Savannah Smiles

It's been quite awhile since I posted! Most of this is because I haven't had much to see, another part is that I've realized this blog is going to be more of a collection of memories for Ksen and I, but that's alright.

Memorial Day weekend one of my close friends invited me to head to Savannah with her and her family.  With Tropical Storm Bonnie along the coast, it ended up being a very rainy weekend. Despite the fact the weather was less than perfect, we managed to make the most of our trip.

The first night we were supposed to go on a mini-cruise, but it was canceled due to weather. Instead, we went to a sushi place for dinner. It was pretty good and we had a fun time.

I ordered the spider rolls

We spent most of the weekend calling and FaceTiming some of our friends while we were stuck inside. One of my favorite parts of the trip was the evening we spent stalking people on Instagram, looking at dresses online, and buying ice cream in our pajamas. 

Though our rainy days were fun, on Monday we woke up to blue skies!

We only had a few hours left though, so we had to make them count. We ended up heading to one of her friend's houses for breakfast before heading out to search for places to take pictures. We were kicked off the golf course, but we did find a couple cute alternate places. 

Savannah's trees are some of my favorites

When we got back from pictures, we were allowed to take the golf cart out for a spin. It was a lot of fun, though it was way slower than I realized. 

Eunice in front of the golf car garage

That afternoon, we finally made it into Downtown. We got ice cream at Leopold's, a very popular ice cream parlor. Then we walked down to some shops, including Free People and Urban Outfitters. Both of these are stores that I often browse online, filling a cart with at least $1,000 worth of items. That day, I finally got my hands on some of their clothes (from the sale section of course). 

Overall, it was a fun trip, primarily because of who I got to take it with. Hopefully if I ever go again the weather will be better, but staycations are always fun too. 

Love always,

Brina

Life's a Beach!

So last week was my school's spring break and it was pretty great!
I went to the beach with one of my close friends for the entire week. While I'm not the partying type (or even remotely close to it) we found a bunch of other various things to entertain ourselves!

Here are a few snapshots from over the course of the week :)

My first ever BBQ

beach vibes

Day 1 Sunset

Day 2 Sunset

my gorgeous friend

I didn't make it, so I had to climb back

Last night :(

I would say that overall the trip was pretty fun and a success. Gulf Shores is such a cute little beach and definitely more calm than places like Destin, Seaside, and PCB which was awesome. However, I did learn that taking a whole week to travel somewhere in the middle of the school year was not for me, being the epitome of nerd made me anxious the whole week since I could not study as much as I wanted :|. 

Most of the trip was just hanging at the beach or doing various fun activities - zip lining, mini golf, walking 5 miles to the pier (bad idea tbh, my whole backside burned haha), and FOOD - I did not get tan, but summer is coming fast so maybe then! 

I already know what my next post is going to be - Latin Con - so stay tuned!

Much Love, 

Ksen

Don't Go (Spring) Breakin' My Heart

Breaks are always pretty boring for me. My family usually doesn't go anywhere interesting, and this week was no exception. Thankfully, I can usually count on my friends for a good time. It took us a solid week to plan our adventure, and in the end we didn't decide what to do until about half an hour before, but it was fun.

Two friends and I ended up going to a cute little area nearby us. It has historic homes, hiking trials, restaurants, and plenty of cute little shops. We got plenty of adorable pictures, each which will come to grace our Instagrams.

We started off by walking to this delicious sandwich shop in the area. My friend, Ajanta, is a pro food photographer. As soon as we got our food, she was snapping a picture of it. My attempt wasn't quite as good as hers.

Mine

Ajanta's

We stayed at the restaurant for what felt like forever, it turns out our other friend, Eunice, is a pretty slow eater. Once we were done, we began hunting for places to take pictures. We'd seen one wall on the way to lunch, so that's where we started.

Eunice ended up taking my picture in front of a bright pink door, and I loved the results.

Throwin' shade everywhere I go

We ended up doing a bunch of walking back and forth to different spots, but it was fun anyways. 

There was one wall that was such a pretty color we couldn't help but take pictures on it. The store inside had a bunch of great clothes I wish I could afford.

We stopped in this place that had a couple different businesses in it. Among them was a bakery that sold gelato and ice cream, so we had dessert there. 

I tried my first ever macaroon!

Courtesy of Eunice

Ajanta and I had Eunice take some "artsy" pictures of us lying in the grass (fine, it was mostly me). We got tons of stares, the sun in our eyes was unbearable, and a lot of the pictures didn't turn out. The one we got was worth it though.

And that's my adventure for the week. I didn't really do anything else, but I spent a lot of time outside in the gorgeous weather. Now school's starting back again and I have yet to do any homework, but that's alright.

Love,

Brina

(Sorry about some of the photo quality. I stole a couple of these from Ajanta and Eunice so they're just screenshots)

Holi Moli!

The number of Indians I'm friends with is ridiculous. There are so many that go to school with me that many of my non-Indian friends (myself included) have referred to ourselves as "honorary Indians." At any given time, I can have a brown person on each side, but I love them all. That's why I was more than happy to join in on our school's Holi!

