Young the Giant Concert

This past Friday morning a friend emailed me that she had an extra ticket to Young the Giant concert in San Diego and invited me along. I've been listening to the Young the Giant station on Pandora for months now, so even though I'm not usually a big concert person, I went along.

The venue, SOMA, is pretty grungy and was full of drunk, sweaty teenagers. But the show was really worth going to (including the opening band, Walk the Moon). Young the Giant is one of those rare bands that sounds just as amazing live as they do on their record. And they're from Irvine!

Apartments, live on Jimmy Kimmel


also My Body & Cough Syrup


If you aren't already listening to Young the Giant, you're welcome!
and if you are, I'm sure you'll enjoy another dose of it this Monday :-)


all photos taken by me via my iPhone.

Blog Friend Meet-up

Sara of Running from the Law has been a long-time blog friend and I was thrilled when she emailed me (months ago!) about a work trip to San Diego. We met up on Tuesday night in Coronado for a dinner of delicious French food, where I sipped wine selfishly in front of her growing baby belly. (which was adorable, by the way!)

Every time I get the chance to meet up in real life with friends I've only known on the internet, it feels a little like a first date. But always I'm amazed by how easy it is to fall into comfortable conversation - after all, we've been reading about each other's lives for years! Sara was no exception and I'm happy to consider her a friend.

Happy weekend!

Staycation in San Diego

Part of my Christmas gift to E was a night's stay in San Diego during our week off. A little staycation.

We started with some quiet reading time at Barnes and Noble.  E is always reading, but this time it was for fun, not school!


One of E's stocking stuffers was movie tickets. We went to see The Descendants. I'm amazed that George Clooney could pull off the family man character, but he did and the movie was very poignant.

Dinnertime found us in Little Italy at a place called Mimmo's Italian Village. I had looked up reviews and recommendations for moderately priced Italian, and we ended up here. It turned out to be just ok. The pasta dishes were good, but when we wanted to order 'secondo' (and no, we didn't even use the Italian word for it) the waitress was surprised and asked if we wanted to take it to go. Not a good sign for an Italian restaurant. Also, E thought it was amusing that they were playing the Godfather soundtrack in the background. Anyway, we know we're never going to find the same amazing food without paying more money than we have right now. I'd give Mimmo's a 3/5 stars.

We stayed the night at the San Diego Hilton Resort & Spa, which would have been nice, except their jacuzzi had ridiculous amounts of chlorine in it and it ruined my bathing suit (and my contacts, and dried out our skin  blah). It's taken over a week to get reimbursed and get it all sorted out. (You may have heard about this on Twitter) So that part was pretty disappointing and frustrating and I kind of want to forget about.




For breakfast we planned to go to a spot that E's been talking about for a while - Hash House A Go Go. It's located in the Hillcrest neighborhood and it's popular. We slept in and didn't arrive until after 10am so we had an hour wait to get seated. Thankfully, there's a coffee shop a block down so we sipped on lattes and read while we waited. It was well worth the wait We had recommendations for our choices...I ordered the sage chicken benedict (with chipotle hollandaise!) and E ordered banana walnut french toast. Each plate was easily enough for two of us, and we eat a lot!

We went home mostly rested, full, and happy.

San Diego Power Outage

Our day took an unexpected turn yesterday when around 3:45pm San Diego experienced a massive power outage. My office doesn't have any windows (it used to be a storage closet) so everything went PITCH black. My boss who was meeting with me at the time said he braced himself for an explosion. Scary!

After waiting for 15 minutes, we all went home a little earlier than normal thinking it was just a local outage in North County. On the drive home we heard a press conference from SDG&E that power was out for all of San Diego County, down to Baja and Mexicali and as far north as San Clemente! (see latest news story) They told us to brace for a long-term power outage. It was eery driving past banks with LONG lines outside and grocery stores dimly lit with a cash register or two going.  (Everyone was coming out with ice and beer!)

E had planned a poker night with the guys, and decided to still go for it, so I invited all the wives to come over for a bonfire to wait it out. What else to do when there's a power outage but have a party? The guys played by battery powered lantern light, and we took out all the ice cream from the freezer to eat before it melted.





Thought the power came back on around 2am, E's school/my work are closed today...so we're enjoying California's equivalent of a snow day, and this unexpected three-day-weekend. Have a good one!

ps. See my guest post on Italian Eats at Couple of Crumbs today!

Labor Day Weekend

We just had one of those weekends. We didn't do anything, but it was just about perfect.

The three-day-weekend snuck up on us and Friday E & I thought - wow, maybe we should have planned something big. A getaway, or a staycation, or a barbecue with friends.







But we didn't. Instead, I met a soon-to-be-married friend for drinks and ceviche in a newly thrifted dress.





I went to a baby shower for A (see her gender reveal party here - I can't stop watching it) and we celebrated the new life inside of her with brownie sundaes.

We went to church and the beach where I fell asleep on my stomach for two hours and got sufficiently fried.





Yesterday we had a lazy morning - and it rained! So E caught up on his video games and I tried something new with my hair. We hit souplantation for a late lunch/early supper.

Then errands were run, books were read, and flashcards were studied (Greek starts for me again this week and E just began his last year of school!) The sunset lasted forever.



Today I'm just basking in the glow of the last three days. How 'bout you?

