Well, 2018 came and went and I never once posted any new content to my blog. I’m going to be honest and say that I was never actually inspired this year. 2018 was not a fun one and really just felt like a giant blur. Who can relate?

Anyway, I’m here to share the annual Christmas photos that Lyle and I take. Not sure how much you follow along with lil’ ol’ me, but last December Lyle took the plunge on getting a Disneyland Annual Pass. So, I figured what better way to celebrate a year long of Disney other than taking Christmas photos at the park?! Let me start out by saying, huge thank you to Marissa for snapping all these photos for us!

So, it was super overcast and rainy the one day we decided to do this. But since it was really our only chance to get them done, we just decided to roll with it. We took a few photos inside the Grand Californian Hotel and I was pleasantly surprised with how well they turned out in the end!

Since I didn’t want to throw all my eggs in one basket and just take some pictures inside, I decided to risk the rain and get some outside as well. While it was most definitely raining during these photos, I feel like the umbrella was just the perfect prop to add a lil’ something, something.

It wasn’t until later that Lyle pointed out that even though it was raining, it was actually the best chance to get our photos. The park was basically empty and we didn’t run the chance of being photobombed by strangers! So, even though I was bummed it was all wet and my hair was getting frizzy, there was a bright side to the whole thing and in the end, it all worked out fine!

*It’s been a whole year, I forgot how to close these things out. So let’s just go with…*

I hope y’all enjoyed this post! I’m hoping to get back into blogging next year but we’ll see how that all goes. Wishing y’all a great holiday season with lots of good food and family time!

xo,
Lori

Hi guys! It’s been well over a month since I’ve posted on here and I’m definitely not a fan of that. I’ve just found it difficult to be inspired to find something to talk about. I have blogposts planned for May but I didn’t want to just go from nothing to that. So, I figured I’d post a little life update on here.

In my last post, I talked about how Lyle and I spent the day exploring Venice. Since then, I feel like I’ve been all over the place, physically and mentally. I’ve done a whole lot of nothing and a whole lot of all the things. About 90% of my time was spent working my butt off! The other 10% was spent having fun and exploring!

Lyle and I ventured out towards the mountains one day to find some wildflowers and take some fun photos. It was one of the first beautiful days of spring, not too hot and not too cold. Perfect exploring weather for sure.

Marissa and I had a Disneyland day and a Universal day. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to head back to Disneyland since then but that’ll change soon! It’s summer and since Marissa will be working there, I can go during all my free time!

Also, I hadn’t been to Universal Studios since last summer when my family visited! I had been wanting to go back because, duh, Harry Potter. I was pretty excited I got to spend some time here, especially before it got super busy for summer. Also, had to get some of that frozen butter beer. So freaking delicious. I’m craving it right now. Sighhhh. I think I’m going to have to find some recipes online soon.

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Hello everyone! This year, I decided to take the leap and buy an annual pass so I could visit Disneyland more often. I’m actually pretty excited about it. It’s been very interesting visiting during the off season and seeing the less busy days. It has also been pretty fun to experience the pass holder perks ;)! I hate going so long without a blogpost so I figured I’d just do a mini photo diary of the Disney days with my cousin Marissa so far. Obviously, these are not all my photos so thank you to all the Disney photographers! I hope you enjoy!

 

 

Hello again and happy extremely belated 2017! I spent two weeks at home and unexpectedly also took a two week vacay from bloggin’. It was very nice not worrying about getting something up at the right time for everyone to see. I was busy enjoying time with my family, as I’m sure everyone else was. Now that I’m back in LA, it’s time to get back to business.

Today, I wanted to share with you a recap of my 2016 year as well as what I think about 2017. 2016 has a bad reputation for most people. I didn’t want to focus on the bad but instead focus on the good! Also, to make things quick, I decided to just share a list about my 2016 experiences.

