Tag: Brad Paisley

Posted in Events, Life, Year Review

Looking Back at 2018

Posted on by teresamunoz91

Another year has come and gone. 2018 was a good year for me. So many things took place this year. One of the most exciting things that happened was I found I was pregnant with my first baby. I also got to travel and take part in fun races. Here are my highlights of 2018.

Pregnancy
My boyfriend and I always talked about having a baby, but we didn’t know it would happen so soon. My boyfriend wanted a boy and I wanted a girl. I was thrilled when I found out I was having a girl. This is a blessing and I can’t believe our little one is almost here. I spent the majority of 2018 being pregnant and while I did miss out on a few things, I will cherish all the little moments with my baby. For example, the first time I heard her heartbeat and saw her on the ultrasound, the first time she kicked, and when my belly bump started to get bigger.

Moving
Another thing that happened in 2018 was that my family and I moved out of Montebello. This was after living there for almost 10 years. We moved about 20 minutes from Montebello and while I do miss my old city, I am very happy and comfortable in my new city. Only bad things are that I live further from my boyfriend and my commute to work is a bit longer. When I was in Montebello, I was able to leave my house 5 minutes before starting work and get there on time. Now I need to leave at least 25-30 minutes before I start work. I give myself the extra 5-10 minutes just in case there is traffic of construction going on.

Travel
In February, I spent the weekend in Orlando by myself. I had gone to Orlando before back in 2017, but this was my first ever solo trip. The reason I went to Orlando was to take part in the Disney Princess Challenge. This is a series of races hosted by Run Disney. I ran a 10k on Saturday morning and then a half marathon on Sunday morning. I really enjoyed my solo trip and I’m so glad I got to experience it before becoming a mom.

In March, I ran a half marathon in San Diego. I normally travel with my family or friends, but this time I went with my boyfriend. This was our first weekend away together. It was long overdue. We have been together for 5 years and that was our first trip. Hoping we can take more weekend trips with our baby girl in the upcoming years.

I decided my last trip before the baby’s arrival should be a fun one. What could be more fun than almost a week in Las Vegas? In August, I went to Las Vegas with Giovanna for a few days. There were many things I couldn’t do like drink or ride on the New York New York roller coasters, but I still had fun. The best part of the Las Vegas trip was getting to see the Backstreet Boys in concert. I also got to try a lot of good food and we walked so much every day that I was always walking at least 10,000 steps, which was my goal.

Running
I ran almost 300 miles. I’m sure if I hadn’t been pregnant, I would’ve ran more. Regardless, I am still happy that I was able to run 300 miles. Not only that, but I was able to run one half marathon, one 10k, and two 5k races while pregnant. I wasn’t going to let my pregnancy slow me down!

At the beginning of 2018, I did my best half marathon 2 hours and 9 mins in Pasadena. This was so close to my goal of running in under 2 hours. I’m hoping that in 2019, I can reach the goal. I know this will require a lot of training runs from me, most of which will take place in the summer.

As I mentioned earlier, I did the Disney Princess Challenge in Orlando. I love to challenge myself. This was the first time I ran 19.3 miles in 2 days! What makes the Disney Princess Challenge runs even more fun is the fact that you get to run through the Disney parks and take pictures with the characters. I got to take pictures with Anna and Elsa from Frozen, Belle and Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, and even Buzz Lightyear to name a few. I won’t take part in the races this year, but I plan to be there in 2020!

In 2018, I ran the LA Marathon for the first time. I did not run in under 5 hours like I had planned, but I did improve by 6 minutes over my first marathon. Not going to lie, this was a tough marathon for me. It didn’t help that at the start of the run, I did some have pain in my left knee. I also didn’t follow my training plan as well as I should have. That’s okay, every time I run a marathon or any other race, I always learn ways I can improve my time and my training. The hills after mile 20 were the worst. Now that I know what to expect, I will definitely train for that in 2020.