For those of you that don't know, Holi is the celebration of color. I looked it up on Wikipedia (a very reliable source) before writing this post, so from what I gather it started as a religious festival, but it seems to primarily be a cultural thing now. It takes place in India each year, and my friends who have attended it their made sure we all knew it was better. Either way, I still had a great time. You can read more here.

Right after this was taken, I got a bunch of powder in my eye. NOT fun. 

I wish I had some before and after pictures, but them moment I stepped out of the car I was doused in colored water. I can, however, show my before-being-completely-trashed and after-being-completely-trashed looks.

Before-trashing

After-trashing

The powdered colors looked really cute at first, but it all added up quickly and soon we were a huge mess.

It was a lot of fun, and I was there with some of my favorite people in the world. What could be more fun than attacking your friends with color and water? It was a perfect way, and the perfect day, to kick off spring break!

Love,

Brina

P.S. Hopefully my next post won't take as long as this one, but we'll see when I do something worth talking about

Feelin' French

This past weekend has been such a blur for me. I've not been home (and awake) for more than two hour periods and I don't know how to feel.

I'm naturally a very introverted person, and it was a shock to have to so many plans lined up in a row. I love people, but so much interaction is tiring beyond compare. Anyways....

On friday I rode the bus home to my friend, Beth's, with another friend, Grace, who I have mentioned prior in a previous post. We came and spent about an hour ranting about all the problems of the world, typical of course. But then to lighten the mood we decided to bake MACAROONS!

While we've been planning to this since summer of last year, I was still beyond excited, because who doesn't love these french delicacies. We decided on making, chocolate macaroons with a Nutella ganache filling.

I never realized how long it actually takes to make these little cookies, its no wonder why they're so expensive everywhere, it took us about three hours if not more!

We had to actually measure out all the ingredients in grams prior. Once we had the cookie "mix" made, we all took a turn at piping! Here is what the cookies looked like pre-baking

Beth piping :)

All done!

We didn't do them outside hahaha

While we waited for the cookies to stop being sticky and put into the oven we prepared the ganache. Also ganache is way to fancy of a word for the melted chocolate mixture hahaha

Anyways the ganache was the easiest, and tastiest part, of the whole baking process, besides the actual cookies haha

After we baked the cookie part of the macaroon we were all set to begin assembling them, right?
NOPE, instead the ganache was not thick enough and we had to try SO many things to remedy this until we finally gave up and used the semi-thick ganache for the cookies, and guess what?
They still tasted just as good hahah

Later on we came back to finish one last batch and the ganache was prefect, turns out all we had to do was keep it out instead of cooling it hahaha

My first EVER homemade macaroon

Our babes 😛

Sorry for the crappy photography oops but yeah this is how I spent the first part of my whirlwind weekend!

With love,
Ksen

#instagramlessksen

This post was actually Sabrina's idea, but anyways...

I'm Christian and this year I decided that for Lent I would give up Instagram and Tumblr, and really any other distracting social media I had. So far its been about a month since I gave it up, and I've been doing pretty good so far!

I'll be honest I've peaked at my insta a few times, but not nearly as much as I would if I actually had the app haha. 

For those of you who don't really know what Lent is, check out this wiki article that sums it up pretty well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent

Lent began on February 10 (Ash Wednesday) and will be ending on March 24th (Good Friday)...

So I have a couple more weeks left before I can download all my social media again and get back to the gram.

I'm an avid instagrammer, when I had it I would check it all the time, mostly out of sheer boredom, but a lot nonetheless. 

Being off instagram turned out to not be as great of a struggle as I thought it would be, I'm actually debating whether to even get it back or not again. 

The real reason I gave up all this social media is because I believed it would distract me less and help me focus more. Instead I found other things to fill the time and continue on the distraction, mainly Netflix 

But giving up Insta, Tumblr, etc. did actually get me closer to God, the point of Lent, because one of the things that I filled my time up with is reading the Bible, even if it was just the verse of the day. Or praying and just really becoming in tune with what it means to be Christian. I'm not trying to advertise that you should be Christian, but for me its been a great year for faith.

I don't want to bore you with my faith story, because first its extremely personal and second very weird hahah so moving on...

But I guess more than anything, my take from the last few weeks has been that social media is just a time waster and merely a way to feel connected into the lives of others. The first week that I didn't have insta I felt out of the loop, out of touch, and really weird, but in the weeks that followed I found out who my true friends are. Outside the deceiving realm of social media, I saw who texted me or made an effort, not just like this picture or tag me in a post every once in a while. SO in the past few weeks, I have really become grateful for the people in my life, and I hope these people will continue to stay beyond my high school years.

The other day I actually texted a few of those friends I'm truly happy to have and every response was different but all gave me a sense of belonging, which I've not had for a while....

ANYWAYS

To wrap up this very random post, I just wanted to make this point clear - Spend time with those who you love (in person) and don't let the deceit of social media fool you. Social media is a great way to stay connected, but make sure that connection continues in real life!!

