Style Me Blogger: This Place I Call Home

Back with the Style Me Bloggers for another link-up. This time the subject is where we live. The city I live in is pretty small and dull, I'll instead tell you about all the awesome things around my city. Fair enough?

I can get to the beach in 15 minutes. Actually the palm tree and sky picture was taken by me a few years ago. I was sitting in Laguna Beach on my beach chair, and I happened to look up and a little behind me and I saw how awesome the clouds looked with the palm trees. This picture was upside down. When I got home, and I flipped it around it was better then I could have imagined.

Baby Fox's first time to the beach, he's about 2.5 months old.

Mini Fox's first time at the beach (that I can recall and find a picture of), she's 9 months old

Laguna Beach

Our favorite restaurant in Laguna to take visitors, it's called Las Brisas and the outside seating is perfection, the food is good and the drinks yummy.

On that same note we can head 2 hours east and get to mountains with snow, so we can basically go from the snow to the beach in about 2.5 hours drive time.

Oh how I miss the slopes, we didn't get any snow this year...so we didn't get to go...hopefully next year we can dump have my parents watch the kids and we go snowboarding.

Disneyland is only 20 minutes way. Need I say more?

Baby Fox's first time, he's almost 2.5 and I am about 18 weeks pregnant.

First time taking Mini Fox to Disneyland, she's 3.5 months old.

The weather. I love the sunshine, although I do like snow and the different seasons, I think if I had to chose I would choose nice weather all the time, and visiting the places that have month upon months of cold weather.

January 2013 - Bike riding. Notice even though Mr. is wearing a sweater, he's also wearing shorts.

 January 2014 - Washing cars and swimming

 January 2015 - Flowers are blooming

I know I've mentioned this before, practically every post, but I love that I can hike, get some exercise  and see the ocean all at the same time. Sometimes I think, some people go their whole lives and never see the ocean and that makes me sad. I hope everyone in their lives gets to see the ocean at one point or another.

I'm going to add another one to the list as an honorable mention. I do have to say we have some pretty good food here too. I always hear people people talking about how good this restaurant was and how good this restaurant was, everything from plain American food, to Persian, to Indian, to Japanese, Fusion Everything, Vegan places, Vegan Japanese places. You name we've got it here. I can't say that I've tried them all out, or any of them really. because of my food allergies, but I know people are always taking about the different foods they've eaten.

So if I haven't convinced you to come visit Southern California yet, I don't know what will!


Oh I just thought of another one!

The Rose Parade is right in our backyard. I know several people who go to it year after year. You can see them up close and personal before the parade even begins. And I can't find ONE picture of us going to see the floats before the Rose Parade. Darn. It seems that I'm missing a bunch of photos...I wonder where they went, I hate when that happens.

Now go take a look at where everyone else lives and see what makes their city so great, but between you and me, I pretty much love where I live! Although I do think it would be fun to live over seas for a year or two.

Shoes to Shiraz | Two Teens and their Mama | A Lovely Little Wardrobe | 
R Squared  | Confessions of a Frumpy Mommy 

The Mishaps and Mayhem of Solitary Life |  Quilty Joy Joy

 Daily Style Finds | Making The Most of Everyday | Puppies and Pretties | She Thought She Could 

 Foxy's Domestic Side | Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After | Nick and Nik

An InLinkz Link-up

Linking up with Erika, Andrea, and Narci for Friday Favorites, September Farm and The Farmer's Wife for Oh Hey, Friday! April and the girls for Five on Friday, Jennie for Friday Favorites, Caitlin and the girls for High Five for Friday

Another Vlog Another Day

I thought today would be a great day to post a vlog from last week. I'm loving putting these together, I know I'm going to love watching this a year, two years, a bazillion years from now. Hope you enjoy it too, subscribe to my channel, it would make me super happy! :)

Also linking up with Amanda, for Thinking Out Loud and Vanessa and Penny for Thinking out Loud, Nicole at Treat Yo' Self Thursday and Lulia, Stephanie and Sarah for The Ladies Collective and Joey and Kristin for Stuff and Things

What Up Wednesday!

Today I'm linking up with  Mel and Shay for What's Up Wednesday, Sheaffer is off doing her Bachelorette recap, they're hilarious, go check them out.

Here are the monthly question prompts.

What we're eating this week:

Mr. and I have been on the slow carb diet, but have started to slowly add in more carbs during the day. So basically I've been adding in carbs if there isn't a no carb option. Like yesterday, I was pressed for time, so I ate a sandwich for lunch, the horror!  But really, we've been eating some sort of meat/bean bowl. Although this particular week, we're going to add a stir fry in there, and some chilli, yum!


What I'm reminiscing about:

 As I'm planning Baby Fox's 4.5 birthday, thinking about how little he was! He's probably a couple of weeks old here.

Tired Mommy

One of my all time favorite photos of Mr. with Baby Fox

What I'm loving:

My weekly sunrise hikes on Saturday. This picture was from March 3rd, the very first time I went

 

This is the same picture from this past Saturday.

I absolutely love the people I hike with and how positive and encouraging everyone is.

 

Here's a vlog I did on our hike.

What we've been up to:

Swim lessons

 

Hanging with family

and Friends

What I'm dreading:

Life stuff that I wish I didn't have to deal with.

