fast!

Here's a good one mommy!

Now here is Lil Man going to work.  My brother was attempting to get some laptop time in, but Lil Man had other plans.  Sitting on your face while you have it in an electronic gadget is what he does.

The next morning resulted in an interrupted ball workout for my brother.  Lil Man decided to show his Uncle that he knows some MMA moves.  Here's his chokehold:

You're going DOWN man!

 For now, life is good.

Life, lately...

I'm amazed that all it takes for me to find my nook again is to sit in front of my non-work computer.  At this point, I think I'll give my prized MBP a name.  Everything in my life that's important to me has a nickname (my ridah, my truck is Eskie, my favorite purse is simply Louis, and my loves...well, 'nuff said there).  This one will take me awhile so if ya got any suggestions for me, shoot 'em in the comments :o)

By this time in 2 weeks, we will have just enjoyed watching sunrise from the top of Haleakala.  I cannot tell you how super duper excited I am to finally be going on vacation after years.  It's way overdue.  And I must add, it's also the perfect time in my life to get the F outta H.  Here is where I get a little more in depth in my life than I usually share.  If you're not up for a little sappy venting, you may want to click away now.  Otherwise, read on...

I did it! Bit the bullet...Team in Training and the Nike Women's (Half) Marathon 2012

AHHHHHH!  Did I really?  *crud*.  Yes.  Yes I did.  And, though I am freaked out, I am VERY proud of myself for finally biting the bullet and taking a step towards becoming a runner!

I have always hated running.  Always.  So why in the heck am I embarking on a runner's journey?  Well, for one, I need a challenge in my life.  I am no longer considered a "new" mother since Lil Man is now an almost-2-year old.  I think once I stopped counting his life in months, I stopped being a newbie.  He is now a toddler and I no longer have the challenge of adjusting to life with a new baby.  That stage is over and done with.  Two, I accomplished another huge challenge in my life when I obtained my certification.  Everyone in my industry knows that it's a difficult test.  And the fact that I no longer have to ever ever EVER worry about taking that thing again (as long as I keep up with continued education), has another difficult challenge under my belt. 

So, now what?  I've been playing with the idea of becoming a runner for quite a while now.  I know it seems like the "trendy" thing to do, but in the reality of it all, it takes discipline, determination, and endurance.  Very key qualities to have in life.  It's a lifestyle.  A healthy one.  One I want to adopt.  And here I go!

I'm running as part of the Wells Fargo team with Team In Training for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  This is a fundraising event in which my goal is to raise $3000 for LLS.  What a way to kick off my journey!  I would love your support in my journey and any donation you make, whether verbal or monetary, would be greatly appreciated!

To view my page and make a donation, click HERE.

Me Ke Aloha,
Riza