five on friday: boyhood, good reads, and sweaters

i know everyone is asking this, but seriously though, no one has answered it yet: how the heck is it labor day already? it feels like just yesterday we were packing up boxes in nyc and getting on a plane to europe, and yet here we are, already two weeks into our new life in la. it's pretty insane! a few random thoughts on this friday before the long weekend...

a view of downtown la from silver lake

i'm feeling really left out of all this talk about sweaters, pumpkin spice, and boots, and it's kind of bumming me out! the grass is always greener, i suppose. last fall and winter, all i wanted was sunshine and 80 degrees every day, and now that we have it, it's kind of surreal! i'm not sure what kind of fall shopping to do other than more shorts and sundresses. i know, pity party for one over here.

when my mom was here last weekend, after a long day of walking around in the sun, we parked ourselves in a movie theater to see 'boyhood' and i can't stop thinking about it! such an amazing film, especially because the main actor who plays mason looks JUST like my little brother (er, younger brother, as he's 12 and taller than me), so it was like watching him grow up again. if you haven't seen it, carve three hours out of your weekend and thank me later.

my latest staying-up-way-past-my-bedtime-and-burning-through-my-kindle-battery read was the emotional roller coaster otherwise known as 'the husband's secret'. i seriously had whiplash from all the plot twists (hey-o!), but couldn't put it down and can't wait to read her next book. i think i read that it's going to be turned into a movie, which yes please. highly, highly recommend this book.

we're going on our first la beach trip this weekend! we're going to take off super early to beat traffic and explore malibu, which i've never visited before. fingers crossed for some celeb sightings, which for some reason are far more exciting here than they were in nyc. there is literally nothing better than a nap on the beach, so i'm really excited.

alright, this is me "working" this afternoon. i'm thinking i'm gonna call it an early day. hooray long weekends! hope you have a great one!

11 days or 11 years?

i don't know whether this is a good sign or a bad sign, but i find it very difficult to believe that we've officially lived in LA for only two weeks. i mean, it feels like we've been here for ages and ages, and i think that means we might be home! i've found a great running path and yoga studio, figured out a daily routine, located all our nearest j.crews and whole foods, and pretty much have settled right into things. quick sunset picture interlude because obviously:

taken right in front of our apartment's entrance

and to really feel like we're at home, we had our first guest come stay with us... my mom came to visit from austin!

we did all kinds of neighborhood exploring and walking and eating, and to top it all off, on monday we went shopping at the grove with my mom and sister's personal stylist from austin, laurel from trophy boutique. it was SO MUCH FUN. i was in desperate need of a wardrobe revamp, given the fact that i no longer need any office attire and want to totally west coastify my clothes. so with laurel's help, i went way out of my comfort zone of striped t-shirts and j.crew chino shorts, and even bought a romper. A ROMPER. i never thought i'd see the day, but good lord is it comfortable.

at the end of the spree

i am super pumped to have some new clothes to wear out and about and love the idea of reinventing myself in this new place. i mean, what else is turning 30 and moving across the country good for? although you can pry my striped t-shirts from my cold, dead hands, i'll occasionally branch out now. for realsies.

can we also talk about how it's labor day weekend already? holy crap. has this summer been nuts or what?

thoughts on thursday: meet frankie!

um, look who arrived yesterday!

a VERY happy early birthday to me! meet frankie, my new prized possession. frankie and i are already BFFs and are going to explore all of LA together. i can tell that this is the start of a long and happy relationship. she just needs a bell, a basket, and a rider with a less dorky helmet, and we'll be all set.

this whole turning 30 thing is pretty swell!

a very LA kale salad

hello from los angeles! it's been five days since we got here, and we've been crazy busy just getting settled and exploring our new neighborhood. honestly, i don't know why we didn't move here ten years ago. i'm loving it so far, and can't believe i'm lucky enough to call this place home now.

much, much more to say on that front, but in the meantime, go check out a guest post i did over at jessica's blog about the best kale salad everrrr (i know, very la of me, right?) and i'll be back soon!

today's the day!

image via

it's a day that's been marked on our calendars since january of this year... and tonight, we will fall asleep in our new city! i cannot wait to wake up tomorrow and start exploring. i keep checking the weather to see what it's going to be like, forgetting that it's going to be 85 and sunny every day forever. old habits die hard...

hope your weekend is just as momentous and exciting as ours (but requires less time in a car driving down I-5). happy friday!

