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Surfers, Blue Bottle Coffee and Pacific Ocean Views

June 10, 2015 42 Comments

My friend Jenna lucked out during her week long trip to California. I had a completely blocked itinerary for her as soon as she arrived at the San Jose airport. I’m not saying it was so cholker-blocked that she couldn’t relax, it was the epitome of relaxation if I do say so myself. Hotel stays, wine tours and spa treatments â€”Â I’m tellin’ ya, not everyone is going to get that type of treatment. I’ve known Jenna since we were three years old, and it’s been close to 4 years since we’ve seen each other in person. It was long overdue for a girls trip, so I invited her down to Sunny California. Except, it happened to be really chilly and only kinda sunny the entire time she was here. Whoops. Can’t change Mother Nature.

Blue-Bottle-HanaHaus

After our overnight trip to San Francisco came to an end, we woke up at a reasonable hour, packed up our belongings and started the drive down to Carmel. To break up our 2 hour commute I swung by the city of Palo Alto and stopped at the new Hana Haus Blue Bottle coffee shop. More on that place later, but it’s a beautiful spot to relax and/or work if you so choose. I had to show her all the cool spots, you know.

Then we stopped for lunchÂ Â at one ofÂ favourite brunch spots in Los Altos: Bumble (see what I did my first visit to Bumble)! We had a nice little lunch on their adult patio away from any children, and had a grand ol’ chat, catching up. After we were done there, we took our time driving down the scenic Highway 1 to Carmel.

I always love to stay at the warm and welcoming Hofsas House when visiting Carmel. I surprised my husband for his birthday last year for a trip down to Carmel as a late honeymoon gift for the both of us, so I knew Hofsas House was the place to go once again. I love going there!

Our room was so spacious, quite large really! Such an airy, and sweet feeling room. Perfect for our little getaway for just the two of us.

Talk about being spoiled. A bottle of red plus some chocolates and wine walk tour tickets were waiting for us in the room as we arrived. We definitely hit up the Wine Walk tour right away but not before showing Jenna the little town of Carmel and taking her to the serene Carmel beach, hoowee!

The sand here is the softest I have ever felt underneath my feet. Surfers galore. Dogs frolicking on the beach and couples holding hands. My heart was swooing! Can you now see why I love this place so much that I need to take every visitor here?

Carmel-woods

After a quick visit to the beach, since it was windy and chilly, we walked around the downtown core, and did the self-guided Wine Walk Tour and sampled wines at three different wine tasting rooms before heading off to supper.

This one being my favourite. Because, how fun is it to pretend you’re taking a bath drinking wine? It’d be better if the tub was filled up and in my own bathroom. Hehe! Cheers to that!

After our wine tastings were over with, we walked back to our room at Hofsas House, grabbed some warmer clothes and got ready for supper.

WeÂ headed out for a quick 15 minute drive up north to Lovers Point in Pacific Grove to have a meal at The Beach House in our trusty 2015 Prius Five that took us everywhere on our week long excursion. I never thought about buying a red car, and not for any real reason to be honest. But doesn’t this red just pop out at you?

I don’t know what place is prettier, Pacific Grove or Carmel. Both places are absolutely breathtaking. This was our balcony-type view from The Beach House, in Pacific Grove. I mean. Come on! Watching the sunset while eating supper with this view… unreal, and nothing like I’ve ever experienced in my life. We couldn’t stop raving about it.

Our meals at The Beach House hit the spot, but the winners of the entire meal was most definitely the home made ice cream cakes. I’m still thinking of how good they both were.

After we finished our delicious meals, we drove around Pacific Grove for a little bit just as the sun was setting. Perfect timing for that golden hour photo op, am I right? I think I have a thing for taking photos of trees. Especially the ones around this area, they’re really cool looking.

Once we were back in our room at Hofsas House, we lit a fire and hung out for the rest of the evening, watching a bit of TV before falling asleep. The next morning, we woke up super early because I wanted to take Jenna back to Carmel Beach for some more photos then off to Point Lobos (you can see more photos here from when my Husband and I went). I’ll let the photos do the talking for themselves…

Secluded beaches = everythingÂ dreams are made of.

Hooray for my camera balancing on the edge of a fence, and me racing down to beat the self-timer count down. Oof!

That next day when we went to Point Lobos, we were heading back to San Jose â€”Â but not before doing a bit of outlet shopping in Gilroy.Â Such a fun way to end this leg of the trip! Stay tuned for the San Jose staycation in Santana Row which will be up next week sometime.

Hofsas House
San Carlos St, Carmel, CA 93921
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The Beach House at Lovers Point
620 Ocean View Boulevard, Pacific Grove, CA 93950
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Disclaimer: Thank you to Hofsas House in Carmel, and The Beach House in Pacific Grove for hosting our stay andÂ feeding us yummy supper!

