Beach Camping

We went Beach Camping with some friends the last weekend before we moved. I had never been beach camping before and I would say that it was a total success.

I will let the pictures do the explaining on how much fun we had!

Before we moved we had to make a stop at Bay Cities for a Godmother Sandwich.

Beach. Sand. Friends. Beer. Fires. Blankets. BBQ. Food. Tents. Sunshine.

Perfect Weekend.

Book Review: Unbroken

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A friend recommend this book to me. I finally checked out the audio book and had a hard time listening to anything else. I didn't know what to expect, but this book was amazing. Unbroken is a true story about Olympic Athlete and WWII veteran Louis Zamperini. This book is about Zamperini's experiences while being imprisoned for over 2 years in a Japanese POW camp and how he reintegrated himself into civilian society after he was released.

This book is well written and captivating. You won't want to put the book down.

We've Moved!

The last 2 years have been the best 2 years of my life. I can't believe that that chapter has come to a close. While I am feeling nostalgic, I can not be more excited for our next adventure: Law School. I could not be more blessed to have such an amazing man by my side and I am so grateful that we have each other during this crazy thing called: Life!

Now we are unpacking our new place and getting settled! We are loving our new setup! We have also been blessed with some amazing friends and people who have gone out of their way to help us and to see us! The entire experience has just been amazing!

We are meeting amazing people and cultivating relationships with them. Everyone is so friendly, which is very different from LA :-)

See ya Later LA! It's been Real, it's been Fun, and it sure has been Real Fun!

Cheers to New Adventures and Lots of Family, Friends and Love!

Book Review - Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

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 I was looking for something to read and went to Oprah's book club site and this was the book that was featured. I checked it out and was not able to put it down. 

Wild is Cheryl Strayed personal memoir of hiking through California and Oregon from the Mojave Dessert to the boarder of Oregon & Washington on 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). The PCT is 2,663 miles in its entirety running from the California/Mexico Boarder all the way to the Washington/Canada Boarder. As I turned the pages I was enchanted by her struggle in her personal life as well as her trials and tribulations on the trail itself. I commend her for taking the leap, selling all of her possessions (except what she needed on the trail), going into the unknown of the wilderness with all that she owned on her back and making the journey of a lifetime. From the people she met to the places she had to sleep and the hard work her body endured to survive is more than inspiring.

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A couple of summers ago, Rich and his friend from high school hiked the John Muir Trail (JMT) which is a section of the PCT in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, starting in (or ending in) Yosemite and ending (or starting at) the summit of Mount Whitney (the highest summit in the contiguous United States). So reading this memoir and remembering Rich's stories made me want to hike the PCT! If she can do it, I can do it!

4th of July 2013 - Mt Baldy

Our 4th was pretty amazing.

We decided to check off yet another item from our LA Bucket List: Hike Mt Baldy.

We woke up early, read: 4am, had some breakfast and hit the road. About 30 minutes into our 60 minute drive I realized that I forgot my hiking poles, read: that means we had to turn around go back home and get them then head back out there again. Needless to say it was very early in the morning and we were about to embark on a very long hike and we started the morning off, well, cranky.

We finally arrived and we immediately started hiking. Let me just tell you that the hike is hard. It is definitely not for the casual hiker, unless you are a superhero. Mt San Antonio - nicknamed Mt Baldy, is the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountain range and its peak is at an elevation of 10,068 feet.

The hike is about 6 miles one way, so 12 in total. It is very steep with many switch backs and the trail is very rocky. The terrain is steep and the views are breathtaking. Fortunately I have a very encouraging husband who was constantly telling me that I was doing a great job and helping me push through the tough sections of the trail. (I am so lucky!)

On the way up, we were mostly in the shade, save for towards the top. And the trail is very steep. Since we began the climb so early the sun was not too hot, as we all know the weather in So Cal this weekend and last was scorching hot. We stopped at the top to catch out breath and rest a bit before the descent. Going down is always the hard part; but like I said, I had my hiking poles {ha!}which helped with some of the impact.

In total the entire hike took us about 7 hours. I am so proud of us, especially myself. I did it with minimal knee pain - yahoo! On the way down, the sun began to get warm and the breezes turned from soft and cool to hot and nasty. We almost jumped into the little pond at the bottom of a waterfall - but sadly everyone else had the same idea, so we decided to trek on home. 

We got home, showered, rested and were asleep by 9:30. We were pooped, to say the least!

I definitely recommend the hike if you are looking for a challenge and to see some amazing views of Los Angeles and its surrounding Valley Area. It was definitely worth the work! :-)

Happy Monday Everyone!

FRIENDS Remake

This video is TOO cool not to share! Especially in light of my weekend and bucket list! 

Happy Friday!