last week at the gorge

before i share some pics of the amazing concert we went to last week, can i ask you to send some good vibes to some of our best friends who just gave birth to their son at 30 weeks? he's in the NICU and to make it more complicated, they were visiting DC from NYC when she went into labor, so they're stuck away from home for at least a month while he gets stronger. i'm really proud of the way our group of friends sprung into action to send love and support, but if anyone has ideas on how we can best take care of them during the next few weeks, i'm all ears! and of course, sending some get strong thoughts to sweet owen would be amazing. thank you!

so last friday after we packed up in seattle, our first stop en route to california was at the gorge, this incredible concert venue in eastern washington that overlooks the columbia river. it's so beautiful on its own, the concert itself is almost an afterthought. we saw arcade fire (SO GOOD) and the people-watching was probably the other highlight outside of all that nature. some very... um, special people made the trek out to the middle of nowhere - obviously, we are totally normal and don't fall into that category. right? right. anyways, i was on a sunset picture taking tear. kind of hard not to be, i mean look at that view. oh, and of course, arcade fire was totally amazing and i'd highly recommend catching them live if you can!

serious concert selfie

totally normal, just like i said. right?

just a bunch of normal matching french shoes. because we're normal.

look where we are!

yes, blake is actually excited. he just chooses not to show it, apparently.

we made it! well, almost. we are officially in california! we're staying in sacramento with my dad for the next few days, and then finally (FINALLY!) heading to la on friday afternoon. it was so exciting to cross that state line, and totally surreal after our summer of bopping all around the planet.

all packed and ready to hit the road! 

my view for much of the day. 

mt. shasta in northern california

selfie payback for blake not smiling in our state line picture.

our weekend was jam-packed, with an arcade fire concert at the gorge friday night (more to come on that), a 14 hour drive from eastern washington on saturday, and then on sunday *drum roll please* we got a car!!

cr-v, i love you.

yes that's right, we officially have a set of wheels to call our own, and it's the very first time in my life that i've had one. i'm not gonna lie, it feels awesome. i can just hop in and go anywhere i want, anytime i want! pure luxury.

ah yes, it's all coming together. los angeles: are you ready for us?

so long, seattle. next stop: california.

well, today another chapter of our epic summer adventure comes to an end. remember when we lived in nyc? yeah, me neither. that was approximately seven million years ago at this point. anyways, we've been spoiled rotten in seattle both by the weather and by blake's parents, but our three weeks here have totally flown by! i could happily stay another month, but it's time for us to pack up and keep on moving. and by pack up, of course i mean throw all of our clothes in the trunk of the car because i'm sick of packing suitcases. might even use a garbage bag or two, that's how classy our travel has become!

tonight, we're headed to see arcade fire at the gorge, which i am so excited about, and then tomorrow, we head out from eastern washington down to sacramento, where our next pit stop is at my dad's house until the 15th. anybody have a good road trip playlist that lasts, oh, i don't know, 12 hours or so? i predict an epic battle for control of spotify tomorrow.

i'll leave you with one final amazing seattle sunset seen from the deck last night, as i've got some clothes to put in trash bags. see ya in california!

thoughts for thursday: salmon, novels, and august goals

owwwww. i can't believe i managed to get out of bed this morning after taking my first barre class last night. um. holy workout. i used muscles that i didn't even know existed! it was kind of amazing, and a really fun change of pace from yoga and running. i've already found a barre place close to our sublet in la and i can see myself totally getting into it. anyways, it's thursday!! so i have some thoughts! it's thoughts on thursday, yahoo! check out the link-up over with nat and annie.

pistachio-crusted salmon
so blake's parents best friend went on a fishing trip up in british columbia and came home with 50lbs of fresh salmon and halibut. luckily, we got to share in that bounty, and cooked up a huge fresh seafood feast last night, including my first go at this recipe from nomnompaleo. and wow, it was incredible. for the halibut, i just baked it with some homemade pesto, and that wasn't half-bad. but this salmon totally stole the show - i'd highly recommend making it in the near future!

tell the wolves i'm home
i stayed up way past my bedtime the other night to finish this book in less than two days because i absolutely loved it. it's the story of a girl who is really close with her uncle, and it explores their relationship while he's dying of AIDS. what i really loved about it is the portrayal of the main character and her older sister - it's pretty much a spot on story about teenage girls (the good, the bad, the ugly). if you're looking for a new read, then this should be at the top of your list. but now i'm searching for a new novel, so let me know if you have any recommendations!

