I Like to Move It, Move It

Pardon my absence from blog land.

We've been doing a little bit of this...

And unpacking a whole bunch of these...

And taking trips to IKEA to build these for our new garage!

Never in my life would I have thought I could be so excited about a friggin' garage. But I am. I guess that means I'm an adult.

House tour pictures to come soon after we have more stuff on the walls!



Home Sweet (Town) Home

This weekend we finalized where we're going to live in San Diego!

We saw and debated a lot of locations, but finally agreed that the placed we like the most was this adorable town home in the Liberty Station area of Pt. Loma.

2 beds, 2.5 baths, our own garage, and a pretty reasonable price (for San Diego). Lots of good restaurants and a Trader Joes are within walking distance.

Oh and, here is the view off our balcony. A beautiful park, the San Diego Bay, and Downtown San Diego!

 

We move-in in less than two weeks! I am SO excited!

Now I'm focused on decorating ideas. :)

The walls are a light mocha and the cabinets and counter tops are all white. So it's really a nice blank slate. I have a lot of turquoise decor items (I gotta have my turquoise) but I'm trying to think of other colors to accent turquoise, white, and brown with. Green maybe? I made a Pinterest board to help me brainstorm ideas. Let me know if you have any ideas for me!

To Live and Die in LA

In 2001, after I visited Los Angeles and officially accepted my offer to attend USC, I played 2Pac's To Live and Die in LA on repeat in my car for days (because, ya know, I was hard-core, little, suburban blond girl that had 2Pac CDs). I was so excited that I was going to be living in the City of Angels.

So 11 years later it's a very bittersweet feeling to be leaving.

There are a few things about LA that I'm going to miss. A LOT. 

First and foremost, my friends. I've been best friends with these girls since college and I'm gonna miss them like crazy. But I'm sure I'll be back in LA a lot to see them.

Being just 25 minutes away from my beloved USC. Our commute to home games just got a lot longer. 

Our church, The Garden. We were SO blessed to find an amazing community of believers right here in downtown Long Beach. I'll miss our pastor, our church friends, and being able to walk to Sunday morning gatherings.

The USC Long Beach Alumni Club. I've loved getting to know this crazy crew over the past couple of years. Good people.

Our favorite restaurants and bars in Long Beach. Congregation Ale House, District Wine, Beachwood BBQ, Yard House, Allegria, Le Creparie, Wokano, George's Greek, and 555 East - I will miss you and your delicious eats, but my waistline won't!

 

There are a lot of things I won't miss, including, not limited to: LAX, The 405, pretentious Hollywood-types, the brown LA haze /smog, driving into West LA on the clogged side-streets, power plants/oil refineries located next to beaches, and random traffic jams at midnight.

The countdown is on, in just three weeks I'll no longer be a resident of LA. Eeeek!

Home is where I want to be

For the past three months we've been on a quest to find "home."

We tossed a lot of ideas around. Seattle? San Jose? Denver? San Diego? San Francisco?

And we seriously pursued a few of them.

But one place emerged as the winner...

For both personal and professional reasons.

It's the first place I ever called home...

San Diego!!!

In the next three weeks we need to find a place to live, say goodbye to LA, and move. Stressful but exciting!

Ski, Celebrate, Ski, Celebrate ...

I realize I've been woefully absent recently. I blame that on my general feelings of "what the heck should I blog about these days?!" and the fact that I've been really busy.

What have I been busy doing?...

In early March we spent three days at the Canyons in the Utah. It snowed A TON right before we got there and at the beginning of our trip, so we had AMAZING snow.



We stayed slope-side at the Hyatt Escala (thank you Hyatt points!) and really enjoyed it. Here's the view from our suite.


Then we celebrated St. Patrick's day with a party bus bar crawl with a bunch of USC/Long Beach friends. Ridiculous!

Us:

(Yes, my husband had a beard. Yes, he's shaved now.)

