orange county trip

this past weekend chester and i escaped the snow and frigid temps & visited our good friends in orange county. it was a perfect getaway, and i miss that weather so much right about now! oh, btw, chester and i got the condo we wanted! we signed a year lease the night before our flight, so that was a big weight lifted off of our shoulders. now i'm spending my free time packing, even though it feels like i'm not really making a dent :/ 

so anyway, tonight i needed a break from packing, and wanted to share some photos from the weekend:

we were excited to visit our favorite restaurant in costa mesa, and we also stopped by our favorite brewery, the bruery. it was a great trip! we already can't wait to go back.

hope you all have a good weekend! i'm crossing my fingers that the snowy forecast won't be as bad as they say. wish us chicago/suburb dwellers luck! haha.

california vacation

a couple weekends ago chester and i spent 4 lovely days in southern california - orange county & los angeles to be exact. our friends denny & krystina moved out to orange county in april of 2012, and we were really excited for them to show us around their "new" area. my good friend tim moved out to LA in july of 2012, and it was nice seeing his new 'hood too.

we checked out the thousand step beach in laguna, an awesome brewey (called the bruery) in the OC, the hollywood walk of fame in & the griffith observatory in LA (where we met up with another good friend Dan), and the elliott smith wall in silverlake. the wall had recently been touched up, and it was really cool to see.

we had such a fabulous time, and we are already planning our next trip out there! hopefully we can escape the midwest winter for a few days next year. :)

1,000 step beach in laguna // hollywood walk of fame // legit moscow mule // at the beach // at the griffith observatory

view from griffith observatory // driving in LA // krystina & i // chester & i with denny & tim

hot tubbing // elliot smith wall in silverlake // photo booth at the bruery tasting room

our cancun vacation - part 2

when i got back home, i was talking to my sister about our vacation and she asked, "what was your favorite part?" i literally loved every aspect of the trip, so it was hard to answer that question. although i have to say, there is nothing like swimming in the ocean (or technically the caribbean sea in our case). i think i'm meant to live near an ocean someday b/c i could not get enough of it! something about being in salt water, waves rolling in, it's amazing. i was addicted.

my boss let my borrow his gopro camera and we had a lot of fun with it. i have video too, but it's kind of all over the place, so i'll just share some photos:

like i mentioned in part 1 of this post, we did venture off the hotel property one morning to swim with dolphins! i was so excited about this, swimming with a dolphin is something i've always wanted to do since i was little, so it was nice to cross it off my bucket list :) the dolphins were so sweet! we each got a "kiss" photo with our dolphin, and we got to pet her while she swam around our group. finally, we each had a dolphin ride. when watching the others do it, it doesn't look like the dolphin is going that fast, but it really felt really fast when it was my turn! haha.

i was really happy we had a chance to do this excursion. dolphins are such incredible creatures, and i definitely want swim with them again. haha, and i love this photo below because it looks like the dolphin is smiling :)

so all in all, it was a wonderful, wonderful vacation. and it was the first vacation where it was just chester & i, so that was really nice. the only thing i would change for next time is booking a longer trip!

our cancun vacation - part 1

i've been talking about our recent trip to cancun, mexico quite a bit on this blog, and i'm excited that i finally have the time to share some photos :)

with the help of a family friend, who also happens to be a travel agent, we spent 4 fabulous nights at the all-inclusive, adult only secrets the vine resort. this was our first time at an all inclusive resort, and i have to say, it is definitely the way to go when traveling to mexico or the caribbean. the resort had just opened a few weeks before our arrival, but everything went smoothly and we really, really loved our stay! the resort is located on the cancun hotel strip, and has access to a fabulous beach. i seriously couldn't get over how beautiful the water was! i wanted to spend all day out there :)

below are a few shots of the property, and the amazing view from our room.

and a few of us:

we were all about relaxing on this trip, so other than one off-property excursion, we spent our days lounging at the pools & swimming in the caribbean sea. we picked out chairs near the pools that faced the sea, and that view was so breathtaking, i seriously couldn't get over how beautiful it was!