Griffith Observatory & Umami Burger

This past weekend was *hot *hot *hot in LA, oh and it was supposed to be dry heat...but that didn't happen. It was hot and humid and sticky and sweaty. (Have I mentioned before that I would rather be cold than hot?) It was pretty uncomfortable. Fortunately we powered through and I was able to cross off 3 Bucket List Items! :-) (Check out my WB Studio Tour)

During the day is was hot but at night the temperature was better than perfect and the beach sunset was killer!

Rich's cousin visited us in LA to help us cross off more items from our LA Bucket List. 

On Saturday we spent the evening at home watching Batman, drinking wine, and eating bread, cheese and roasted garlic. It was perfect.

On Sunday we woke up, got some much needed coffee and drove out to Griffith Park to check out the Observatory. The Observatory is free and parking is free. Can't get any better than that.

Fortunately we got to the Observatory and the sky was still pretty clear. After walking around the clouds started to roll in and by the end of our self made tour, it was a bit overcast. The views were spectacular from the Observatory. I loved that you could see for miles in every direction and the Hollywood Sign was in the background of most of our pictures.

Tourist Pose.

Rich decided to make his own tourist pose :-)

Downtown Los Angeles.

Flexing...

After the Observatory we headed to Santa Monica for Beers and Burgers at Umami Burger. If you are going to the Santa Monica location, this is located sort of inside of the Fred Segal on the East side of 5th Street (not on Broadway like the address would suggest). We almost gave up because it was a little hard to find. We ordered the Manly Fries - they were silly delicious. All three of us got a different burger and went around tasting all of them. Kelsey ordered The Original, Rich ordered their seasonal Oxtail Burger and I ordered the Truffle Burger.

Oh.My.Gosh. These were delicious. Juicy, flavorful and totally the perfect amount.

I guess you could say they had a lot of Umami... ;-)

Thanks Kelsey for crossing off two of our Bucket List Items with us! We had a blast! 

Book Review: Seriously...I'm Kidding

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So I am indifferent about Ellen. I think that she is inspiring and funny, but I don't love love love her nor do I have to watch her show or read her books. I had just finished Bossypants by Tina Fey and loved it, so I immediately went to amazon, search for Bossypants and went to the "suggestions" for other titles sections and found Ellen's book at the top of the list. I went to my Library's emedia site and luckily the title was available!

Ellen's book was much shorter than Tina's book (see what I did there? I am best friends with both comedians - so I used their first names only). Even though it was shorter, it sure didn't lack in character and comedy. I was laughing almost the entire book - sorry coworkers...I promise I'm not weird!

Ellen is charismatic, intelligent, funny and sarcastic which all comes out through her narrative. The only way I can describe this book is that it is...kind of...a spoof...on self help? maybe? Its funny and totally worth the couple of hours it will take to listen. After reading the book, same as Bossypants, I now wish I didn't have a job and could sit at home and watched Ellen's show. Or, maybe the less extreme, get a DVR.

One of the lines that really tickled my funny bone: "His name was John or Joe, or Wisconsin. I don't know, everyone has weird names these days."

Now, I am allowed to find this funny because I have a weird name. HA!

Happy July!

Happy July!

May this month be full of adventures!

Central Perk in Los Angeles

I made a short bucket list for our time in Los Angeles. 

One of my high school friends had posted a pictures sitting on the FRIENDS couch while visiting a set tour so I immediately added this to my bucket list and did some research on which tour would get.me.on.that.couch.

Rich isn't a die hard FRIENDS fan like I am, so I enlisted another die hard fan who happens to be a college friend of mine to be my partner in crime and we headed out to Burbank for the 3 hour tour.

The VIP Warner Brothers Tour is the tour to do!

This weekend was silly hot...like 100* in the Valley, no thanks.. 

We checked in at the tour, ran over the Claim Jumper, downed a Bloody Mary and then jumped on the extra long golf cart and headed to the Warner Brothers Sets to begin the tour.

The first stop was checking out the car museum where most of the Batman Cars are located. Pretty awesome! 

What is amazing is that most of these cars can actually drive.

The highlight of the tour, for me, was Central Perk. It was seriously amazing!

Look at that couch! 

Iconic!

Then we were able to actually sit on it! Yippee!

After our visit at central perk, we continued on to tour the active set of Pretty Little Liars, The Mentalist and 2 Broke Girls. As we drove around the lot, the tour guide offered a lot of great detail and information about certain iconic movie/TV show scenes and pointed out the shot location.

Who remembers the scene in FRIENDS where Phoebe and Rachel run through Central Park? Well we drove past "Central Park" and decided to hop off of the cart and run like Phoebe. Yes.We.Did.

We had a blast being goofy, silly and star stuck.

If you love movies and watching TV, this was a great set tour and I would totally recommend it!

*link up with Sami's Shenanigans, Funday Monday & Monday Gossip