Laguna Beach

Ahh, Laguna Beach!

The place where I just wanted to drop everything, move to and become a california gurl. 

Alas, this was not possible so I made the most of the two days I spent there! 

The first stop was passing through on our journey to San Diego, so I didn't get to look around as much as I wanted too!

As well as admiring the beautiful views in these shots, I was also admiring the spectacular mullet & visor combo a woman was sporting at the next table along. It was Fabulous Californian Frizz! 

I had the best chicken caesar salad at Hotel Laguna, on Laguna Avenue (I think it was there is google maps serves me well...)

After lunch our feet touched the cali sand for the first time. 

On our second visit we stocked up on fresh fruit, sushi and the most to die for cookies from Whole Foods and enjoyed the sunshine and the beach. 

We buried the boys in the sand, we played catch, we swam in the sea, we jumped over waves and we dined like kings. 

Like father, like son...

Mango sorbet on my new hot pink 'Laguna Beach, Cali' towel.

People are so friendly in the US. I had to carry 4 ice creams back from the street to the beach so they gave me pots & a box to carry the cones in. Two ladies who were waiting to cross the road at the same time as me started chatting to me as they found my 'ice creams with hats' amusing. No one feels afraid to just chat, there's a really friendly amosphere. 

Laguna Beach lifeguard anyone? ;)

Next Up: Denver, Colorado, yeee-hah! 

San Diego

After a long journey, but with a stop at my favourite place on the way (more on that in the next post!) we reached the absolutely gorgeous house we were staying in, in La Jolla, San Diego. 

The quality of this snap isn't great, but you get the idea of the beautiful house!

Of course, we immediately jumped in the hot tub.

Don't pretend you wouldn't do it too!

The little one tested out the pretty super climbing frame, pretty sure it passed the test! 

One morning we stopped off at 'Denny's' - an all american diner that does the best all american breakfasts. 

Josh & I went for an Oreo milkshake, which turned out to be a big mistake. It tasted uh-mazing but not only do you get a glass full, you also get a tumbler full of the 'left over' milkshake, which is pretty much another full glass! Although it tasted amazing, I was already a little full by the time I received my TWO plates of breakfast!

Turns out that in a lot of diner's, when you order pancakes, you also get a 'side' of eggs, bacon, sausages and hash browns! I tried my best to get through it all but I was defeated, but I knew to just ask for Pancakes alone next time! 

I opted for the 'Red, White & Blue' Special. Blueberry pancakes topped with strawberries and cream cheese icing, with a glug of syrup on the side. It was definitely Instagram worthy, but I decided to cover up the 'bubbly bit'... it's just the cream heating up I assure you! 

We enjoyed some lovely days at the beach. The mornings were a little over cast but it tended to clear by lunchtime for perfect beach weather. 

Ethan, the Little Surfer Dude.

I loved the day we spent at San Diego Zoo, it's amazing there! 

 If you ever get the chance to go to the Westfield in San Diego, Go! It's beautiful and all outside, so in no way a stuffy shopping centre! It's fair to say we shopped till we dropped...

Next Up: Laguna Beach! 

Throwback: USA Road Trip! LHR to LAX

Last Summer I went on the holiday of a lifetime, that I will never ever forget.

I went on a road trip around the west coast of America with my dad, step mum and two little brothers.

It's exactly a year since I went, so I thought it'd be the perfect time to write about it!

It was such an amazing experience that I wanted to document it on my blog as a little throwback, so I'll start with flights to LAX!

Unfortunately I think I may have lost all the photos I took on my phone during the holiday, I'm still trying to see if I can retrieve them from my hard drive. I can't tell you how much this upsets me, photos are so important to me, but luckily I had two cameras with me, so took hundreds on them and my family all took photos too!

Pre-holiday selfie: done. In the taxi ready to go with the boys! 

Grumpy little one sulked in the hot tunnel to board the plan, but looked pretty cool taking after his big bro with the band tee and the bum bag. 

I was pretty happy and impressed with my champagne in premium economy.

Don't know about you but I love plane food. It's food that has it's own compartments and lids. so great.

Annoyingly there was a fault with the in flight entertainment for the first two hours, but they eventually got it working. About 5 hours in the screens cut out again, the whole cabin shouted 'Nooo!' which was highly amusing and bonded us with the strangers for a few minutes whilst we all laughed.

We touched down in LA! We headed straight for our hotel for the night to get some food and to flop on to freshly made beds! Ethan found some gummy american sweets & his 'bed' in the wardrobe pretty quickly...

We were all up and wide awake at 4am due to the time zone difference.

But then we were ready and raring to go for our drive to San Diego.

Especially this one, all kitted out for the journey!

We stopped in Laguna Beach on the way, which I would of included in this post, but seeing as i absolutely fell in love with Laguna Beach it deserves a blog post of it's own!


Disclaimer: Prepare yourself for a lot of photos of my little brother, Ethan. I just can't taken enough photos of that little man!

NEW VIDEO // Huge Summer Haul!

Hello! 

Have you seen my new 'Huge Summer Haul' video?

Have a look at the bits I've purchased for the summer months. 

Oh & I got a little fancy on my editing! 

Please do let me know what you think of it, any feedback is so helpful!

Comment, Like and Subscribe! 

♥

10 Things That Made Me Happy This Week

a list of 10 little things that made me happy this week (technically this hasn't all been in a week.. but it still makes me happy so go with it!)

1. Having a cute little picnic in the park with Henry. Quality time, with food, in the sunshine, what could be better?!

2. Summer, Summer, Summer! My summer 'to do' list is bursting with ideas.

3. Fun, lazy and drunken bbq's. Of course the most recent one ended with us chatting and even dancing into the early hours...

4. Brixton Village. I totally fell in love the place when I visited for dinner with my mum & bro the other night. I will definitely be returning for some shopping and snacking.

5. That storm. Insane thunder and lightning clashing and rumbling at 2.30am? exciting!

6. Healthy Food! Greek yoghurt, honey & strawberries for breakfast is a favourite along with toasted pitta bread and hummus for lunch or a snack. Also I just bought a blender... smoothie anyone?

7. Testing the new hammock in Henry's garden with Hen and Emma on a beautiful summers evening.

8. Beer Festival. Blog post to follow on this, a day full of fun!

9. Fresh garden peas! Straight from the pods in Dad's garden. Gorgeous! & Strawberries. I seriously don't know what I'm going to do when they're are out of season. Withdrawal...

10. Rediscovering all those beautiful Summer dresses that had been crammed up in a draw all winter.

What's made you happy this week? 

♥

Sunshine, Music & Friends!

A sunny Sunday of great music, fabulous company and lots of cider, beer and pimms! 

This post is all photo, photo, photos, sorry about that if you prefer a little more to read. 

The pram race took place and all the little ones were lining the streets armed with their water pistols to spray the pram race runners. This was all over pretty quickly, but we were more excited for the rest of the day.

Randy & The Rockets took to the stage (or opened out van should I say...!) and played for hours whilst people chatted, danced and mooched about in the sunshine! 

Martin is officially the best person to take action shots of, just look at that hair! 

Liam & his lovely girlfriend, Katie (above) and Henry & Nicky were the best company for the day.

Me & my lovely man.

Obviously I went for the burger, in fact, we all did! 

As the sun started to set Rory & Em turned up and fun continued!

We made our way to the pub to watch the world cup final! 

I'm not a football fan, but the world cup is a little bit more exciting than the usual stuff!