over the weekend, we celebrated a friend’s birthday with a proper italian dinner- think lady and the tramp, under the tuscan sun, the godfather… courtney told me to leave the candelabra at home. we ordered pasta, pizza and sfincione from felix and baked a cake for our performance of “happy birthday”. it was the best way to celebrate… with food, company and my terrible italian accent. buon compleanno dana!
ollie, checking on the pappardelle.
i was planning on posting about the rest of my trip to peru much sooner but well…life happened…between work and an unexpected surgery, i’ve only just finished organizing my thoughts and notes that have been left on my phone for too long. so here it is in all it’s glory, part 2 of my trip to peru, “A Day of Ruins”. in case you need a refresher, you can find my first post here.
our day began with the ruins at ollantaytambo which for the record are at the bottom, middle and top of a mountain…just for the record! so, we began our ascent to the top. much like the burning in my thighs, it’s hard to forget about these incredible views. we were up among the clouds, face to face with the mountain- it was definitely worth the climb… you know, just for the record.
after our morning “workout”, we went to see the town of chinchero. as we went deeper into town, the quieter it seemed. the little noise we did hear was only from our own footsteps on the cobbled ground. our guide brought us to a church; it was sunday. it felt like we were standing there waiting for something to happen and then the church doors opened. out poured what seemed to be the entire town of chinchero; talking, eating, playing. this quiet part of town was now filled with color, laughter and food. i felt surrounded and consumed and i loved it!
our guide told us that after church, the women gather to talk about their community and discuss items of “business” while the men play futbol. i think these peruvians might be on to something! just below the plaza was a marketplace with food, trinkets and lots of peruvian goods, so we went to have a look. surprisingly i didn’t buy a thing! rob, however, couldn’t help himself…he just HAD to have it.
we ended our day at pisac with some more ruins on top of another mountain, with more incredible views…are you sick of it yet?? me either. stay tuned for the main event…peru post number 3…MACHU PICCHU!
sedona is one of my favorite places to visit, as i’ve mentioned here, here and here. it’s just close enough for a quick weekend trip, yet far enough to escape the city life in los angeles.
{i originally wrote this post a year ago and never got around to actually putting it up on the blog…why? because sometimes life happens and you move on to different things BUT since it’s now a year later, on memorial day weekend, i decided why not post it?? it’s like a weird full circle moment. a lot has changed since the last time we were in sedona, more on that in another post.}
this memorial day weekend i spent most of my time reading and soaking up some vitamin d in santa monica. as i’m typing this, courtney and leo are flying back from england…i’m waiting to pick them up from the airport and trying to distract myself from the excitement that i will soon be reunited with my two favorite people…it’s been a long two weeks. aaannywaaayy, last time we were all in sedona was to visit the newest member of our family; squirt the mini horse. for a long time, leo was the newest member of the family- taking in all the love, attention and glory… not sure how he’s been coping with the fact that squirt has stolen his thunder, but i mean look at this horse! he’s stolen all of our hearts!
on our way back to the house, we stopped by the mcguireville annual tractor and engine show. each year the town hosts this show over memorial day weekend putting all their tractors on display. we didn’t stay long, not that there wasn’t much to see but if we stayed any longer, we would’ve melted into the asphalt… so we went to the creek to cool off.
before our long weekend came to and end, we had to make one last visit to see squirt. we just couldn’t get enough of him! after saying goodbye to the little guy, we headed back to the house for a bonfire, cake and some tunes. god, i love sedona.
after our failed attempt at camping in the desert this past weekend (who knew the desert got so hot? -that’s sarcasm) we decided to make some lemonade with our sour lemons so we stopped by the desert x exhibition on our way home to see mirage by doug aitken.
a sweet friend gifted me this adorable succulent box for my birthday and i’m obsessed. i had two thoughts when opening my box- 1.”how friggin cute!” 2.”why have i never heard of this before?!”- so i went online to find out the skinny on all things lula’s garden. founder, liraz birnbaum says this all began when she was looking for a unique gift idea. inspired by the growing popularity of succulents, due to the rise of drought awareness in california, lulu’s garden was born.
“I wanted to create a gift that would last and be an ongoing reminder, a gift of life … ”
lula’s garden supports local farmers by using locally grown succulents from southern california while offering a variety of succulent boxes to choose from. inside each box you find a curated succulent garden with instructions and tools on how to pretty much keep your garden alive. lucky for me, it needs minimal effort and is very hard to kill. (bonus points) take a look at my “unboxing” below and check out lula’s garden for more succulent gift ideas.
very excited to be joining these boys at sxsw this year. leo james conroy made his solo debut at sxsw in 2016 but returns to the stage this year with some help from his friends. i’ll be down there shooting some fun content for them so stay tuned for all things sxsw! below are some photos from the live session we recorded last month.
for the past month i haven’t really spent a weekend at home- between traveling for the holidays and spending time in orange county, my poor bed started to wonder if i’d ever come back. this weekend i decided to stay in la to clean and reorganize my apartment because “new year, new me” is in full flux… yesterday morning, i did laundry, put new sheets on my bed, dusted my shelves and had a dance party because what else do you do when you clean?? and then-i got hungry. not really wanting to brave the sunday brunch hour, i decided to make something at home. so i pulled a cookbook off the bookshelf and made some chocolate chip banana bread. *warning* this banana bread is like crack, please bake responsibly-only if you are a strong and independent woman…i mean only if you are strong willed… yeah, will power.
ingredients: 1 1/3 cups light brown sugar-2 eggs-1 cup mashed banana-2 1/4 cups flour-1 teaspoon baking powder-1 teaspoon baking soda-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon-1 teaspoon ground ginger-1 stick plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter melted-semi sweet chocolate chips-
preheat oven to 325ºf. put the sugar and eggs in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) and beat until well incorporated. beat in the mashed banana.
add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and ginger to the sugar mixture. mix it thoroughly until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the egg mixture. pour in the melted butter and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed.
pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth over with a palette knife. bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. let the cake cool slightly in the pan before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
i’m finally getting around to posting some bits and pieces of our christmas in sedona. we had a packed house of 9 people and 5 dogs and i wouldn’t have it any other way! our first order of business-grocery shopping. every year my sister cooks christmas eve dinner, christmas day breakfast and christmas day dinner, not to mention the goodies and desserts in between! she’s far too humble to say that she is good at cooking but she is and i’ll shout it from the rooftops if i have to-her cooking is my favorite part about the holidays. 
courtney needed all hands on deck in the kitchen but because of my notoriously bad cooking skills, i sat this one out and got a head start on the wine. my aunt and uncle live near the local winery so we picked up a bottle… or four.
christmas morning we woke up to a winter wonderland which made for an extra special holiday.
homemade muffins, cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip bread thanks to chef courtney! 
in love with this gal. today she gave us a little taste of what to expect from her live at urchin studios album by releasing “for you”; the single off of the album. you can pre-order her album on itunes or listen to the single on spotify as part of my music monday playlist. for this playlist i’ve put together some tunes that i’ve been listening to lately… some old some new some rock and some blues. happy monday!
mountain
– noun– a large natural elevation of the earth’s surface rising abruptly from the surrounding level; a large steep hill.
i love what mountains represent; journeys, goals, battles… all of it! it doesn’t matter how small or big your climb is, the view at the top is worth it. photographer nicola odemann has me swooning over her photographs. taking me to far away places and reminding me to keep climbing!
THEblog 