Beauty, Daily

It’s a nail kinda day

June 9, 2015 2 Comments

SinfulColors has launched a few new colours in their summer 2015 collection called Street Fusion. There are 29 nail polishes in this collection ranging from new ones to ol’ favs of mine (that white one especially). Tons of spicy reds, fun glitter polishes and cooling blues. But for now I’ll show you what I received and then swatched on my nails for you all to see.

Otaku Anime & Hazard

Island Coral (more of a pink in my opinion, this one is my favourite out of the collection) & Maroon Fine

Snow Me White & Fuji Fuji (with snow me white base underneath)

Baila Baila & Writing On The Wall

Paste-erd & Pink Ansen

Which polish is your favourite out of then 10 I swatched?Â

SinfulColors nail polishes from this collection is now availableÂ for $1.99 each at Walgreens and other mass retailers for Summer 2015.

Clearly I was in the mood for a bit of nail art lately. I definitely had a ton of fun using these press on manicures from imPRESS! I have to say, drugstore press on nails have come a long way since I used them last. Remember the messy superglue ones that you had to put on yourself? Those were difficult to manouver! At least the one’s by imPRESS now have a sticker you can remove and literally just press them onto your nail with no mess or fuss. I do have to note though, that the nail part by the cuticle will lift up (since the sticker is not all the way to the edge) if you’re not careful. You can kind of see it happening already on one of my nails. Either way, if you’re in a pinch and need your nails done to attend an upcoming wedding, these are the way to go. They stuck on fairly well too and were as easy to remove. Another note, do not remove from the top or bottom of the nail, I found that my nail peeled a bit when I did it that way. Pull the fake nail off from the sides and it’ll come off much easier.

They were looking a little too longÂ and diva-lookingÂ for my liking.

So I gave them a quick trim with my nail clippers and I was set. They aren’t the perfect manicure on my hands, but like I said above, they’d do fine if you’re in a pinch!

Disclaimer: SinfulColors & Kiss nail art products were sent for review.Â

Fashion

Fashion Show at Santana Row + a VLOG!

June 8, 2015 34 Comments

Hey folks, welcome to Monday once again. How was your weekend? Good I hope. Let me tell you about mine. Holy cheeseballs, well didn’t I have the most fun weekend ever. Okay, not ever. But I had a really fun one none the less.

Saturday started off with a Fashion Show at my favourite place in San Jose California: Santana Row. I’ve talked about this place many times in the past. This pastÂ weekend was their 7th annual Fashion Show at Santana Row, with this one being the first year at their new Misora luxury residences. Right by the pool too. Gorgeous spot that I could never afford to rent, even for a week. Beautiful and classy, as Santana Row likes to do things! Sunday was really exciting too. Except for the fact that we both woke up at 2:50am so we could drive to San Francisco for the day where my husband competed in the Escape From Alcatraz triathlon. Long day! But fun.

I ended up making yet another comeback to the YouTube side of things. After watching countless of vlogs over the last few years I have started to miss it. It was definitely awkward vlogging in public and I tried it again yesterday when I was at my husbands triathlon, but man is it ever hard to get past people giving you strange looks. Regardless, I ended up making one at the Santana Row’s Fashion Show event, check it out:

Could you tell I was eager too attend? I was the first one who showed up. Haha! I even met a couple of really cool people. Lucy, one woman sitting next to me was also Canadian, from Montreal, but moved here over 20 years ago. She comes to the Santana Row fashion show every year to get ideas â€”Â she sews many of her own clothes! Michele is a Fashion Blogger over at Fashionable Fun and I loved her entire ensemble she wore to the show. It’s a little hard getting out of my comfort zone and chatting to people I don’t know, but clearly it’s working out in its favour for me. I mean, look at me chattin’ it up, going to these places solo. I would’ve brought my husband with me (he really wanted to attend) but for some reason I thought it was on Sunday and he had to pick up his Alcatraz triathlon race kit in San Francisco around the time the fashion show started. Bummer.Â Fashion-Show-SR

NBC Bay Area’s Kira Klapper was the emcee for the afternoon, and I mean, check out that entire outfit. I love the skirt. Love the shoes even more I think!

Felt all fancy with my VIP wristband and all. Speaking of shoesÂ note to self: Never wear these onesÂ again. My right foot hates these shoes, and I felt like that foot was going numb. NotÂ good lol. Santana-Row-VIP

The fashion show was unlike anything I had ever thought it would be, it wasn’t stuffy or serious at all. Quite the opposite, as you’ll see in my Youtube video where some of the women went wild with their screams of joy with everything, including the topless men. Hooboy. Abs on abs on abs.

The models were being playful with one another and the women ended up pushing both men into the pool making this huge splash on everyone in the front row. So fun, and a completely unexpected but fun twist to it all.Â Oakley-models