Our crazy crew:


Later in March we celebrated a family friend's wedding in Temecula, CA.


My Dad was a reader at the wedding and did a great job.


The day after the wedding we did a little wine tour around Temecula (South Coast, Thornton, and Callaway) and picked up some yummy white wines.


We finished up March with another ski trip BACK to Utah to celebrate a friend's 30th Birthday.


The snow wasn't as good this time because it was 55 degrees on the slopes (yikes!). But we had a blast anyway.


I started off April with another celebration in San Diego where I got to meet Rachel and her husband for lunch/sightseeing while they were on their Spring Break.


Rachel and I have been blogging, emailing, and gchatting buddies for years, so it was AMAZING to finally meet her in person! She is just as sweet and as cute as she is on her blog. Come back and visit CA soon, Rachel!

So that gets you up to speed. Some more life updates from me will be coming your way soon!

The Happiest Place(s) on Earth

A couple of weekends ago we spent two days at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.

The parks were doing $99 for two days for California residents which is a pretty good deal. We hadn't been to Disneyland in a while and the Mr. had never been to California Adventure, so we decided to go for it!

We spent the first day at Disneyland...



We did some shopping on Main Street.


And rode a ton of rides.

I love this look of intensity on both of our faces on Buzz Lightyear.


We loved the throwback Captain EO 3-D Show. I TOTALLY remember seeing this as a child. The Mr. liked it so much that he bought a Captain EO shirt (see later pictures)


We pretty much rode all the key rides in the morning -- Indiana Jones, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Pirates of Caribbean, Star Tours, and Haunted Mansion.

Then we ate lunch at Blue Bayou (the restaurant inside of Pirate of the Caribbean). The food isn't amazing but the ambiance is great!

Then in the afternoon we rode some of the "kiddie" rides.

While in line for Small World a boat got stuck because it was overloaded. Hilarious.


For dinner we went back to our hotel, The Sheraton Anaheim, for free food and wine in the Club Lounge. Yum!


Then we back to the park to see the fireworks and ride a few more rides.


We did some goofing around on Space Mountain (the second time we rode it).



We spent the second day at California Adventure...


We had a blast riding the California Screamin' Rollercoaster and The Tower of Terror.


But I was most excited for the Little Mermaid Ride. I'd been wanting a Little Mermaid ride at Disneyland since I was 7 years old and it was my favorite movie. I don't even care that the ride is for kids, it was so great! Here's a little peak at a fish from it:


We spent most of the afternoon exploring the park, seeing some 3D shows, and having a couple of beers. I love that California Adventure serves beer and wine!


I hadn't been to California Adventure since 2002 and they've done a LOT to improve the park since then. The wharf section is so cute!


We really lucked out with weather. It was a gorgeous Sunday at the park!


We had a great time at the parks, but both of us concluded that it feels a little strange to be 30/almost 30 at Disneyland with no kids. We decided that the next time we go back we'll have to borrow someone's kids or bring our (not yet even conceived) kids.

And then I got an iPhone...

A few weeks ago I got an iPhone. And since then I've been busy!


Busy asking Siri questions, telling her to set my alarm, and yelling at her when she she doesn't understand me.


Busy making words with my friends.


And busy Instagramming everything in sight...

Random mementos from our dinner at Melisse? Instragrammed.


Pet cemetery at Disneyland? Instragammed.


Myself in the car? Instagrammed!


Seriously, I have to resist the urge take a picture of every inanimate object in sight just to instagram it. Who knew a few photo filters could be SO addicting?

I know I am about 4 years late to the iPhone party, but I have to say, I like it a lot. I feel like my old Droid was pretty good (probably because Droids are becoming more like iPhones every month), but the iPhone is just a little more "slick" and easy to use.

I've got lot of other apps too... Pandora, Pinterest, CNN, Yelp, Flixter, Netflix, MyFitnessPal, The Bible, Southwest, and All Snow. But I'm always on the hunt for new apps. What iPhone apps do you like?