Balboa Park was the perfect end to our trip. We spent the day walking through the gardens in the conservatory, staring at skulls in the Natural History Museum and eating lunch at the little cafe (which was veg/vegan friendly!) near the Japanese gardens. Most of the museums were unfortunately closed since it was a Monday, but it was still a beautiful place to walk around for a few hours.

… yeah, we’re super cool :p

Outfit Details
Leopard tank: F21
Black tank: Target
Leggings: Nordstrom
Boots: Olsenboye
Spike bracelet: Gypsy Warrior
Bag: Shop Suey

We spent almost an entire day eating, drinking and entertaining ourselves at Analog in the Gaslamp District. What started as brunch, turned into a pile of champagne bottles and some very enthusiastic karaoke. This is where my sister and I split the Nutella strawberry french toast.

My brother made us laugh so much while trying to take our picture.

I will not reveal the actual number of bottles consumed, but I will say it required a night of Wii and pizza to recover :)

My brother and his girlfriend

Sister Style: On Kate, dress from Kohls & boots from DSW. On me, dress from TJ Maxx and Olsenboye boots.

One of my favorite parts of the trip as hiking Torrey Pines State Reserve. We walked all the way down the beach, past that cliff at the end and then up up up! The paths were a challenging enough to be a good workout and the higher we got the more fantastic the view.

The weather was perfect this day – the sun heating us up and the wind cooling us down. By the time we walked down the beach, up over the mountain and then back down the other side and all the way to the car it was a few miles and my feet were damn sore. (Note to self, Converse are not good hiking shoes)

After all that walking we had a much deserved lunch at a vegan cafe called Lotus in Hillcrest  and I totally ate a huge chocolate peanut butter cupcake for dessert!

While my plan was mostly to figure it out as we went along, one of the few things I really wanted to do while on vacation was visit the San Diego Zoo. When we walked through the gates and opened our map I was absolutely amazed with how huge the place was. It’s an enormous amount of walking (or you can take a double decker bus tour around the whole park), but worth it to wind your way through the jungle-like paths. The animals were all up and active, running around or coming right up to the glass. One of my favorite parts was the giant escalator leading up into the aviary.

I didn’t realize how much I needed a vacation until I was actually out in San Diego away from work and class and my computer. I made a self-imposed rule of no Facebook checking and set my email to only update when I told it to, which did last a few days.

We spent mornings watching documentaries – which I think I will turn into its own post because I made it through EIGHT in six days. In the afternoon, on the days my brother worked, my sister and I walked around town, checking out the shops and eating the most delicious vegan cashew raspberry cheesecake. We took the bus to the zoo (my first time on public transport if you can believe it!) and spent another day wandering the beautiful Balboa Park. On Friday we hiked the cliffs in Torrey Pines State Reserve and Saturday was spent on the beach eating burritos from FreeBirds. Sunday was bottomless mimosas, Nutella french toast and karaoke at Analog. We ended the trip by stuffing ourselves with naan and curry at Royal India.

As much as I enjoyed my little vacation, I was so happy to come home to my house and my bed and my Piglet. My sister said traveling makes her want to leave Detroit for good, but it actually makes me want to stay.

These pics are all from my iPhone, so I’ll have another post once I go through everything on my SLR :)

Hello from San Diego! I’m here visiting my brother and have spent the past few days walking all over North Park, visiting the zoo, eating everything in sight and watching multiple documentaries. Yesterday was brunch and karaoke fueled by bottomless mimosas.

Today is our last day to play before heading home and while I’m sad to head back to work, I can’t wait to squish my dogs. (Yes, I said dogs with an S. I adopted another furball right before we left and I’m so excited to go home and pick her up!)

Bye for now!

Eating massive amounts of cheesy potatoes and tofu chocolate peanut butter pie

 Mom making us big kids popcorn and hot toddies + secret undies from Santa

Loud, silly photo sessions with my cousins

Christmas poppers and goofy hats + my brother laughing so hard he spit water all over the table at Christmas dinner

Getting a little JamBox and a big Hello Kitty for Christmas

Waking up to breakfast in bed + finishing two site designs

Christmas cartoons + floors completely covered in paper

Meeting Pants’ parents at the casino where everyone lost money except me…the non-gambler + drinking too much & downing Taco Bell…a bad combo

Watching Pants get his hair cut at a cool little ’50s style barber shop +  seeing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (SO GOOD) & getting started on The Girl Who Played With Fire + walking the piglet through big, wet snowflakes

Sunday was the third annual gingerbread house building party at my parent’s.

My sister and I decided we were really only interested in building things to eat…like sandwiches.

So we played with all the kids instead, chasing them around the house, over furniture and under tables.

My mom dug the Lego town out of the basement and we launched little plastic people off a sinking Lego boat.

Slayer made a friend, but only liked her while she had a sticky, slobbery Dorito in her hand.

And he got an early Christmas present, which he wasn’t terribly interested in, so my mom helped him climb inside.

Saturday afternoon was for meetings, but I managed to squeeze in a mini date for a trip to the fancy beer store and vegan chocolate peanut butter ice cream in a waffle cone. After site designs and rigging for our black Friday show was squared away I met Mandy and Mae downtown for dinner. Finally got to see Mandy’s cute little apartment complete with a wall of windows, a tiny stove and tons of security guards. I’d move down there in a second if I didn’t have this whole mortgage thing going on.

For dinner we hopped  over to Le Petit Zinc, a tiny French cafe in Corktown. I had a mushroom crepe, which I made disappear in an instant, and when the server came back to ask about dessert I couldn’t resist a Nutella crepe too. They served water in wine bottles and canning jars and tea in big bowls.

Sunday I loaded piglet into the car, picked up Pants and headed to my parents for a pierogi party. It’s family tradition passed down from my great grandmother to her granddaughters and then to me and my cousins. We let Pants in on the family secret and he helped us roll dough and fill the pierogi before promptly passing out on the couch. The rest of my very loud and rambunctious family showed up around three and by the time everyone arrived we had seven dishes of potato/cheese & sauerkraut/cottage cheese pierogi. There is always a good amount of shit talking over whose dough is most tender and filling is most flavorful. My cousin got an earfull for using instant potatoes, but his blend of four cheese made them pretty damn good.

Next up in competitive family traditions…gingerbread houses!

My sister and I ordered thai for dinner and when my parents came home we hopped in the car and headed to Culvers, which my sister insists on calling Q-bers on account of their curly, difficult to read font. I ate a double peanut butter cup concrete mixer and we grabbed a couple hula hoops and got to workin’ off those calories.

My mom picked up my iPhone and after several questions about how to take a picture, I ended up with three short videos instead…