Concerts
I went to see Brad Paisley in concert with my mom. My mom isn’t fan of country music, but she really likes Kane Brown, who was one of the openers for Brad Paisley. I had to choose between going to see Tim McGraw (my favorite country singer) and Brad Paisley. I decided to see Brad Paisley and it was worth it. He is such a great singer live and entertaining. I really like the song he sang with Carrie Underwood, who sang her parts via satellite/video.

Seeing the Backstreet Boys was the highlight of my Las Vegas trip. My only complaint is that I wish the concert had been longer. They played some of their newer music, along with their classics. It’s great to see them still together after all these years. They are touring this year. They are scheduled to play in Anaheim and Los Angeles. I’m hoping I can see them again. Fingers crossed that I make it to their concert.

Favorite Movies
Normally I am the kind of person who waits for movies to come out on DVD or Netflix instead of going to the movie theaters to watch. In fact, most of the time I only go to the movies once or maybe even twice a year. This year, I ended up going to 7 movies, which is a lot for me. Who knows if next year I will be able to watch as many movies since I will have my little one. Of course, I will make an exception to watch the new Avengers movies. Here are the movies I went to watch in 2018. The little kid movies are the ones I took my sisters to go watch.

Sherlock Gnomes
Black Panther
50 Shades
Hotel Transylvania
Avengers Infinity War
Goosebumps 2
Crimes of Grindewald

2018 was a memorable year for me. I can’t wait to see what 2019 will bring for us!

Posted in Football/Soccer, Life, music, Travel

Summer 2018

Posted on by teresamunoz91

Although summer doesn’t officially end until later this month, many people consider Labor Day the last day of summer. After all, by this point, most students are back in school. I graduated from Cal State LA last year, so this is my second year not going back to school and it still feels so weird! I actually liked school and miss it a lot. If it wasn’t for the fact that school is expensive, I would’ve kept going to school to get my masters. Oh well. I have my bachelor’s degree and I’m happy with that. That being said, this summer was really good for me.

One thing I look forward to every four years during summer is the World Cup. This summer was no different. Although the United States or Italy did not take part in the World Cup, there were still many good matches. France ended up winning the final against Croatia, but along the way, there were many upsets and surprises. One of the most shocking things that happened was Germany did not even make it out of the group stage and they had won the previous World Cup final. I guess the curse of World Cup winning teams is true. Also, Spain, who were one of the favorites to make it to the final, lost against Russia, one of the teams that no one expected much from. Argentina and Portugal disappointed and so did Brazil. Overall, it was a good World Cup. Can’t wait for 2022, I hope Italy and the United States make it next time.

For people who know me, they know that my favorite type of music is country music. When my mom mentioned that she was going to a Brad Paisley Concert, I just had to go. Technically she was going to see Kane Brown, but Brad Paisley was the headliner. He is my second favorite country male singer, after Tim McGraw. It was a really good concert. We had good seats and I enjoyed spending time with my mom, as corny as it sounds. That’s something that never happens because I have so many brothers and sisters. (I’m the oldest of six)

Every year since 2011, I have gone to see a team from Europe play a friendly match in Los Angeles. Usually it’s Real Madrid, but this year they didn’t come to Los Angeles, unfortunately. However, this year AC Milan came to Los Angeles. They are my boyfriend’s favorite team. I like watching them, although they aren’t my favorite Italian team. It was a good game even though they ended up losing to Manchester United.

My mini vacation to Las Vegas trip was a lot of fun. It was only few days, but still enjoyable. Next time I go, I will make sure not to go during the summer though because it was super hot. I think I will go back in November 2019 and this time, I will drink more since it is Las Vegas. The best part of the trip was the Backstreet Boys concert. I really hope I can see them again next year.

The city where I used to work had free concerts at the park every Friday in the summer. My family decided to go to the last concert of the summer. My mom loves listening to Brenton Woods. I grew up listening to his music. As luck would have it, Brenton Woods was the main even of the last concert. It was free so the whole family got to go. There was so many people there. It was still fun though. Three of my coworkers went and I met up with them.

