Alas, after 9 years (yikes 😳) I have made my return to Washington for a proper PNW fall! Giving credit where credit is due, I owe this trip back to my high school bestie Ang! Because when your friend from New Zealand lets you know she's coming home and you work for yourself you get on a plane and get your butt to the west coast!

Thanks to technology we get to chat a bit in between her trips to America every two years but danggg the years just keep flying by so I am so thankful I got to make it home to visit with her and meet her hubby (outside of Skype!) We may live on absolute opposite ends of the Earth (literally) but every time we're together it's like no time has passed. 

We totally lucked out and had a beautiful day in Seattle to play tourists. I've been to Pike Place more times than I can count, but I never quite tire of it and I'm pretty sure if I lived there I would totally buy myself one of their bouquets every week. 

After a really fun day of exploring together they headed off to their next adventure and I caught up with another one of my favorite people, Lindsey! With some impending storms in the forecast for the weekend, she suggested we spend a little time outdoors (good call!) So we headed over to Green Lake to walk the lake and take in some fall colors and boy was that a treat.. OMG 😍. 

I always joke with Lindsey that Seattle is so intimidating to me.. I know, I know I live in NYC, but Seattle just has so much variety and different neighborhoods that frankly I know very little about., plus there's that driving thing. So it is always such a treat for me every time we get together and when I get to explore new areas like a local. Ah, I just love it! Seattle you're dreamy.

I know I've already said it but I am SO very thankful for this time home -- and I still have over a week to go! Getting to visit with Angie and Lindsey was such a fun way to kick off my trip and I'm already itching for another day trip up to Seattle. So, so, SO happy this is real life and that I'm getting to spend more time at home. It's such a change of pace that really makes my heart full and I can't wait for the other memories to come from this trip!

If you caught my last blog post I've had some exciting changes in my life as of recent. Even better, I got to kick off my new life adventure with nearly a month on my favorite coast! It was so wonderful to be home to relax and regroup a little, all without having my departure looming over my head. Somehow the month still flewwww by but I did get some quality family time in, which I SO needed! Here are some of the highlights of my trip!

Portland

I kicked off my west coast tour in one of my favorite cities with some of my absolute favorite people -- the PERFECT combo!

It's always so much fun visiting Portland! I may have only lived there for a year, but it always brings back great memories.

Little Duck and I put our walking shoes on and had such a fun adventure! It's probably good we walked a lot too because we followed our amazing breakfast with donuts and cupcakes. #NoShame. Okay, well we saved the donuts for later, but hey, when in Portland enjoy the food!

After an awesome day. We united with our other lovely ladies and enjoyed a fun night out! We checked out a delicious little Italian spot in the Pearl District that was dishing up some seriously good bites and then we headed to the Nutcracker! The last time I had seen the Nutcracker, Little Duck probably wasn't even up to my shoulder in height, so you know it has been a LONG time! It was such a nice holiday treat and I'm so thankful that the Hardersens invited me to join them! 

For our last day in the city, we visited my all-time favorite Portland spot, Pine State Biscuits! Nom, nom, nom! Followed by some shopping at some seriously cool home stores including City Home -- LOVED this place!

Enumclaw

After our amazing trip in Portland, we headed back north! My mom recently moved back to my hometown so it was so wonderful to break in the new digs! We hosted the whole fam for Christmas and it was a great time catching up with everyone!

We even got a little bit of a *White Christmas*! Barely, but enough to say we did ;-) After Christmas I worked quite a bit, which doesn't make for that exciting of blog posts buttt I did capture this work-from-home day with my dad! We have matching hats because we're cool like that.

Fast forward a little bit and Chris headed west for a visit. Almost as soon as he arrived, we headed up north to Vancouver B.C. for a little getaway.

Vancouver, B.C.

I've been wanting to visit Vancouver B.C. for awhile so we decided to finally make it happen! Surprisingly, even though it's only about 3 hours away, I'd never been so it was some new scenery for the both of us.

Normally I'd do a lot of research on visiting a new city, but for this trip we kind of winged it by just booking a hotel and some great suggestions from a friend.

If there's two takeaways I have from our visit.. it is that Vancouver people are some of the friendliest I've ever met and man is the city beautiful! 

Seattle

Following our Vancouver trip, we also made a trip up to Seattle. Aww, love this city so much.

It may have been a little chilly, but the day was gorgeous so we hit up Alki Beach. I just love the views over there.. oh and the donuts weren't bad either!

We also checked out an Oregon Ducks bar for our bowl game. The bar was a lot of fun and it was awesome to see so many Ducks fans in Seattle. The game ended up being an epic bust though sooo we'll just skim over that fact!

And Back to Enumclaw!!

For the rest of my trip I mostly stayed local for some more family time and a few Seahawks games! Plus I got to be home for my mom's birthday (the first one since I was 18) soooo that was really nice too! 

It was such a great trip, although still somehow not long enough! I think being home so long almost threw me off in a weird way! If plans had to get pushed around I was thinking, "oh no problem, we'll get together later" and then poof! Suddenly there wasn't time for later. So to those I didn't see, or see enough of. I'll be home again soon! :)

Ohh helloooo San Diego! To all of the lovelies who follow me on social media, (If you don't yet you can here, here and here) you may have saw that Chris and I took a little weekend getaway to San Diego a few weeks ago! Anddd I think I'm already ready to go back ;-)

Such a fun and exciting story! Chris saw a tweet from America's Best Racing about their  Ultimate Surf & Turf Weekend Sweepstakes so he decided to enter, you never know right?! Well, it just so happened HE WON! We are living proof that people really do win those awesome sweepstakes, and oh boy let me tell you how awesome it was!

