End of December

On the last Sunday of 2014 my family- including my visiting grandparents- headed down to one of my favourite places in all the world: La Jolla Cove.  La Jolla is one of the most spectacularly beautiful pieces of coast on the planet. It's a funny little town where stores encourage parents to either keep their eyes on their children or leave them with the chauffeur. Multi-Million Dollar apartments in a spectacularly 80's shade of salmon pink line the shore. Palm Trees sway down traffic packed single lane roads that twist and curve to the shape of the coastline. It's the place postcards dream of. When I was a kid part of the beach was reserved for Children (Appropriately called the Children's Beach), but was taken over by Seals and Sea Lions. They cover the whole beach and now it's blocked off as a reserve. They also take refuge on the rocks along the cliff line and while you aren't supposed to go near them, unfortunately most touristy types still try and get up close and personal. 

We spent the afternoon swimming and relaxing and enjoying the sunshine and cool breezes.

As much as I love the cold, this little slice of heaven I live near will always be dear to my heart.

Forest Falls

My original post for today ended up being a bust due to the insane winds we've been having. So instead here is a post that I never got around to from last August.

I'm not very wordy today (long weekend and photoshoot bust makin' me cranky), but hopefully the location makes up for it. This is seriously one of my favourite places in all of the State.

We spent my Birthday last year up in Forest Falls. We took an absolutely wonderful meal of grilled chicken, pasta salad, and green salad and ate at the picnic/state park area. My mom and Bri turned out little picnic site into a magical woodland creature haven. The joke is that I've always said if I ever get married it will be here in a party fit for Fairy Folk, so they took the idea and ran with it. It was pretty much perfect. We had cherry, blueberry, & raspberry handpies for desert and I got a GoPro! Afterwards we hiked up to the waterfall and swam for a while.

The water was icy cold and the weather perfectly cool. Forest Falls is kind of hidden in a valley, and doesn't get as hot as the surrounding areas, which is pretty much the best thing ever in the Summertime.

It was a pretty wonderful day.

I'm hoping to make it back up there before I leave (and actually remember my camera! These were all taken on my phone) and explore more of the actual hiking trail.

If you ever find yourself in So Cal, this is definitely worth the trip.

Last Summer. Part One

We went camping and it was wonderful.
This is a mix of Instagrams and DSLR pics. They're all out of order cuz I'm lazy like that.
We took a shot in the dark and went in search of a first-come-first-serve spot in Big Bear. The spot we found wasn't exactly ideal, but it did have an amazingly breathtaking view.

I headed up early with Dee, Eric, and Grace. The first morning Grace and I were up early and made a really great fire together. Then we sat and watched bluejays play while sipping our cocoa and coffee until the other two woke up. It was actually perfect.

Big Bear Lake only has a few swimming spots and we took Grace over to one of them as a reward for being incredibly patient while we charged our phones at Starbucks for two hours...

We never camp in So.California because a) dirt b) it's just too damn hot, and c) my dad hates Ponderosa Pine trees... We all much prefer camping farther North, but our plans for that fell through this year. Big Bear was nearly 90 (it's at like 6000 ft guys) for most of our trip, but despite the heat it was undeniably beautiful!

We ate at our favourite restaurant in Big Bear, Teddybears, our first night and Grace and Delaney tried to mimic the derp-bear.

I am terrible at night photography. But somehow I managed to get this shot.

Grace had my camera while we were driving and was insanely proud of her photography skillz.

We did get a little respite from the heat in the way of a monsoon. It wasn't quite a monsoon (those videos will come later!), but it did bring some rain and cooler temps which was greatly appreciated!

I found this classy dame in a shop up there. 

My dad decided to drive down a dirt road and we ended up driving up a mountain. the view was spectacular as the sun set around us. There's a 10 minute video of Eric having a panic attack about flying off the edge of the road, but it's buried somewhere in the depths of my phone. It was pretty great.

We had some pretty great skies.

We found a new (to us) cafe which we stopped at mainly for the name. I have no idea if the food was actually good or not. We were all starving by the time we ate, so everything tasted amazing. Fraser ate like four plates.

I represented Oregon State.

I found these at Kmart and have seriously regretted not buying one. Must find!

I was sad when it was time to leave. :-(

Mostly because I was not looking forward to breathing in that air...


And our Journey ended.
It was really wonderful.