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Bliss and Bale | Serenity Box
Don’t let gift giving stress you out people! In fact, I’m a huge fan of gifting presents. I LOVE it and often go all out. Shopping for unique/cool gifts that you know your friends/family would love? So fun.
I wanted to showcase another crate/box from Bliss and Bale (see the Valentine’s Day box here). Andrea Cwik is a small business owner located in the San Francisco Bay Area. She selects items for her boxes from other local businesses and partners with the best small batch artisans.
This one is called Serenity Box, filled with all sorts of nice goodies, like a really sweet mug, loose leaf tea, yummy mini waffles, candy and a candle. Andrea ships her products worldwide, so anyone can customize (email her for customization) or select a box from her website and send to a loved one. I’m sharing her products again, because hello? Support Local! And, Andrea is just the sweetest — we met up for coffee late last week and chatted for two hours!
See? E, from Apis Floral also joined us at yummy Chromatic Cafe. Good lattes there ;)Â 
Love the details Andrea puts into her boxes, like sealing the boxes shut with her logo + social media information provided! It’s really well done, I have to say. Bliss and Bale caters to all sorts of people whether you’re one person, or a large corporation looking for multiple gifts and she is happy to customize the gifts working with any budget, which is so nice! You can read more about including your own promo-items in the gift boxes too.
Check out the boxes she has available for sale, and on Instagram the boxes she’s put together for other clients … see what I mean? So impressive, with gorgeous pieces, and equally gorgeous photos to go along with. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but I want to work with Andrea and customize one of her new baby boxes for a pregnant friend of mine back in Canada (hopefully she isn’t reading)!
You can just tell, from the moment you meet Andrea, that she absolutely enjoys what she does over at Bliss and Bale. I wish her all the success — and I can’t wait to go for coffee with her again. Here’s to new friendships thanks to Instagram! :)
Give Bliss and Bale a follow on social media:
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European vibes at Santana Row’s Hotel Valencia
Whether it be opening the french doors to a balcony over looking a courtyard, or the beautiful architecture outside and in. Hotel Valencia is a place I definitely want to spend another few nights at.
Out of the four hotels Jenna and I stayed at, Hotel Valencia was both our favourite places. If I’m so daring, I would say it was most likely one of the favourite hotels I’ve ever stayed at in my life.
You can have valet park your car for $24 overnight, or you can grab a parking pass from the Valet crew outside, drive your car around the corner and park it in the garage and walk back to the hotel with your belongings, which is clearly what we did.
This was our private balcony overlooking courtyard, beauty views. Quiet rooms, and not because the hotel was empty. The place was happenin’ wiht the grand opening of Cielo, which is a roof top bar. Unfortunately it was drizzling a little bit outside so it got bumped to the inside, to V Bar.
While it had both luxurious feeling to it, it wasn’t stuffy feeling. I didn’t feel as if I was in a hotel room at Hotel Valencia, while it looked rich in taste in the room, it still felt like a gorgeous apartment. Perhaps it was the added touches to the room, with the vibrant cushions on the bed, the leather club chair and a full-length mirror, perfect for outfit of the day selfies in my “wallpaper pants” as my husband likes to refer to them as. We were even greeted with some vodka cranberry left in our room — how did they know this was my favourite drink?!
We grabbed quite a nice meal at Citrus, also inside Hotel Valencia.
Appetizers from the chef, and I also grabbed a lobster salad app – didn’t realize how huge the portion was going to be. It was amazing none-the-less.
Jenna ordered the grilled lamb which was served on bucatini pasta, squash and green olive. I opted for another seafood dish and got quick smoked wild salmon, red curry cous cous with pistachio tahini. So good! I want to go back, and lucky for me Santana Row is just a short drive away.
We both decided on the speculoos caramel chocolate tart for dessert. It was espresso cremeux, milk jam, praline cocoa nib tuile, topped with chocolate chai ice cream. So caramely and brownie-like, it was incredible. Jenna said she wanted to re-create it at home for her boyfriend, it was that good.
After we came out from supper, I went around the courtyard taking photos of the patio at sunset. I kind of just want to live here. Forever.