Weekend with Cait

My dear friend Caitlin is out visiting from Michigan, hence the radio silence. But I've also been busy posting daily at my style tumblr: Latte Loves Style through a 21-day clothing challenge hosted by Freckles in April.

Here's day eight's outfit.
Location: a colorfully tiled mural in La Jolla.



Since Cait's heading back to the mitten today, here are some other fun photos of her short visit:















1. Vista Farmer's Market
2 & 3. Old California Coffee House + lattes
4 & 5. Breakfast at Peterson's Donuts
6. Crab Cake sandwiches at The Cottage in La Jolla
7. Cait in front of the rainbow mural

ps. Other Adventures with Cait

brew-tasting and food-trucking

We had company in from out of town most of last week - what is becoming an annual visit from E's best friend. This year he brought his best lady with him and we had a fun week hanging out. (plus their three-day trip to Zion)

in Coronado on Saturday

We heard about a beer tasting with food truck down in Mission Bay and headed over for the evening to Ballast Point Brewing Company.



I tried a blackberry ale (yum) and an IPA with lime, ginger and szechuan pepper (interesting)



The food truck with Miho Gastro Truck. Alex and I each tried the grilled peach burger with gorgonzola, and E had the lamb meatloaf sandwich. Both were top-notch.










I wish SD's food trucks would come further up to North County, but on the occasions we get down to one we always love the food!

I went to Blogher '11 without knowing anyone, and I still had fun

I know many of you already know that the BlogHer 2011 conference was in San Diego this weekend. I registered for it back in March, before I knew that I'd use up a years worth of vacation time spending June in Milan. This was also before I knew that E would be arriving home (after five weeks apart) two days prior to the conference AND before I knew that friends would be coming in for a visit the same weekend.

Needless to say, the conference came with less-than-perfect timing.

And then I asked around to some blog friends, and it turned out no one I really knew was going (besides Natalie - but I didn't get a chance to see her!). so I waffled. and hemmed and hawed. Drove E crazy debating about the pros and cons of going and possibly being disappointed or too stressed to enjoy it.

But I went. Saturday morning I hopped in the car and drove the 35 minutes down to the San Diego Convention Center. I took a deep breath and prepared to be overwhelmed. Prepared to be brave and to step out of my comfort zone. To learn, connect, and commune.

I was told BlogHer conferences are what you make of them.

I made my experience my own. And I'm so glad I did.



Some highlights:

1. Saw Wendy McClendon-Covey. It took me a while to figure out how I knew her - from Reno 911! Also caught a glimpse of Giuliana Rancic.

2. Got to have lunch with Kath of KERF fame. It was nice to finally meet her - she really is a blogging rockstar! Right after we left she got her lunchtime post up with a photo of her, myself & Kristin of Iowa Girl Eats.

photo by Kath

3. Attended a great session on pitching freelance editorial work. Journalism is still a passion that's sitting on my mind's back burner so it was really good to hear from the pros what they're looking for in a freelance writer.

4. Got loaded up with swag. Seriously -the vendor hall was crazy! I told the ladies at the Skinny Cow booth that I was local and they loaded me up with four boxes of bars to take home.

I picked up a lot of great samples to test and try - Quaker Oats loaded me up as well.

Tropicana was offering free manicures (polish changes)in their lounge. I had good timing and got a little refresher on my [formerly] terrible-looking nails

5. Here's a crazy cooincidence (or is it sneaky?...hmmm) Someone I met asked me if I was here as a vendor, and directed me to the back page of the BlogHer brochure. Can you see something looking a little...familiar?



Latte Love? Turns out that the Got Milk folks are running a new campaign recommending lattes as a way to get servings of milk in. I stopped by the booth to say hello, show them my business card, and ended up recording a video to enter a contest to be flown to New York to unveil the next Got Milk celebrity. I got this gorgeous milk measuring set, and a mug for my participation.





6. I was so distracted by trying to see everything in the half day I was there, I hardly took any pictures! Here's a glimpse of the Seal Pavillion where the meals took place.



7. I put these business cards together on Friday and printed them off on business card template cardstock Saturday morning. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out - although doing something a little more put together may be in order. (and I'm having second thoughts about including my phone # so I blurred it out here.)

Did you notice my new url? I just made the jump on Friday - and I'm so excited!



Blogher 2011 gave me a great glimpse into the powerhouse that is this women's blogging conference and I definitely have the bug to have the full experience next time! It felt like a rite of passage.

Have you been to a blogging conference? Would you consider going?

Mama visits San Diego

When I knew E and I were going to be apart for five weeks while he stays in Italy, and I had to return home for work - I called up my mom and asked if she wanted to come out and spend a weekend in July. It all worked out last minute, and it was so nice to have her here!

My mom and I are really different - I'm much more similar to my dad [it was funny to hear my mom say "wow, you are your father's daughter" during the trip] but there is something so comforting about having your mama home with you.

Italian-style dinner on Thursday Night (antipasti, primo, secondo, followed by alcohol/espresso)

my grandpa also came out to visit, and he spent most of the weekend with his brother who lives in Inland Empire (about 80 miles from me), but we got together for dinner on Thursday and Sunday

Saturday in Seaport Village

Grandpa and his brother

he is the best.

I'm again reminded of what a blessing it is to have a family like mine.