1. Finally finding a job with photography after graduating in 2013
2. Flying home and surprising my dad for his birthday
3. Miclynn visiting us, TWICE
4. Road tripping up PCH from LA to San Francisco with Lyle and Russell
5. Celebrating my 25th birthday at Disneyland with my best friends
6. Having my family visit during the summer
7. Visiting Catalina Island for Lyle’s birthday
8. Spending some sweet summertime in Texas
9. Having a job that allowed me to take time off whenever I wanted/needed
10. Checking Portland, Oregon off my travel bucket list
11. Checking Disneyland during Halloween off my bucket list (thanks to MY COUSIN MARISSA!)
12. Being able to explore and travel to multiple places in California throughout the year
13. Road tripping home (again) for Christmas
14. Spending 2 weeks at home visiting family and friends
15. Ending 2016 with my loved ones
16. Surviving an entire year living in LA

2017 has quite a bit to live up to. I have a lot of high expectations for this year and for myself. I’m sure everyone feels super empowered at the beginning of a new year and it’s a great feeling to have! I wish we could always think this way about every day instead of just at the beginning of the year. Here is my (slightly more detailed) list for 2017, in no particular order.

1. Focusing on positivity. I let too many things bother me and bring me down. I want to try my hardest to stop that this year.

2. Furthering my career. I have the hardest time explaining to people what it is I want to do. Half the time, I’m not even 100% sure. So, I’ll just leave you with “furthering my career”. Whatever that may be.

3. Worry less. Worry less about what others are doing, worry less in general. Things almost always work out in the end, so why should I waste the time worrying about it?

4. Bring more peace into my life. Taking care of my mind and body is something I worked on a lot last year. But, like I said above, I worry and let things bother me.

5. Explore Los Angeles more. I’ve been here a little over a year and everyday I’m finding new places and areas I want to see. This city is massive and I want to make sure I see as much as I can while I’m here.

6. Travel more. That’s a given. I already have travel plans in mind, but who knows what life has planned for me!

7. Be more open. I don’t quite want to be like Jim Carrey in “Yes, Man” but I also don’t want to turn away opportunities or ideas that I might have before.

8. Read more books. I used to read a book a week when I was younger. That was those pre-internet days though. I want to get back into it this year.

9. Get/stay organized. I say this every year and yet, I have over 7,000 photos on my phone that have yet to be organized. Ugh.

10. Keep on bloggin’. As of right now, I have no idea what the future is for my blog. I have a few ideas here and there, but nothing consistent. My monthly photo diaries was fun, but I don’t think I want to continue it. I need to figure that out ASAP because it’s already almost February. What?

11. Pick up old hobbies. I love to paint and watercolor. I may not be that great at it, but it’s a fun hobby to keep me occupied. I want to do that more this year.

12. Work harder on photo. Another given. I always strive to work harder and better my photography. I hope that this is the year that I experiment more with film!

13. Work harder on video. I played with the idea of creating YouTube videos but I have no idea what content I would create. I just know that video is something I love doing and I want to do more of it this year.

14. Be more thankful. I’m 1000% thankful for everything I have in life. But sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in what you don’t have rather than what you do have.

15. Try something new. Last year, I went parasailing for the first time. Being terrified of the ocean, it was kind of a big deal. But it was so fun and worth it. What should I try this year?

16. Stop procrastinating! Or at least try to. This blogpost going up way later than it should have been is already a bad start. But that’s okay. I’m only human, right?

17. Last but not least, I hope to end 2017 in a better place than where I started it. Not that I’m in a bad place now! I just want to be continuously growing. I would hate to find myself ending this year with no growth.

So, there ya have it friends! A look back on 2016 and what I hope for in 2017. I hope you all have had a wonderful start to this new year! And I look forward to what’s to come next! As always, let me know what you think! xo

Hey everyone! I was recently introduced to Turo and challenged to share with you my ideas of a special date night. I’d like to think I’m pretty easy to impress because I like to keep things simple. Grabbing a cup of coffee or going for a nice drive are things that I would enjoy for a date night.

