Life Update #1

So, apparently I took about a sabbatical from blogging. I miss writing, sharing my life, and my blog friends so I'm officially back! First I will have a series of posts about what I've been doing for the past two months and then hopefully jump back into regular updates!

About a month ago we went camping in Little Lakes Valley a few hours north of LA. We hiked in to the park with HUGE (and I seriously mean HUGE, like I'm going to pass out HUGE) bags on our backs. We hiked several miles to our campground overlooking a beautiful lake, surrounded by mountains. It was literally the most beautiful and peaceful place I've ever been. At night, the stars.. oh my I can't even explain how amazing the stars were.


Here is a picture of the whole group at our lovely campsite in our "kitchen" where we spent most of our time enjoying pitas, peanut butter, and dehydrated meals (which were surprising delicious, or maybe we were just surprisingly hungry and willing to eat anything..).


This was probably one of the toughest and most physically draining weekend's I ever experienced. I wouldn't say I'm the most "out-doorsy" of girls but I actually did enjoy my time in the wilderness. It was nice to get out of LaLa Land for the weekend and enjoy the fresh air.

I'm on a boat...

I got my swim trunks, and my flippy floppys..


Yes, this weekend we'll be "on a boat!" but we won't be with Andy Samberg and T-Pain, we're spending the weekend with family on Lake Erie.

I plan to read my book, drink cocktails, swim, and enjoy family time before we head back to the city of angels Sunday night.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about or who Andy Samberg and T-Pain are, see this video. It's a joke, Mom.

Where are we?

We're not in LaLa land this week folks. In fact, we are very very far away from LA..

So where in the world is Ali?

I'm in Ohio folks! It's hot and humid here, I'm afraid I may melt.

We spent the weekend with my family having a blast at the Marriot in Cincinatti. My family loves hotel rooms, we always spend our weekends together in hotels since we're all from different locations around the country (NYC, South Carolina, Chicago, Florida, San Fran, and LA!)



Now we're back in Toledo enjoying time with friends and hubby's family.

It's good to be home.

(but don't worry LaLa Land, I still love you!)

Help Me Plan A Trip

Our one year anniversary (has it really been a year!?) is coming up next month. I am very excited to celebrate and get over the one year hump. On that note, we are looking to do something very inexpensive (and I mean, VERY) for our anniversary weekend. We obviously live in California so there has to be millions of fun, inexpensive, getaways for couples but I don't know any. We're willing to travel and would love to drive up the PCH but I can't find anything that's very reasonable for us. Has anyone ever done Priceline successfully? I'm nervous to try it!

So I need advice! Have you ever done anything fun and cheap in California? Comment or email me ali.in.lalaland@gmail.com

These are our puppy dog faces saying, puh-puh-puh please help!

Disaster's and Ugg Boots

Have you ever noticed that when you're out of town everything goes wrong? That's how I felt this week when I was in Ohio and my darling hubby was left home alone in LA. Peter had a bowling night with his company on Thursday, he came home got in bed and heard a strange dripping noise. He got up to check it out and found that water was pouring all over our clothes closet in our bedroom (OMG). He removed everything from the closet and hung it out to dry, called the maintenance department and went to sleep. Keep in mind that this happened around midnight LA time which would be 3 AM Eastern time so he didn't bother me with a phone call. The next day I get a phone call from a LA area code and immediately answer hoping it's some wonderful company offering me a great job with tons of money sadly it's not, it's our apartment complex maitenance man (M.M.) asking for permission to enter our unit to fix the water leak. At this point, I'm all "what water leak are you talking about" and M.M. says "I don't know, we got a request to fix a leak in your closet." So I let the dear M.M. into the apartment and immediately ring my darling Peter.. "um, hi babe, what's leaking in my closet??"

Long story short, the hot water pipe burst in our clothes closet! Did you know hot water pipes burst in southern california when it's 75 degrees everyday? No? Neither did I. I'm home everyday but of course the pipe would burst when I'm out of town for five days! Of course! None of my clothes ended up being too ruined except for my precious Uggs which I will be making a claim about to the complex and hopefully recieving some $$. I also need them to foot the bill for the dry cleaners that I will certainly be attending soon. Kudos to my hubby who took care of everything while I was away!

Home Sweet Hollywood

I'm back to LA and so happy to be here. My guest blogger hubby never showed up! I'm sorry if you were disappointed, maybe I can talk him into a post sometime this week. I had a great time in Ohio with my girlfriends and the wedding was perfect. The weekend was a whirlwind of non-stop wedding fun! While Ohio feels homey, I really missed the beauty of California, it's seriously so beautiful here! Today I'm detoxing, resting, catching up on blogs, and cleaning up after a minor household disaster that struck while I was away (more on that later). I didn't take any pictures this weekend, but I will try to post some once they start trickling in on Facebook. Happy Monday!

Honeymooners

Today I was dreaming of hammocks, private pools, pinacoladas, all you can eat buffets, and the nicest darn people you'll ever meet. I was dreaming of our Jamaican honeymoon. Oh how I loved our week in paradise. I know that I live in a very temperate and warm weather climate now, but it just doesn't compare to a week at the beach on the Caribbean!



After talking with a AAA travel agent we decided to go to a Sandals resort. At first we wanted to go to St. Lucia but after pricing out the flight details we figured out it would be half the price to go to Jamaica instead. I was hesitant at first because I had been to Jamaica in high school thanks to my incredible best friend and her family (they are in love with Jamaica and helped me to fall in love with the country too!) We decided it wasn't such a big deal that I had been before since we were staying at a huge resort in a different town. So we decided on a private villa with a butler at Sandals Grande Ocho Rios and it was NOT a mistake. I've never felt so pampered and taken care of in my life. The butler, her name was Trudie and we loved her, was a great addition to the trip, she would make all of our dinner and activity reservations and make sure we had the best table each night. She also stocked our fridge every day with soda, juice, bottled water, cheese, and fruit!



We loved napping in the shade at one of the many hidden hammocks. We had our own personal pool in the backyard which is where I spent most of my time laying in the sun. We enjoyed delicious dinners every night and room service breakfast every morning. We took a cruise boat (read: booze cruise) to Dunn's River Falls and climbed a humongous waterfall. Most of all we enjoyed our first vacation as a married couple.

san fran weekend review

Remember watching Full House? Well, I do, it was my favorite show as a child, so visiting San Francisco was sort of a a childhood dream come true! If only I was 10 years old and I could search for the Tanners. But alas, I'm an adult and I was visiting family, not stalking Full House filming locations (darn it!)

As you can see below we did lots of fun touristy activities...





We visited the seals at Fisherman s Wharf, rode a cable car, explored Chinatown (bought some "designer" goods), had a delicious dinner at the swanky Asia De Cuba at the trendy Clift Hotel, explored my cousins restaurant Roy's Hawaiian Fusion, and had an all around great weekend.