august goals
fine, i know, we're like a week into august already and i haven't done a post on setting goals like i did back in july. but this month, a big goal that my sister, mom, and i made is to email each other at least once a day, every day. we are all really busy and in different time zones, and sometimes end up going way too long without connecting or keeping each other up to date on what's happening in each other's lives. so far, we've made it through to the 7th! excited to see how the rest of the month goes.

tomorrow is our last day in seattle!! and tomorrow night we're heading to see arcade fire out at the gorge before driving down to sacramento on saturday. we're almost to california!!

our weekend was: the blue angels and bbq edition

it was our final weekend here in seattle, and if there's one thing i learned about this city, it's that once a year, they go absolutely apeshit for the blue angels. there's an annual festival called sea fair which has all kinds of parades, hydroplane races, military demonstrations, and other assorted weird... i mean interesting activities. and the highlight of sea fair is the BLUE MOTHERFREAKIN ANGELS. i mean, i'm not gonna lie, i got pretty swept up into it. we watched them practice on thursday, went to a friend's deck to watch a show on friday, and then went across the city to a beach for primo viewing of their show on saturday. yes, for those of you keeping track at home, that's three days worth of airplane acrobatics.

it's pretty damn hard to watch them and not fist pump while yelling "AMERICAAAAA!!!" at the same time. also, it doesn't hurt that they're all super dreamy, as if handsomeness is some kind of job requirement. in fact, i wouldn't be surprised if it is. needless to say, our weekend pretty much revolved around the MOTHER FREAKING BLUE ANGELS! but we did some other stuff too!

on sunday, we hosted a bbq for blake's high school buddies and their wives/families/etc, so it was really fun to catch up with all of them and hear embarrassing stories about teenage blake (of which there are many). not to mention the weather was incredible, yet again. i made a pretty damn awesome kale salad with mango, cucumber, red pepper, pumpkin seeds, and some fresh basil in the vinaigrette. highly recommend that combination, if you're looking for a new kale salad go-to.

the evening culminated in a pretty fiercely competitive shuffleboard game, which i'm not embarrassed to say i dominated. yes, that's right, i like to vacation in palm springs AND play shuffleboard. just send me to a retirement home already.

finally we watched the most incredible sunset i've ever seen over lake washington. i actually still can't really get over it. i've done absolutely zero editing to this photo, by the way. i swear to you. nature, man. it's nuts. 

how was your weekend??

five on friday: i'm alive, i swear!

holy. crap. hello! this week has been one thing after another and none of those things have involved blogging. alas, here we are on a friday yet again, so how about i catch you up on what's gone on the past seven or so days?

we survived the family reunion. 
and miraculously, so did everyone else! it was certainly a lot of together time, but i mostly marveled at the fact that blake's family has been doing this every four years for the past 30 or so, when my family wouldn't even be able to visit the same state together without melting down. and yes, there are all kinds of idiosyncrasies and politics and dysfunctional members as there are in every family (so i hear), but it was pretty cool to be a part of this one! oh and we got a lot of fun boat rides and meals out of it. win win.

then i got sick. 
like really sick. monday night was the worst, and let's just say it will be a long time before i eat steak with chimichurri sauce again (DAMMIT, THAT'S MY FAVORITE). tmi? sorry. but in a lovely twist of fate, turns out that on top of some weird 24 hour bug, i got a terrible head cold - yes, in july - and have been feeling miserable since tuesday. it is now friday, and i am over. it. still feeling only about 75%, but i'm hoping that i can finally get back to normal to enjoy this beautiful weekend in seattle! also it would be great if i could stop sounding like an 85 year old smoker hacking up a lung.

oh, but in between, i bought this dress!
eek, i want it now!! eagerly awaiting ups this afternoon and trying to decide if it's too fancy to wear to a bbq tomorrow afternoon. probably?

and i got my hair cut. 
but since i've either been puking or sneezing since then, it's been rather difficult to get a good picture. so you'll just have to wait for the big reveal in a few days. but i looooove it!

also i might just never leave seattle.
or really, i guess i'd like to summer in seattle. having been here in the winter, i know it's not always like this, so i'd rather spend july and august here when it is stunningly perfect. and yesterday, the blue angels were practicing right over us for a few hours, and it was pretty much the coolest thing ever. they're doing a big show for a week-long festival called seafair, and we're going down to the boat this afternoon to watch it. yes, another friday on a boat.

this weekend, we've got a few bbq's, and i'm dying to get back to yoga and go stand up paddle-boarding. our time here is flying by! what's on your agenda this weekend?