I do, however, think it’s fun to change things up a bit once in a while! Doing the same kind of thing every single date night can get tiring. I think it would be fun to maybe rent a nice car to take out on a drive! Turo is a peer-to-peer car rental company, meaning you can rent from others who list their vehicles. You have hundreds of options to choose from so you can book the car of your dreams!

All you have to do is sign up with Turo and have your identity and eligibility confirmed so you can become an approved driver. Then, you can enter your travel dates and location and book your car. You can meet the car owner or have it brought straight to wherever you are! Then, you’re free to adventure wherever you please! When your trip has come to an end, just make sure you refill the gas you used up and meet with the owner again to return the car.

So after renting a car, my special date night would begin with that perfect cup of coffee. After that, a nice drive through the mountains would be amazing. It’s always fun to pull over where you can and take in the view! Then, date night would end by catching the sunset over the ocean, mountains or wherever you can before grabbing dinner and heading home.

I hope you enjoyed today’s blogpost! Hopefully it inspired you to change up your date night routine, whether it’s by renting a fun car or just going somewhere new! Be sure to check out Turo’s instagram at www.instagram.com/turo. Thanks for reading today, and until next time, xo!

Hello everyone! Welcome to last installment of my Portland series blogposts. Finally, I know! Today I wanted to share with you all the outdoor adventures near Portland! Most of these locations are only about an hour or so outside of the city so they’re easy day trips to get away to. I want to try and keep this one short and sweet but there’s a lot to get to so keep on reading!

Our first outing from the city was to Cannon Beach, Oregon. Located about an hour and half outside the city, it’s an easy, beautiful drive through the forest. Of course, it rained just about the entire time to and from the coast, but what’s visiting the PNW without a little rain right?

When we arrived to the coast, we went to Ecola State Park. The weather this day was not exactly “beach weather”. It was very windy and very cold. We first stopped at the secluded Indian Beach and pretty much just walked up and down the coastline. We watched crazy surfers endure the frigid waters and crazy waves and seagulls attack crabs that would wash up on the shore. That was definitely added to my list of “Coolest Things I’ve Seen in Nature”.

   

  

We wandered around until we couldn’t bear the cold anymore and ran back to heat up the car. We made one last stop to take in the views of the Pacific Coast before heading to Cannon Beach.

Cannon Beach was definitely a super touristy town, but super cute nonetheless. We definitely had a hard time finding our way to the beach. Don’t get that confused with “we didn’t know where the beach was”! I’m pretty confident in knowing which way the ocean is. We just didn’t know HOW to get there, as far as beach access. We ended up parking in a nearby lot and walking right across the street to it! I didn’t feel so bad when we were heading out and others were asking us how to get there.

Cannon Beach was absolutely mesmerizing. We wandered out onto the beach and I ran around in the sand so happy to be there. Like I said, it was extremely windy and extremely cold. My poor Sadie did not appreciate that, thus spending most of her time wrapped in blankets in my backpack. After getting to the point that I could no longer feel my toes, it was time to pack up and head back to the city.

The Columbia River Gorge is the perfect place to head to if you’re as enamored with waterfalls as I am. Beginning about 30 miles outside of Portland, there are amazing trails, views and waterfalls to fall in love with. There are two I want to tell you about today but as always, definitely explore for yourself and see what you can find.

Multnomah Falls is definitely the tourist stop of the gorge. You’ll have to fight for parking and fight for that Instagram shot, but I would say it’s definitely worth it. It was an absolutely gorgeous sight. After seeing it countless times on my Instagram feed, I still was not disappointed. After seeing the Spurs visit just last year, I knew I had find my way there ASAP. So happy I finally did.

  

Latourell Falls is very underrated. You can view it from the parking lot, but why not get closer right? Lyle was brave enough to scramble across the wet rocks and get almost right under the falls. I wish I would have gone as well but I had my camera equipment to attend to. Either way, it was a massive waterfall and I could have stayed there for hours being hypnotized by it’s beauty.

