Weekend Recap: Star Gazing

This weekend Vanessa and I packed up her car and headed up North to Oregon to visit our oldest & dearest friend, Mandy. I've lived in Northern California my entire life and I'm almost embarrassed to say that I had never been to Oregon. Well, all I can say is that it was well worth the wait. Oregon is absolutely gorgeous.

The girls and I had a blast taking in all that the small town of Shady Cove had to offer. We spent the weekend relaxing & hiking around the Rogue River. I loved checking out what the locals had to offer (wine, beer, and excellent food-- I was a happy lady to say the least). And of course we got some thrifting in; small towns always have the best little treasures. A highlight of the weekend was seeing my friend Mandy on duty as a Park Ranger at Joseph Stewart State Park, it made me feel so proud to see her at a job so perfect for her!

We also spent hours looking up at the stars. There's just something so magical about looking up at sky full of twinkly lights. There's beauty out there in the world, and I spent my weekend enjoying it. It was an amazing weekend packed with all my favorite things and I couldn't ask for two better friends to spend my time with.









I hope you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend as well.

Weekend Recap: Turkish Delights

After being away the past couple of weekends, it was nice to have a low-key weekend at home. I started my Friday evening by shooting outfit pictures with the lovely Lydia Hudgens (I can't wait to share the photos with you). After the photo-shoot I went over to Vanessa's house for a Turkish cooking lesson, and helped her family prepare for her father's Turkish birthday party.

Vanessa and her Aunt showed us how to prepare Czech Chicken.
It was a boiled chicken covered with a walnut, bread and chicken broth mixture.

Party details.

On Sunday, Vanessa and I took her cousin out to lunch at Unwind.
The weather was gorgeous. We enjoyed the sun, delish snacks and we hit up the LF 60% off sale.

It was a nice weekend full of friends, family and fun.
I hope your weekend was a nice one as well.

Things I Love: Summer Nights Drifting Away

Summer is here and it sure as heck feels like it. I have been enjoying poolside days and fresh summer dinners. Yesterday I went to my friend Vanessa's house to celebrate the longest day of the year. Vanessa parents made us salmon and a peach, corn, tomato, avocado salad and it was fantastic, perfect for a warm summer night. I look forward to many more nights like that this summer and many more laughs in Vanessa's backyard.

I picked this Roxy dress up in Santa Cruz a few weekends back, I used to be *kinda* Roxy obsessed (I went job shadowed the designer for my Senior Project) so it was nice to buy something from them again after all those years.

Wearing: roxy dress, forever 21 sunglasses

I'm not going to lie, Vanessa and I get PRETTY silly when we are together!

It was the perfect way to beat the heat!

Side note: what are your favorite iPhone camera apps? I use hipstamtic and Camera +

Party Prep: It's My Party And I Can Cry If I Want To

Ya'll know I love parties so when it came time to celebrate Vanessa's birthday I went ahead and took care of the decorations. Because a party is never complete without decorations!

The party came together very nicely and I think it's because we all brought something to the table -- or in this case party. I brought the decor, Vanessa brought the food, Betsy brought the specialty deserts, Annie brought the wine and Jen did our hair!

I personalized water bottles and champagne coupes with all the girls' initials.

And I added Drink me labels to the water bottles.
Available here for printing.

I put stickers on the caps so people could differentiate their bottles.

I used Martha Stewart for Micheal's stickers to personalize the coupes.
The coupes were from the Dollar Tree.

Vanessa brought hummus, dips and crackers from Trader Joes to nibble on when we were getting ready.

Betsy brought yummy Pastries from Masse's Pastries in Berkley


And of course the fabulous Jen set up shop and gave us all party do's!

Happy birthday V!
I hope you had a great time celebrating!!

Look of the Day: Honey, Put On Your Party Dress

This weekend we celebrated Vanessa's birthday. We had a girls night celebration complete with a hotel stay and we attended a food and wine event. It was a great excuse to put on a party dress, eat yummy food and dance the night away.

After much debate, I decided on a H&M party dress that I bought about a month ago. It ended up being a rainy evening so I added some tights to keep warm and a J Crew necklace to accessorize.

It was a very fun dress to wear, I kind of felt like a doll in it.

H&M Dress, J Crew Necklace (similar), Forever 21 Tights.

I'll be back soon with some of the party details!

Things I love: Share and Share Alike

Eating good food with good friends it one of things that brings joy to my life. While I have been sick these past couple days I have been looking over recent pictures of fun times that I had taken but never made it to the blog.

This particular evening was one spent with Jen and Vanessa at our favorite tapas plate restaurant. It's on the pricey side but their selection of local, organic and unique ingredients never ceases to amaze us. And as produce goes in and out of season the menu changes frequently, so it is always fun to go in because there are new surprises on the menu.

One of the things I love about tapas is that we all share the plates, so we ohh and ahh over the same flavors in unison -- or we find how our palettes differ. I find it to be such a engaging dining experience.

On this particular evening we ohhed and ahhed heirloom radishes with hummus.
We all picked a radish we liked best and none of us picked the same one.
{I liked the pink ones best}

As well as an accoutrement of cheeses.
Vanessa made sure we all tasted the cheeses in the same order.

A tomato dish and flash fried spinach.

And Heirloom tomato gazpacho shooters.

A fabulous night full of good food and friends! I can't wait until I feel up for that again soon!
And thanks you for all the $100 to shopbop Entries!