I admit that sometimes I watch way too much TV, Netflix, Hulu etc. So I decided to see if I could stay away for a while. I decided to take part in the 30 day no TV challenge for the month of August. Overall, I was successful. I watched TV only once in the entire month. I missed watching TV at first, but eventually I found better things to do.

Two things I missed out on were my weekend getaway trips to San Francisco and San Diego. I had planned to go to San Diego at the beginning of June for the Rock and Roll 5k and Half marathon races. However, I had to cancel due to financial reasons. The following month, I had planned to go to San Francisco for the San Francisco Half Marathon. I cancelled that trip because it didn’t seem like it would be safe for me to be in the city alone, even if it was just for the weekend. I plan to run that race next year, fingers crossed.
I ended my summer by going to Knott’s Berry Farm with my family. Even though I couldn’t get on any of the rides, I still had fun. We didn’t know about it until we got there, but the day we went was one of the days that Knott’s Berry Farm was having their dollar days. There were 7 of us, so we saved a lot of money. Some of the things that were on special for only $1 that day were the ices, popcorn, hot dogs, pizza slices, and soda, to name a few. WE only stayed a few hours because it was very crowded. Luckily, we have the season pass, so we can always go another day, when there’s less people. My favorite time of the year to go to Knott’s Berry Farm is during the Boysenberry Festival and during the Christmas season.

I’m looking forward to fall, it’s my favorite season of the year! Will be making my fall bucket list really soon 

Posted in Life, music

Brad Paisley Concert

Posted on by teresamunoz91

A few weeks ago, I went to see Brad Paisley in concert. It was such a good concert! I went to his concert at the Honda Center in Anaheim on July 21st. I went with my mom. She is not a country fan at all, but she went to see Kane Brown, one of the opening acts.

Brad Paisley was the headliner in the concert. As I mentioned earlier, Kane Brown was one of the opening acts. The other opening act was Dan Tyminski. I had never heard of him, but he was pretty good. He sang “Hey, Brother” with Avicii, the dj who passed away earlier this year.

I heard Kane Brown a couple years ago when he came out with the song “What if”. I really liked that song. Recently, my mom heard his music and when she heard that he was going to come out in concert here in California, my mom made sure to get tickets as soon as they went on sale. She asked me months in advance if I wanted to go with her. I said yes, because unlike her, I really like country music. Only downside was that the Brad Paisley concert was the same day as the Tim McGraw concert, which was at the Staples Center. But since I had seen him last year, I thought it would be a good idea to see new people in concert.

We got to Anaheim really early for the concert. It started at 730pm and my mom got us there at 530pm. We went to eat before the concert, because I was starving! It was the first time in ages that my mom and I hung out together , just the two of us. That never happens because I am the oldest of six and now that she has her boyfriend, she spens so much time with him. We got to the Honda Center and couldn’t believe how close our seats were! They were only like $70/$75 and we were sitting floor side. We felt a little bit out of place because we didn’t see too many people like us at the concert, but I was determined to not let that ruin our good time.

Kane Brown sang all his hits, as well as some new songs I had never heard before. He is a pretty good singer live. He also sang a few covers of songs that he liked listening to while growing up. It was interesting to see him live and see how the fans reacted to him. He also talked to us about his life story, which was another way he connected with his fans.

Brad Paisley was the first male singer I listened to when I started listening to country music a few years ago. I think the first song I heard from him was “This is Country Music”. Needless to say, I was very excited to see him in concert. He did not disappoint! Seeing him live in concert was great! He is so talented and funny. One really cool thing was that he went to a smaller stage in the middle of the arena and he was so close to us! I tried to take pictures but my phone camera was sucky! OH well, I had a blast seeing him. I can’t wait for my next concert. I am hoping to see Carrie Underwood next year.