We actually spent the last half of our trip at an AirBnb in Hood River, Oregon. Staying here, we had easy access to Mt. Hood National Forest. Hood River was a cute town by day, but shut down pretty early by night, so there wasn’t much to do.

Our first stop out in Mt. Hood was Lost Lake. We went on the last day they were open for the season, which was lucky for us because everyone was just about gone from the campgrounds. We basically had the entire lake to ourselves and it was amazing. It was so serene to just sit and watch Mt. Hood dance in and out of the clouds from the lakeside. We explored around the lake a bit before snapping a few photos for my friends at Weekend Tee.

  

  

Timberline Lodge was recommended to us by our Airbnb host. It sits at the base of Mt. Hood and was actually used in the filming of The Shining for a few exterior shots of The Overlook Hotel. The Shining is one of my favorite movies, so I found that little fact pretty exciting! On our way up towards the lodge, we pulled over and noticed it was already snowing! We stopped for a few to look around and freeze our butts off before decided to head back down the mountain.

Since this is the last you should hear of Portland (no promises), I’ll end it by sharing the video of our trip! I hope you enjoyed this mini series slash the way I broke down our trip this time around. I tried to make it informative and helpful for whoever is planning a trip out to Portland! If you’re ready to book your first trip with Airbnb click here for code from me! 🙂 Again, I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!

Hello everyone! You’re in for another long post so it’s time to jump straight into our San Francisco adventures!

We drove straight from Monterey to our AirBnb in San Rafael. Our host was the absolute sweetest and super helpful with any questions or concerns we had. After getting settled in with our stuff and the space, we grabbed a quick lunch before going to Muir Woods National Monument. The temperature in this area was in the low 60s and if you know me, that’s freezing. Luckily, I was prepared with my flannel and jacket.

There were signs all along the main trail asking visitors to walk quietly and enjoy nature. And that we did. We made sure to take our time so that we could really observe our surrounds and take it all in. Muir Woods was such a peaceful place, I definitely recommend making the stop here if you’re in San Francisco.

We left Muir Woods to head up to the peak of Mount Tamalpais. The drive up was spent going through winding roads and we were surrounded by the low hanging clouds. We finally got up to the top and HOLY COW, Y’ALL! The views from up here were absolutely incredible. At this point, we were high above the clouds and the sun was shining so bright. It was such a drastic change from the drive up. We spent some time exploring Mount Tam before heading out for dinner.

After dinner, we took a drive up to Santa Rosa so that Lyle could go check out a brewery he’s been dying to visit, Russian River Brewing Company. He was so excited and this was probably his favorite part of the entire trip.

Tuesday was our only full day in San Francisco so of course we had to fit as much in as we could. First stop of the day: Marin Headlands. Of course, there’s tons of people trying to get their view of the bridge so there was no parking. We drove a little further into the headlands and got a nice peaceful view of the bridge all to ourselves. We spotted whales here as well! We saw so much marine life over the past few days and it was incredible.

We went on to explore the rest of the area. Turns out there was a bunch of bunkers and barracks from The Cold War set up to protect the bay against any foreign invaders at that time. It was really cool seeing nature grow into the history of the area.

Once we finished exploring the headlands and Golden Gate, we were starving, so we went to 4505 Burgers & BBQ. Holy…you guys, the food here was so delicious. Lyle and Russell ordered burgers and I ordered a brisket sandwich. I have not had such good BBQ since leaving Texas. It was so satisfying of my BBQ craving. I highly recommend it! After lunch, we stopped by the Painted Ladies in Alamo Square since we were right around the corner. If you don’t know what the Painted Ladies are, they’re the “Full House” houses.

Next, we went to Pier 39. I had actually visited San Francisco when I was 17 and I remember going to all these places. It was fun to do it all again though! We checked out the aquarium, walked around a bit and of course, we had to check out the infamous seals!

