Here’s a recap of 2018 in photos, starting out with a collage of images from our first trip to LA this year. We were so excited to leave for this trip, we ended up driving down way too early and had to crash at a hotel near LAX that has “day use” rates on some website I think might have actually been for people who are cheating ahahahah.

We stayed at a lovely AirBNB right on Sunset strip.  Got to see my friend for the first time in many years, take her and a client out to dinner at the Rainbow bar and grill for dinner.  I also was able to do photography at Kaya’s live that weekend.  It was a really lovely weekend.

After wanting to go for many years, we visited Necromance, and I picked up this hide style ring.  I wear it every day now.  
It was about this time that we learned my grandmother was sick because she went into the hospital, but I don’t think we knew yet just how sick she was.

Later I was told she had a year or two to live.  Then I got a call that she had just a few weeks, and I headed to Nevada to be with her.

At first, I took Bruce so he would get a chance to see everyone and say goodbye to grandma, then Felipe came up and took Bruce back home.  He got to see the snow for the first time.

My grandma passed away April 2nd.  The obituaries all say April 3rd, but they are wrong.  I was with her when she died.

On April 4th, Felipe had come back up to Nevada.  We went and stayed the night at Hard Rock on Lake Tahoe.  The last week had been really hard so it was nice to go and take a breather before heading back to my house and getting back to work on everything.

Right after we came back I had a ton of work to plow through before we needed to leave on our vacation.  I was so busy with my job, and with Jrock Vault that I don’t think everything had really hit me.

We went back down to LA with Bruce to catch Miyavi performing at the El Rey.  It was cool because Bruce got to meet Miyavi (though we never got a copy of the photo that was taken.) We also got to explore Melrose Ave a bit because we were staying at a hotel right in the middle of everything.  We visited Griffith Observatory and watched their planetarium show too.

It was really cool for us because we like the movie Rebel Without a Cause and that building is prominently featured in that film.
We also took Bruce to Eggslut this time.  (We went on our first trip too.)  That place is still amazing.

After that we headed to Disneyland for a few days.  On the first day we went to California Adventure.  We stayed right across the street and got Fast Passes this time – and boy was it worth it!

Bruce says his favorite ride is the Guardians of the Galaxy ride.  I went on it too but I was terrified and I don’t know if I will ever do that again, hahah.  I tried to ride as many as possible but skipped a few roller coasters.  We got lucky because we got to see Stitch!  I think my favorite ride over there is the Monsters INC ride.

The second day, we went to Disneyland and the first thing I did was mess up my ankle.  So halfway through the day we had to go back to the hotel and I ended up spending the rest of the day in a wheelchair lol.

Discovered how much easier it is to get around the park if you take the train.  We met a lot of cool characters and rode so many rides!  Bruce even made us to Buzz Lightyears ride twice.  We parked directly behind the castle, where we got an amazing view (but not music lol.)

After Disneyland we went to RuPauls Drag Con, where we got to meet Elvira.  We even saw RuPaul!  We went to support Kaya, and I got lucky and got to spend some time with my friend one of the nights too!  We also visited Little Tokyo where I got my purse, and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery where I got to visit Vampira’s final resting place.  We wanted to visit Rozz Williams too but his area was under construction.

After we got back from that trip is when things really hit me the hardest.  I started experiencing panic attacks that were so bad that I felt like I was no longer really able to function.  I couldn’t work enough hours at work because I was so incredibly depressed.  I’m honestly not sure how I didn’t lose my job this summer, my boss is really amazing.

I started focusing on trying to do things that, “Make humans happy.”  Exercise, social interaction, support network, doing things you feel are meaningful, etc.  I also went to a doctor and pretty much demanded that she let me try medication.  I’m now on anxiety medication.  I even tried therapy, though I wasn’t able to find a therapist that I really jived with.  I may try that again in the future.

I’m still struggling with the anxiety and panic, but I feel like I’m functioning better.

A good thing is that Felipe and I ended up having a lot of really serious discussions about things that we’re going to find meaningful in our life, how we want to be spending our limited time, etc.   I don’t want to spend me whole life trading my time for money to buy things we don’t need.  I want to use my time to spend with my family – because my family is meaningful to me.

We started trying to go on hikes more ofen, or walks rather – lol.  I want to do a lot more of those this coming year.  

I can’t say we’ve perfected the spending less money on stupid stuff thing yet, but we did make more of a point to go out on our “day trips.”  We love going somewhere we haven’t been just for the day when Felipe has a day off.  Some memorable day trips from this year included visited the Japanese Friendship Garden in San Jose, going to the Totoro pop up shop, checking out cool parks, and even going to a trampoline park.

We’re planning on doing a lot more day trips this year where we can just pack a lunch, and do fun free stuff that just costs gas money.

For Bruce’s birthday this year we didn’t do a big party.  I think we even drove back from a trip to see my Grandpa on that day.  We took him to Chucky Cheese, and then his grandparents wanted to take him and his cousin (who has a close birthday) to Six Flags this year.

Six Flags was hot!  It was so much fun.

Bruce wanted to get on all the crazy rollercoasters, but he wasn’t quite tall enough for all those yet.

Bruce graduated from Pre-K and started Kindergarten this year!  It was a big change for him to go from a private school to a public school, but we’ve all adjust now and he’s doing great.

It took us a year of waiting and even had a surgery canceled right before he went onto the operating room.  We finally transferred Bruce’s case to Standford Children’s hospital and he had his eye surgery completed in two weeks.  Bruce will always wear glasses, but his eyes are a lot more aligned now.

After the summer, we went to Crunchyroll Expo again this year.  I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first year, but we had a lot of fun staying at a hotel and seeing the TeddyLoid show.  

There was a lot of other stuff going on this year, particularly for my business stuff where I basically buried myself in work in an effort to distract myself.

The subscription box did pretty decently.  We were able to hit my original subscription goal pretty quickly and put out some interesting boxes.

I continued working my food blogging job, but some of my job got outsourced to a few other companies.  This gave me the motivation to start my own LLC where I can produce content.  There will be a lot more coming from that direction next year.

I learned a lot about launching businesses, even more about what kind of business I want to run – and what kind of work makes me the happiest.  I’m focusing on building a company now.

Fall was probably one of my favorite parts of this year even though things were pretty low key.  I feel like I finally started to connect more with the other people in my life in a more meaningful way, and that’s a good thing.  We went to the pumpkin patch this year and trick or treated in our friends’ neighborhood – it was fun!  I actually did some baking this year for once.

This year for our birthdays we both wanted to go to San Francisco.  Felipe wanted to go to Height and Ashburry, so we went just the two of us and browsed record shows and thrift stores.  For mine we brought Bruce and Atticus and visited the Japanese Tea Garden and Japantown.  It was amazing.  <3  

I don’t know what this year will bring, but this last year was probably one of the hardest I’ve had in my life.  I feel like it can only be better this coming year.