day trip to santa ynez

One thing I love about living in Los Angeles is how close we are to so many great cities and towns. Two hours from San Diego and two hours from Santa Barbara is not bad at all! The other weekend Matthew and I decided to go on a little day trip to Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez with our friends Eden and Zan {who we love soo much!}. We had the best time going to some wineries and exploring the cute little towns. We also had the best dinner ever at Eden's favorite place American Flatbread. She's been telling me about it since last year so I was so happy to finally check it out. They have the best pizza ever!! They source the freshest ingredients and it's made in a wood fire oven. Delicious! Here are some photos from our little getaway.

 Matthew and Zan were accidental twins :)

We had the best time and are dying to make another trip up there! Love you Eden and Zan!

xox

photos by Zan Passante

look book: tis the season

I'm really loving layering button-ups under sweaters and making them more girly {less tomboyish} with a pretty necklace. It's a little more me. It's also fun to mix and match with different prints, like plaids and florals. One thing that I think helps is if they're in the same color family, in this case color family blue. It makes it work a little more seamlessly and you avoid those stares of "what the heck is she wearing?!" although I'm sure I've received those before..

blouse, sweater, and necklace J. Crew {similar sweater, similar necklace}, skirt Tulle c/o Modcloth, shoes c/o Blowfish Shoes, bracelets Heather Belle

One thing that I love about this time of year is making time for family and friends. My close group of girlfriends {Lizzie, Hanna and Pauline} and I have a yearly tradition of going to an Italian restaurant in Pasadena for dinner each December. It's always something to look forward to and every year we sit around the table and talk for hours. It's weird to think about where we were in previous years and where we'll be in the future. {Like last year we were talking about the upcoming wedding!} One thing I'm grateful for is that we'll always be friends and always keep this fun tradition. 

Do any of you have holiday traditions that you keep with your friends or family?

xox

snap happy #36: my week in photos

Doing a horrendous amount of posing. The first photo is part of my attempting-to-avoid-essay-but-being-a-pinup shoot, the second is a quick snap before fireworks and the third is my botox actress face. I'm easily amused / The lighthouse on firework night / Another set of photos from the aforementioned shoot / Chicken and bacon ravioli / Claire and I / Animal lovin' / Shameless posing / Grudge style photo / A collage of cider induced fun on my part / PIZZA! / More pisstake posing / NACHOS!

If you aren't now hideously sick of my face, you've got a real sexual attraction to me. Kudos. Apologies for the amount of snaps of my mug! It seems being the owner of a face is the only interesting thing I've got going for me at the moment bar a pile of work to do and little enthusiasm. Before I ramble, I'd just like to acknowledge the horrific accident that took place on the M5 the other day. All those people are in my thoughts as are the emergency services who braved it all to save what they could. One of my friend's brother's was in the crash but is, thankfully, stable. All my prayers are centred around him recovering as soon as possible. It just goes to show that you never know....

It often amazes me just how many new experiences that the blogging community has to offer especially the idea that there's a ton of people out there that know about me. Claire (her face is up there ^^) told me that one of her friends from home was mega surprised to see her face on here because she reads my blog! It gave me real perspective and it dawned on me just how small this world is, haha. So, Sammy...if you're reading this...HELLO!!! 


I'm amazingly tempted to splash a bit of cash at the moment. A mass of work and stressy seminar leaders make for an insatiable need to buy things in order to forget said irritants. I'm definitely going to treat myself to some goodies. If you know me well, you'll know that I don't like to part with my cash; I own one pair of shoes....and they leak. If you've seen any awesome things out there recently pop me a link...I'm in the market for a few new possessions!! Anyway, I need to dash to my seminar so I'll love you and leave you for now!

P.S There's still plenty of places left with regards to the Christmas Blogger Meet. You can register for tickets HERE. If you've got any questions please feel free to email me at: vivatramp@gmail.com

san diego sun and fun

Matthew and I went down to San Diego to celebrate his big bday with his family and we had such a great time, as usual! The weather was absolutely perfect so we got sandwiches and went to the beach with his brother and best friend. It was so nice to sit outside and soak in the sun. 

Matthew and his gorgeous mom!

eep! dodging a ball!

I love Matthew's family so much! They are the sweetest people and I just adore my nieces and nephews {so cool to be able to say that now.. yay I'm an aunt!}. Look how cute these kiddos are! They bring big smiles to my face!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Happy first of August!!

xox

wedding wednesday: bachelorette weekend

As I mentioned on Monday, this past weekend my best friends and bridesmaids threw me a bachelorette weekend in gorgeous Santa Barbara! Ten of my dearest and closest friend made the journey from all over {New York, San Francisco, LA, San Diego, and even Oklahoma City}. I felt so loved and special! We stayed in the beautiful Canary Hotel, which blew me away from a design perspective. I'm officially inspired to recreate something similar in my future apartment with Matthew. There were Spanish, Moroccan, even African influences and the colors and patterns were perfectly matched. love love loved it!

 packing into a stuffed car, joking with Matthew saying "Vegas here we come!"

the most delicious french toast on warm berry preserves with a vanilla cream on top

texting Matthew at the end of the night!

I'm still majorly sleep deprived from the weekend but I have the most amazing memories to last a lifetime. I'm already wanting another trip with all these girls in a couple years. They were the best, most easy going group, and now I miss them all terribly!

{I also miss my Bachelorette crown!}

xox

 

photos by my sweet friend Kimberly Desjardins {minus 1-3 and 6}