California

I recently went to California, by myself, to see one of my best friends for my birthday.
By myself people. Meaning, no Rowan. For five days. It was weird.
50% of me was like "yes! uninterrupted fun and catching up and exploring with my girlfriend!" and the other 50% felt super sad and worried and most of all guilty for going. I struggled with these conflicting feelings for a month until the morning came for me to leave and I just told myself "hey you, yea you're on your way... I mean you're literally on the way to the airport. There's no turning back so suck it up and enjoy it while you're there because the next thing you know it will be over and you will be home."
So that's what I did. Later, Derek would remind me that I'm a stay-at-home-mom and I've never left Rowan longer than overnight and even that has only happened three times. I never got that guilty-for-leaving-feeling out of my system. Or maybe I'll just feel guilty every time I leave, forever, and that's just parenthood. Gah!
Moving on.. we jam packed so much fun into this trip that it's easiest if I just do the rest of the post like this:

THURSDAY- landed at 4pm, took shuttle to Melissa's work, went to her apartment to freshen up, went out to dinner at an adorable Italian restaurant in her neighborhood and then slept 'cause I was tired from having to fly in an airplane most of the day. Anxiety city, population me.

FRIDAY- went to Starbucks for an iced chai, went shopping pretty much most of the day, ate a late lunch at In-N-Out, hung out by Melissa's pool and chatted, took Melissa's dog and ourselves for a walk, started feeling jet-lagged and hungry, finally got some Mexican take-out, stuffed our faces, went to sleep.

SATURDAY- packed our stuff and drove an hour to Los Angeles to sight-see all day, did a lot of driving, had the best tour guides ever since Melissa and her husband Josh used to live in LA and also can stop the car and let me out when I get car sick and want to puke, shopped on Melrose, had lunch at this awesome place called Lemonade, did some more shopping, hurried back to Josh's parents house to change, rushed to make our BOA Steakhouse reservation and got there just in time to drink crazy cocktails, eat the tiniest fancy steak I've ever seen (but so good) and best of all, SEE PAULY SHORE. I can't tell you how excited I was not only for a celebrity sighting but that it was The Weasel. THEN we were off to a bar called Hemingway's in Hollywood that's decorated like a library with books and typewriters lining the walls. We danced for hours and had the best time. Got home at 3am and crashed.

SUNDAY- Wake up late, Melissa's hungover again, I'm not because I'm a booze to water ratio pro, drive back to Melissa's place still wearing our pjs, pick up Jack In The Box breakfast on the way, get back and shower/dress/chill, go to Melissa's mom and sister's place for Cinco De Mayo and have way too much fun with sombreros, fake mustaches and li hing mui margaritas.

MONDAY- My birthday! Woke up a 28 year old but feeling more like an 8 year old because I was so excited for Disneyland (California Adventure Park) that I was up, showered and ready pretty much before Melissa and Josh even woke up. Got to D-land at opening and stayed till closing and omgIwannagobacksobadalreadyyy. This was my favorite day of the entire trip. Not because it was my birthday but simply because it was THE BEST.

Caitlin Was Here

A couple of weeks ago, Caitlin was here. Now she's not. I haz the sadz about it. We spent one glorious week together hanging out at the beach, walking around Waikiki, eating, drinking, eating some more, getting matching tattoos, having sleepovers, hiking, seeing Metric live and basically just falling more in friend-love. I wish we had more time to get into trouble together but I know we'll see each other again soon. Love you Caitlin!
p.s. Rowan grew very attached to her while she was here, nicknaming her "Keika" and asking about her every day since she left. They were too cute together.

Easter 2013

We had a nice Easter morning this year. We kept it short and sweet with the baskets (hurry, hide the candy) but then took Rowan outside for her own Easter egg hunt. She was really excited about it and kept pointing to the eggs and saying "mama, egg! mama, egg!" and wouldn't move on to grab the next egg until I responded "wow, go get it!" She's been like that a lot lately... repeating a phrase over and over again until I respond with a specific response. It reminds me of that Family Guy scene where Stewie repeats different variations of the word "mom" until Lois says "what?" and he just says "hi" and runs off. Anyway, after the hunt, we took Rowan to the zoo and had a nice time in the sunshine with all the animals. I'd say it was a pretty good Sunday.

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Things I'm Loving

I thought I'd share with you all some things that I've been loving lately. It's the end of March (HOW?!) and I feel like I've fallen in love with a bunch of random things over the last few weeks so here they are: 

- My faux leather skirt (pictured above). It's pleated but not in that why where your hips look 6 inches wider and that's a big deal for me since I have wider hips. Found it at forever21.

- The "Little Things Forever" app. This game is free and seriously addictive if you like things like "Where's Waldo?"... don't say I didn't warn you!

- The CW show "The Carrie Diaries." It's just adorable.

- Liquid eyeliner. Being the eyeliner kinda gal that I am, I'm genuinely shocked and feel stupid that I had never tried liquid liner until recently. I guess it just sounded intimidating and I figured it would be too difficult to achieve straight lines, but with all the new convenient products out now I'm happy to report that I was so so wrong. I've been using a cheap one from Almay but just picked up a "marker" type liner from Revlon to try out.

- The "Relax Melodies" sleep sounds app. It's also free and I love it. My sister has been using various sleep sounds and sleep hypnosis apps to help her pass out and although I don't have any trouble falling asleep, I'm now obsessed with using it every night. It's soothing and I've found that it helps Rowan to fall asleep as well. Bonus points.

- Reading every day. I've been reading a lot more than usual for the past few years but since January alone I've read almost 14 books. It's been my nightly routine, replacing my usual tv shows, and has become my favorite thing to do during my me-time.

- My friend Julia's german chocolate cupcakes. She made some from scratch for Derek's recent 30th birthday and they are so freakin' good I've been eating the leftovers for lunch for the past week. I'm obsessed. I wish I could eat them every day for the rest of my life. Sorry, don't have her recipe.

- The Starbucks app. I can't believe I didn't download this sooner since I'm a loyal customer and have been for at least the past 6 years (I even used to work there) and since I've become a gold card holder I get a free drink or food item every 12 drinks (or just purchases in general). To think of all those free drinks I could've been getting all of these years...

Anyway it's very convenient because you can load/reload your card right from your phone and the cashier scans your phone to pay. I feel like everyone already knows this and I'm the person that's been living under a rock, but just in case you were somewhere under that rock with me, now you know.

- Caitlin's impending visit. We met here online, mostly through blogging, but became fast friends via twitter (when I had a twitter account) and eventually started having Skype dates that led to true girl love. She's a cool one, that Caitlin. I can't wait to show her around Hawaii and finally party it up in person. We've had virtual cocktails and taken virtual shots, but now we can take it to the next level. Shenanigans galore for a week in April.

So that's about it for now. I'll probably do another one of these in a few months when I've started obsessing over a million other new things but until then, I'll try to blog more often. I know that I've been a shitty blogger but I think every blogger goes through a phase like this. I just haven't been bringing my Canon out with me or had a real urge to post about anything.. and the last thing I want to do is throw out a bunch of forced posts just to say that I did it. Hopefully I can get my act together soon.. ❤

2k13

2013 has been treating us well so far. My parents visited for 5 weeks, Rowan's cracking us up more and more, we've gotten in a lot of beach time & overall things are swell. 

I still can't believe it's already the end of February.

Let me photographically catch you up on the last couple of months.. kinda.