the pool staff made sure our drinks were always bottomless (totally awesome!) & they had great food at the pool bars. in addition to a few other casual dining areas around the hotel, there were also 4 nicer restaurants opened for dinner. so we got dressed up and tried a different one each night. they were so good! we had amazing sushi the first night, incredible italian the second night, great steak the third, and yummy mediterranean the last night. i was floored by how good the food was! and it was nice knowing that everything was paid for.

another aspect of the resort that i was amazed by was the service - at the pool, at the restaurants, the front desk, room service - everyone. we were treated so well our entire stay, and that made every aspect very enjoyable :)

if you are looking into vacationing in the cancun area, i would definitely recommend staying at secrets the vine resort. there are quite a few resorts under the secrets company, which i've also heard great things about, but i loved the sleek and modern design of the vine. i wish i would have taken more photos of the lobby areas, b/c they were seriously impressive, but sadly i did not :/ but they do have a lot of photos on their site.

it wouldn't be a vacation of mine if i didn't bring a few film cameras ;) below are a few shots from my diana mini & fisheye cameras:

i decided to split up this post into 2 parts so i wouldn't overload this post with too many photos. the second part will have more photos of the beach area & and our dolphin excursion! i also have an album on flickr if you all would like to check them out :)

my vegas vacation

over the memorial day weekend (well, sunday through wednesday for us), chester and i met up with 3 of our couple friends in las vegas. i've been to vegas a few times before, but i was really excited for this trip because of the group dynamic. we were all on the same page which makes a vacation stress-free and really enjoyable. plus it was nice to vacation with friends that i had not travelled with before :)

ok, on to the photos:

we all stayed at the cosmopolitan. it's a fairly new hotel on the strip and had a younger crowd, which was perfect for us. my friend jason's company, digital kitchen, did a lot of work for the hotel, and it turned out so cool! jason worked on a design for the entryway (he's standing next to it in the photo), and worked on concepts for the video screens throughout the hotel. i wish i had taken more photos of these videos b/c they were so well done. the entire lobby was made up of these video columns, and it was a really amazing sight. if you're ever in vegas, be sure to check out the comso's lobby.

chester and i had an awesome wraparound terrace suite. wow. it was so cool. and we had a great view. i was able to snap a couple of panoramic shots via my iphone and the photosynth app. my favorite shot is the second to last one of this set above, where the sky is in the process of changing colors :)



memorial day was spent at the boulevard pool at our hotel. we made sure to snag a prime location early in the morning, and ended up spending 8 hours there! (we were smart about spf, which was key or we would all be miserable, lol.) most of the pool area near our chairs was very shallow, about 6 inches or so, which i thought was silly until i could barely stand the heat laying in my chair. we easily were able to lay out in the shallow water, keep cool & still work on our tans, haha. this part of the day was one of my favorite parts of the trip. very mellow and low key, but still a lot of fun. the multiple pitchers of mojitos & sangria helped out too.

i love this shot! our friends posted it on facebook and i snagged it right away. thanks tom for the awesome photo idea :)

and of course, we had a lot of fun going out at night. we went to tryst (at the wynn hotel) sunday night and marquee (at the cosmopolitan) monday night. both nights we were lucky enough to snag some table space without having to get bottle service (which was ridiculously expensive). we had great food, good strong drinks, and so much fun.

on tuesday, our dear friends made their ways back home, and chester and i had the night to ourselves. unfortunately i don't have any photos of our time, mostly because i was trying to enjoy the moments without having to photograph everything. it really was nice to have that quality time, just the two of us. oh! and we had THE BEST SUSHI! not kidding, this stuff was amazing and i've been craving it ever since. we got a late start to our evening when our nap lasted 3 hours, lol, but luckily the blue ribbon sushi bar was open til 1am. we had an awesome server who recommended 3 amazing sushi plates, and we ate every last bit. our favorite was the "me bachi maguro zuke", which was "marinated big eye tuna, mizuna salad, with garlic chips and ponzu". i don't usually order sashimi, but this stuff was soooo gooood. the tuna was marinated in garlic for two days and it was divine. if you like sushi and are in las vegas, be sure to check this place out!

it was the best vacation that i've been on in a loooooong time. we're hoping to go back in august already! haha. luckily i was sort of eased back into my regular schedule, and am officially caught up on emails, blogs, and tv shows. ya know, the important stuff ;) but this whole 5 day work thing will take some time getting used to.

'til next time,

steph