We decided to move on to check out what was going on at Haight-Ashbury. On our way there, we took a small detour and drove on the famous Lombard Street. There were so many tourists taking pictures and standing in the middle of the street! They were really stressing Lyle out. After that, we finally got to Haight-Ashbury. Despite our sunny day out at Pier 39, Haight-Ashbury was very foggy. Coincidentally, this is where all the hippies live. We checked out some shops and got to explore around the neighborhood before we realized we could catch the end of the Spurs game. We ended up at a bar and, sadly, watched our boys take a loss.

Lyle’s friend, Nick, recommended pizza for dinner at Little Star. The place was small, cozy and dark and not too busy. We couldn’t decide what kind of pizza to order, so we went with trusty ol’ pepperoni. The pizza was super tasty and the crust was perfectly crunchy.

After that delicious dinner, we went on to meet Lyle’s friend Nick. He was really sweet and welcoming. He showed us his great view of the Bay from his balcony and talked with him for a few hours. We really got to know the guy who has half of Lyle’s heart. (Side note: they play video games together pretty much everyday. That’s how they know each other.) We headed back to our place as Nick had to work the next morning.

Wednesday morning we woke up, packed up our things and thanked our AirBnb hosts for everything. We grabbed some breakfast at a little cafe, which was AMAZING, and then went to Fort Point for our last bit of exploring the Golden Gate Bridge. At this point, we had pretty much seen it from every angle. It never gets old though.

We then headed to the Palace of the Fine Arts to see what was there. We pretty much just walked around the little pond, which was nice for Sadie to stretch her little puppy legs. There were swans in the pond and one snapped at her! She made sure to stay away from the water after that.

After that, we went to Four Barrel Coffee in Mission District. If you know me, you know I love trying new coffee places and this place was an A+ on my list. If you’re ever in the area and need some fuel, definitely check this place out!

From there, we went on to Twin Peaks. No, not the restaurant! It’s a centrally located natural area that rises more than 920 feet! It’s the second tallest peak in the city. The view was absolutely incredible! You had a panoramic view of the entire city and the bay area. We first climbed the peak and holy moly the wind was insane. I honestly thought I was going to be blown away. Then, we went down to the main vista point where plenty of others were gathered. We chilled out, snapped a few pics and then were on our way back to good ol’ LA. Lucky us that we had a local to give us some bomb recommendations. Thanks, Nick!

Next up, I’ll spill all about how my actual birthday went, so be sure to check back for that! Thanks again for tuning in!

I flew into town Thursday night. Shout out to Paul for being able to pick me up from the airport! I called my mom as soon as I landed, and since she was with my dad, she had to tell him it was me and I would call back. I called him when I was about 3 minutes away from home and rambled about how my “day at work” had gone. I was inside the house, separated from my dad by a wall, when my dog Sierra started barking at my other dog Sadie. My dad says, “What was that?!” and I panicked and ran up the stairs. I thought he was going to come out and see me and that’s not how I wanted to surprise him. He never came out so I went back downstairs and just hung up the phone and walked in and said “Hey!” I’ll never forget the look on his face; he was more shocked than happy to see me, haha! Even 20 minutes later he was still saying “I just can’t believe you’re here!!” If you know my dad, you know he’s asleep by 8:30. It was a little after 9 and he couldn’t stop yawning but he still wanted to take me to Whataburger.

Monday was my dad’s actual birthday. We both just hung around the house and what not until dinner. We had some homemade enchiladas and my mom had picked up some tamales on her way home from work. It was a dinner made in heaven, basically. Dinner was topped off with some delicious chocolate cake that my sister had made. After dessert, my dad opened his gifts and we all just sat around and talked. I really enjoy spending time with my family, even if they’re all crazy! :p

I had so much fun being back in Texas and I was super sad to leave my family. I’m really excited I got to see everyone, including all my nieces and my nephew! Tuesday was my flight back to LA so I didn’t do much except have my last Texas meal (Bill Miller’s) and head off to the airport. Now, I leave you with some photos from my trip and I hope you enjoy! Until next time, xo!