On an ending note, its Sabrina's Birthday sooooo HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRINA BABE!!!

Much love, Ksen

Dog Days

I think this is going to become a trend. One where I constantly have no idea what to post. The most exciting thing that's happened in my life lately is the welcoming of a new dog into our family, which is pretty exciting.

He's a 6 month old Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix and he's just a bit of a handful. With so much energy, he needs plenty of exercise. Lucky for me, I have a couple of amazing friends who are happy to walk him with me.

Yesterday, I walked down to my friend Sarah's house with my two dogs (Riley and Milo) so she could walk them with me. We picked up our friend Leah and her two dogs, who protested the journey the whole time, along the way. We must've left around 4 o'clock and didn't get back until 6:30. 

Our destination was a park near our neighborhood, which was no short walk. We crossed more than one busy road, which with four dogs and three girls was no easy task. The number of strange looks our pack got seemed to be infinite, but what did it matter if we were having fun? 

At the park, we sat down at a little pavilion and, of course, I pulled out my camera. We spent the next hour or so taking pictures surrounded by puppies. 

Leah, surrounded by all four dogs

Both of my friends took a liking to Riley, who was in no way opposed to the extra attention.

Sarah, the dog lover without a dog

I got a couple of cute pictures with my boys.

Did I mention I got my hair cut?

Riley spent our time at the park trying to get Leah's two older dogs to play with him. They weren't having it, and instead he only succeeded in tangling up his leash around people, dog legs, and other leashes. By the end of our time there, he was pretty tired.

It was definitely a perfect day and an even better way to put off my homework. In fact, I think the only way it could have been better was if I hadn't stepped in mud, but that's a small price to pay for time spent with my best friends. 

With love, 

Brina

Slytherin to my Heart

*Comments from Ksen included

Anybody who is close to me knows that I'm a major geek. Most of the time, I bury it down where nobody can see it. Of course, there are some things that manage to get it out of me. Today if I'm talking about anything, it's usually Grey's Anatomy, but I can't forget where my roots are.

Sometime in either 3rd or 4th grade, my dad began reading me a book that opened my mind to an alternate universe. In that alternate universe, my beloved Harry, Ron, and Hermione reside, fighting off dark wizards and creatures. It's been years since I actually read the books (though I do see different pieces of the movies fairly often), but Harry Potter has a special place in my heart. Which brings me to the point of my post.

I actually was in London last September and got to see the Warner Bros. Studio

Okay, so really I just wasn't sure what to post about. Last time I gave you a tour of my bedroom, this time I thought I'd give you a tour of my common room. Actually, this is just a post about my Pottermore sorting, but that is, of course, very important.

Everybody sorts themselves after reading the books, and I was no exception. Being one of those people who always got As throughout elementary and middle school, I thought I was an obvious Ravenclaw. JK* Rowling and the people of Pottermore somehow managed to prove me wrong, creating a quiz that gave me...Hufflepuff! **I THOUGHT YOU MEANT JK AS IN JUST KIDDING WHEN I FIRST READ THAT HAHHAAH

At first I wasn't really sure about my sorting, but the more I read about Hufflepuff the more I realized that it made sense. Not to mention, their common room is definitely the most appealing to me (haha).

Anyways, it was just fun to be sorted and see where my friends went as well (Ksen got Hufflepuff, but we know more than our fair share of Slytherins). I thought it could be fun to share on our blog as well. Feel free to take the Sorting quiz and let us know what you get (or got). Some fun Harry Potter articles are here as well.

With love,

Brina

My Cup of Tea

Yesterday some of my close friends and I went to this cute tea place in our area. It was located in this very beautiful, pleasant area with little boutiques, greenery, train tracks, and an assortment of unique stores.

Right now, I'm on February Break and having a wonderful week of realization and relaxation. Anyways, I wanted to share some of the highlights from my tea time and let you be jealous you aren't on break (or not having as much fun as I am hahah)

This was actually three tiers of scones, finger sandwiches, and assorted desserts :)

This is one of my lovely friends Grace, with our heap of food

My sweet friend Beth

These are some of my favorite quick pictures that I took of my friends and the amazing food that was served. 

Moving on to the point of my article, TEA! 

I have a very obvious obsession with tea, I average about 3 cups per day for sure, if not more. Tea is my coffee (think Lorelai Gilmore and coffee, that is me with tea)

All over the world people drink tea and I really think that America is the only country that prefers coffee (but I could be wrong ofc) Where I'm from, we call it chai, so whenever I have a chai tea latte it's amusing... anyways my favorite tea is green tea (I really love Tazo's Zen variety) but really any and every tea is pretty awesome! 

Tea has so many benefits and facts that are typically unknown to most people, so I thought I would enlighten you....

If you already haven't figured out, I love these info graphic thingies!

Oh and here's a fun buzz feed quiz: http://www.buzzfeed.com/natalyalobanova/tasseomancy#.mtoWeYMRoE

P.S. I got disciplined and calm hahaha

Much love,
Ksen