What I'm working on:

Game night for my fellow parent friends. The game theme is Minute to Win It, how fun is that? Any ideas? I actually got the idea from this lady, fun right? I'll let you know how it goes, and I'll try to take pictures.

I'm also working on Baby Fox's 4.5 birthday party, Spiderman theme. Currently trying to figure out a way to DIY this background poster...I have big plans!

What I'm excited about:

Seeing our cousins this weekend! We haven't seen them in a while, so we're excited to hang out with them for a whole evening.

What I'm watching/reading:

We started watching The Wire, have you seen it? I didn't like it at first, but it's growing on me. Now that I know the character names and stuff. So happy that it has 5 seasons...will keep us busy for a while.

 

 I just ordered the books The Husbands Secret and The Light Between Oceans

 

  
What I'm listening to:

Not much, unfortunately.

What I'm wearing:

I found this cute dress from Old Navy, well actually Vanessa found it, and I ordered it immediately after seeing it on her. The possibilities on this dress are endless, can't wait to really add it into the rotation. Right now the 65° weather is preventing me from doing this...cause you know that's cold here.
  

What I'm doing this weekend:

We're going to go see some cousins and then swim lessons on Sunday, low key weekend.

What I'm looking forward to next month:

The parents game night party and Baby Fox's birthday party.Along with a birthday party for a good friend and maybe a mud run thrown in there, my first, should be fun :)
 

What else is new:

Not much, just trying to hug my kids a little tighter, and be the Yes mom, take my kids to the park more and just be with them more, the house work can wait.
 

What is your favorite thing to Grill/BBQ?

Hands down is my shrimp recipe.

Also linking up with Because Shanna Said So, Get Your Pretty On, The Pleated Poppy, Tucker Up , Shopping my Closet,  Molly and Carly and  More Pieces of Me and On the Daily Express,

Long Weekends are the BEST!

Happy Day after a long weekend. Mine went by way too fast! But at the same time I felt like I got a lot of time at home with my family. Did that make sense?

Anyway, Friday I went to a new (to me) workout class. I somehow injured myself, I have no idea how I did it, but I look down while on the rowing machine and I had a bloody knee. Don't worry, my Mommy cleaned me all up.

My parents watched Mini Fox while I was at the gym, she loves her magazines.

Mr. picked up his his mom from the airport and we headed out to get some dinner. I didn't take any pictures inside, just as we were leaving. Everyone smiling...I'll take it!

Baby Fox fell at school and scratched his nose

Saturday, I got up and went on my usual Saturday morning hike. First view of the ocean, only half way to the top.

Mostly at the top

Looking in the other direction. I just loved how the sun was beaming down below. Pretty good, considering this is an iPhone shot.

 This little guy is all ready for football season. Any ND fans out there?

 Helping Daddy make him his Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast.

We pretty much just hung out most of the morning, I went to the grocery store while MIL and Mr. took the kids to the park. Yep those are her jammies, she didn't want to take them off.

 Saturday evening we had MIL's sister over for dinner, Carnitas, yum!

Trying to use my selfie stick...can't get everyone in there...so hard! Here's one with Mini Fox in it.

And then another one where Baby Fox got in...can't have it both ways I guess, perhaps we need a smaller table?

For dessert, MIL's sister brought over some cake. The kids LOVED IT!

The only problem? The caffeine in the chocolate, kept both kids up till 11pm! Oops...

Sunday, MIL had to go home (insert sad face), so the kids and I watched Tinkerbell and the Neverbeast.

I love how they are both sucking their fingers

Mini Fox could not be bothered with a picture, she was too into the show.

Blurry picture, but can you tell she was super concerned with what was happening? She kept saying, OH NO!

After all that, some yogurt to calm the nerves, LOL, just kidding. It was a cute movie though, on Netflix.

Sunday, swim lesson day. Here's a video of it...he did some side breathing for the first time, did pretty good if you ask me :) (not sure why it's so blurry when you watch it from here, but if you go to my YouTube channel, it's clear...hmmm??)

 
Baby Fox and I went to Costco after his nap, every kids needs a sword down his back in Costco, you just never know when you'll have to fight off bad guys right?



Monday Baby Fox and I headed to the gym, then when we got home, Mr. headed to the gym, so I took the kids to the park. Here's a picture of Baby Fox next to those flowers I posted on Friday, crazy how tall they are right?

Hanging out on the park bench.

Lunch time, when exactly did she get big enough to sit at the table?!

10 Raspberry fingers...oops, make that 9, he ate one before I could snap the picture.

Just a girl, her blankie and a tractor.

We went to my parents house for dinner, which I took pictures of, and then didn't have time to load them last night, darn. It was a nice way to end the long weekend. Now back to the grind, why can't every weekend be 4 days?

How was your long weekend? Do anything fun and exciting?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Also the Style Challenge is back! Sign ups for the Summer challenge is on right now! Go sign up*, I promise you won't regret it! Join me and the other ladies, I'm all signed up, are you?!

*affiliate link

Linking up with Faith, Heather and Daily Momvitity for Mommy Moments,  Erin for Weekend Snapshot4, B Loved Boston and Champagne & Suburbs  for Weekending,  On the Daily Express and More Pieces of Me for Manic Monday, and Monday Madness with Ashley at A Cute Angle