The courtyard is a great place to people watch. Wondering if I can come up here without having staying at the hotel and enjoy an afternoon coffee with these types of views. It’s so breathtaking, and relaxing with their waterfall and flowers in bloom.
Since Cielo wasn’t open for us to check out due to the rain, we headed over to V Bar and stayed for a few minutes.
This place also has a balcony overlooking the Santana Row shopping area!
Isn’t the front desk area gorgeous? Hotel Valencia has a few hidden-nooks/half dome shaped rooms for their guests to have on sight meetings in the front lobby. I hadn’t seen anything like that before. I snapped a few photos of it but they didn’t come out as well as they looked in person, so you’re just going to have to trust my opinion on that one ;)
The next morning we checked out of the hotel, and had our complimentary breakfast (with a really large selection!) back at Citrus restaurant. I think it’s safe to say we both enjoyed ourselves the most here, with the beautiful European vibes Hotel Valencia has, and all the beautiful landscaping, balconies and gorgeous views.
Hotel Valencia
355 Santana Row, San Jose, CA 95128
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Disclaimer: Many thanks to Hotel Valencia for hosting our stay and meal at Citrus!Â
Explore California: San Pedro Square, San Jose
Can you believe we visited the first week of March and it was practically like a gorgeous summers day? I mean, I guess I should get used to it given that we’re in California. But it still boggles my mind how warm it can get during the winter. I love it. Layer on the sunblock though!
I want more people to experience my amazing wonderful new home city of San Jose, which is why I’ve been writing continuously about our weekend staycation.
The Guy and I headed down here for a bite to eat during our San Jose staycation that I’ve been writing about for the past few weeks. He had never been inside the San Pedro Square Market building, so we took a walk inside. For those that live in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario Canada part — you’ll know what i mean when I say this reminded me a bit of the St. Jacob’s Market.
Outside, there is tons of seating and often during the summer months there’s always bands out here giving it a great vibe to just come out here and chill out with your buds for an evening.
After touring around and trying to decide where to eat, we ended up grabbing a Capricciosa pizza (and altered it a bit) at Pizza Bocca Lupo. Do I love me some pizza man. I’m starting to get picky as to where I eat a pizza. I can’t go just anywhere. It has to be highly rated, nothing with a super thick crust either. I’m enjoying my wood fired thin crust pizzas. I substituted a few things from my order, and added chicken. Holy yum.
If you walk outside, it’s hard not to notice San Jose’s oldest building Peralta Adobe built in 1797! Man, America and their super old history — never ceases to amaze me. It was roped off since it’s not quite accessible to the public anymore. But I hear school kids get tours inside. I love that San Jose built San Pedro Square right around it. Sitting outside with that view
So perfect to bring a bunch of friends, whether they be from out of town or just going out with a couple of buddies after work. The diverse selection of food is fantastic regardless if you want pizza, sushi, burgers, there’s a ton to choose from.
Downtown San Jose really does have a lot to offer. You don’t always have to venture up to San Francisco to see all the attractions. Down here there’s theatres, operas, concerts, sports attractions (NHL games!) ballets, music lovers, upscale hotels, dining and nightlife destination all in the downtown core. Definitely a hot spot with the locals, fun restaurants, and easy access to the San Jose Sharks games. I’ve had coffee down in the SPQ at Bellano, which I’ve yet to document and snap pictures for you guys. I talked about their second location up in West San Jose, but I’ll have to venture to downtown again to show you the real loft vibe Bellano
San Jose is currently working on their retailers, as there isn’t too much shopping in the downtown core. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t visit — come down here for a swallie before the NHL hockey game, or simply for after work dinner with some buddies of yours. Filled with beautiful palm trees, the perfect weather for patio-time with friends.
San Jose is full of amazing history. Apparently we have the worlds largest outdoor monopoly game which is also downtown. I drove past it the other day. Maybe I’ll hop out of my car next time and take some snaps of it. But I’m going to simply ignore the fact it costs a fortune to rent and actually play the game, it’s still pretty cool that it’s even there.
There are so many great places in our new home of San Jose. Keep coming back to my good ol’ blog so I can let you in on all of the fantastic spots I go!
San Pedro Square Market
87 N San Pedro St, San Jose, CA 95110