Adventures in the Windy City

Last weekend we spent three days in Chicago!

 

The trip had two purposes. 1) to help my grandma move out her old house. 2) to introduce The Mr. to Chicago since he'd never been there! 

We spent the first day packing up and cleaning out my grandma's old house. She lived in this house since 1951!

She's been living in an assisted-living retirement home for almost a year, so needless to say there was some pretty gross stuff to clean out. Like really old food. YUM!

That night we saw a comedy show at Second City (improv and sketch comedy). Second City has launched the careers of TONS of SNL stars. It was hilarious!

On day two we continued to clean out the house and pack up stuff to ship to CA for me and my parents.

That night we went with my parents to Greek Town to a Greek Islands restaurant for yummy Greek food.

The we drove around the city and saw University of Illinois Chicago where my dad went to college. Then we looked at the gorgeous city lights from the Adler Planetarium.

On the third day we took a massive tour of Chicago. We walked all around the loop.

We went up to the top of Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower)

They have this cool thing now where you can walk on these enclosed glass ledges. Pretty awesome and surprisingly thrilling.

My mom kept trying to take a picture of us with my iPhone, but kept failing. She finally got one and I just love the looks on our faces. Pure disgust.

Then we went over to Millennium Park.

 

I couldn't believe so many kids were playing in fountain! But there looked like they were having so much fun it was a blast to watch.

 

 Next we went over to THE BEAN! 

It's such a fun piece of interactive art.

 Then we walked around some more in Millennium park.

After that we took a quick taxi over to Navy Pier to walk around and get a drink. 

It was SUCH as pretty day.

We ended out tour with a water taxi from Navy Pier back to where our car was parked by Willis Tower. It was really fun to boat in the river.

Next time we go I want to go to more museums. We just didn't have time this time!

We're always on the go. And NOLA recommendations wanted...

We're settling into our new home and loving it. I wish I had more time to just be home and enjoy San Diego, but it's hard because it seems we're always on the go!

I'm gone for work during the week a lot. And we have lots of other long weekend trips happening.

Last weekend we were in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Here's an aerial shot of where we spent most of our time.

That's right. Laaaazzzzy river, baby! We got upgraded to a poolside suite at the Westin Kierland. Thanks Starwood!

This Summer we're also going to Chicago, Boston, and the Oregon Coast. Whew!

AND this Fall we're going to New Orleans. I just booked our hotels and flights for a 4.5 day trip to The Big Easy!

I've never been to NOLA before, so I need recommendations from all of you southern gals! Where to eat? What to do? Other tips?

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!