SoCal - LAX to Irvine

Last thursday as i was walking out of the office my boss asked if i had room in my schedule to take on a pretty huge project...that might require travel to California.  I said, sure...even though i wasn't sure, i was thinking that i was pretty busy at work and even busier with non-work stuff...but with the state of my company and wanting to make sure i was involved in high visibility stuff...i decided it was something i needed to do.  come friday i was booking my flight to Los Angeles for the following monday morning.  well really it barely counts as morning since i was up at 4:30, gross.


got to LAX an hour early...thought it was just me mixing up the time zones, but nope, that pilot must've been in a bit of a rush.  got to see the grand canyon on the way in and also witness the insane smog over LA, really couldn't believe how thick it was or how defined the line was up against the mountains.  Picked up my first ever rental car (i'm such a big girl) which was a new 4 door hatchback ford focus...and as much as it hurts my soul, i've gotta admit it was a much nicer car than i thought!   Synced my phone to bluetooth, called mz, used my favorite app ever (google navigation - only reason i can't commit to iphone yet) and then headed out to conquer the 405 to Irvine.  Insanely huge highway but luckily it was early afternoon so the traffic wasn't bad and everyone seems to know how to drive out there!


took a detour onto route 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) around Seal Beach and took that through Newport Beach.  I was really put off and surprised by the area around Huntington Beach.  The oil rigs right off shore were kinda ugly but there weren't too many...BUT right on the other side of the highway had a lot of energy plants and oil derrick looking things...really weird and made me feel like the beach was dirty, even though it looked pristine.


Made it to Irvine in a little over an hour and headed straight to work.  It was a loooong day and by the time I checked into my hotel I wasn't really up for a driving around too much so I drove to the University of California at Irvine.  Why?  Because i figured it would be a safe area (not that I ever saw any sketchy areas near Irvine, but it was my first day, i had no clue) AND because there was an In 'N Out Burger there!  I'd heard so much about that place...but in the end left a bit disappointed :-/.  Think i'd prefer a 5 guys, sorry to say.  Guess it's just one of those things you have to try though!


Instagram pics over on the right side of the blog...


more of the trip to come!

cute as a button

since our families live about 250 miles apart, we end up swapping holidays and this year we were in sunny NJ for Mother's Day.  Which also happened to be 'photoshoot with new baby Benjamin' morning!

Bryan & Vicky sure do have a cute little munchkin!  so exciting to have a new member of the family and to be an aunt for the first time!

more pictures of this love bug here...and i'm sure many more to come! :)

Road trip to the District

...no, not district 13, although that would be pretty interesting.

Last weekend we braved the beltway and headed to Washington, DC to visit Huzie in his new place.  He lives in an AMAZING penthouse apartment in a really cool up-and-coming area of DC that you can tell is going to be THE spot to live in the next year or so.  It's still in the early stages but there's a beautiful park and tons of construction going on that preserves many of the original factory/foundry/etc buildings that (i think) used to all be part of the Navy Yard.

Although we arrived nearly past my bedtime on friday, we headed out to grab some grub at the ugly mug over by the Marine barracks.  we sat outside and enjoyed the wonderful weather and then got a special treat (aside from the tater-tots).  there was some event going on across the street and we caught a glimpse of the silent drill platoon spinning their shiny rifles while listening to the marine corps band!  it really made for a great night!  they even had all of the street lights partially covered during the event and it just gave you the feeling of being in pleasantville.

Saturday was Cinco de Mayo, so of course we had to eat....KOREAN BBQ!!! from a food truck!  i didn't actually eat anything mexican, such a travesty.   BUT we were at Trucko de Mayo (which we were all convinced was really trucko de mayo.naise) so it was totally okay that we weren't shoving our faces with guacamole.  before that we had spent the morning in georgetown...which i loved, obvi...and that night we crossed into virginia to hang out in Old Town, Alexandria which also was F.U.N!!  and full of ice cream :).

Sunday we had an gut-busting breakfast in Arlington before heading to Arlington National Cemetery to do lots of walking and searching for Huzie's great-great-uncle who was buried there.  some videos in case you want to feel like you were there.  ignore the shaky camera work, i was limited to one hand for a bit.





check here for pictures! and check out my instagram feed (to the right) for even more pics!