The people at America's Best Racing were so awesome getting us all set up. There was only about a week before our trip so Chris and I got our requests in at work while they were busy setting up our little dream getaway! They were really great about trying to get us an early flight out of NYC and a late flight out of San Diego so we could have the most time on the west coast, which worked out perfectly!

I think I feel in love with San Diego the second we landed. I've always kind of had this weird obsession with San Diego (even though I'd never been there before) and the second we walked out of the airport and non-humid, perfect California air hit my face that feeling was affirmed. 

They really pulled out all the stops for us! We had a driver waiting for us at the airport to take us to our hotel in Del Mar. Our hotel was  also right across the street from the racetrack, which was the perfect location for the races on Saturday!

Thanks to our early flight we made it in early enough to have the whole day of exploring! So I freshened up a little and then we hit up the hotel restaurant. We were just looking for a quick little bite but the restaurant had some seriously good food! 

We ordered some wings to share and I went with the lettuce wraps which were the perfect combination of sweet and savory.

After we got our grub on we decided to take a nice walk up to some of the shops in Del Mar. We could have cabbed it but hey, we live in New York we don't mind walking! We explored the land a little.. cute little shops, Starbucks with a super happy singing barista and lots of real estate businesses (oh hiii they knew I was coming). After we adventured a little we headed down the hill and towards the beach. Sometimes you get a different vibe for cities when you're on vacation but I have to say everyone in the Del Mar and San Diego area just seemed so happy! You immediately feel the change of pace from New York's hustle and bustle to a more relaxed and low-key vibe. It was really refreshing and after the month I had in August, totally what I needed!

I was totally loving all of the succulents along the streets too. I won't tell you how many pics I took of them.. Hey, we don't have these in New York! ;-)

For the evening, we met up with one of Chris' college friends. He's originally from New York but has lived in San Diego for the last 10 years so it was awesome to check out some of his favorite local spots. 

First up on the list.. some Mexican food at En Fuego Cantina! New York does food and it does food right, but the Mexican food category is one that is lacking. I'm not even huge on Mexican food, but growing up in Washington (and growing up with parents that loveee Mexican food) I know when it's good and California does it right. Now what I do love is margaritas and they had some really fun and different options.

After we finished dinner in Del Mar, we headed to downtown San Diego to get a little downtown flavor. I have got to say.. it was hopping! Of course it was a Friday night but there were so many places with live music and just hoards of people walking up and down the streets. Definitely a younger scene for the most part but there were people of all walks wherever we went. Everyone was just so friendly wherever we went too!

Parking was a little tough to find but I was enjoying the scenery too much to mind too much. We bar hopped to a couple of fun places including a rooftop bar before calling it a night. 

The next day it was all about the Pacific Classic at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club! We met up with our awesome host from America's Best Racing, José Contreras at the gate and he gave us the lay of the land and took us up to the Turf Club where we had a table looking right over the finish line, umm hiiii awesome!

I've been to a handful of race tracks around the country but it's going to be hard to compete with the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, it's seriously beautiful. From the hills and beautiful houses on the hills off of the horizon of the track to the palm trees and Spanish style architecture.. LOVE!

I mean really.. does it get better than this?

We had such an amazing day at the races and José couldn't have been a better host! We even got to go into the middle of the paddock when the horses were walking around before the race along with some front-row views of some of the races!

We may not have won big with our actual bets... My strategy of betting on all of the grey horses didn't exactly go my way this trip, but hey, I'd say we were pretty big winners already being able to come on this trip!

After a beautiful day at the track with the full VIP treatment every step of the way we still had one experience left for the evening... Dinner! The America's Best Racing had a dinner reservation all set up for us at a local Seafood restaurant, Brigantine. Everything about our trip was so well thought out and everything was so conveniently located, which was so nice!

The restaurant was really pretty and we got a table looking back over the racetrack. We don't get out to seafood often so I was excited about the choice, and after hearing their fish tacos were some of the best, we definitely had to order some! 

Two thumbs up to their fish tacos! SO yummy! Following the seafood trend, I ordered their Macadamia Crusted Mahi Mahi, which was the perfect choice to wrap up the perfect day. 

We may have only been in Cali for 3 days, but we were able to pack in a lot! Our last adventure from the America's Best Racing team was another unforgettable experience, surf lessons! I KNOW! They were serious when they said the Ultimate Surf & Turf weekend ;-)

I'd never been surfing before and to be honest, am not sure I ever would if it weren't for this experience so I'm so glad we had the opportunity to try it out! We had lessons with Jenny from the Del Mar Surf School and she was so great! I'm about the least athletic person ever and she was so encouraging and patient working with us (especially with me). I'm happy to say I even got up a few times! YES! 

We had our fair share of lots of wipeouts too. Surfing is tough! I always knew it was hard but I have a whole new respect for surfers. Mad props to Jenny for all of her great lessons and not giving up on me!

After surfing we had worked up quite the appetite so we headed up the hill back into downtown Del Mar for some grub.

Chris had noticed this sandwich shop on our walk from earlier in the week and was set on trying it out. 

I have to admit, I kind of tried to talk him out of sandwiches and into trying something else.. I mean we can get sandwiches anywhere. For once I'm glad he's stubborn though because Board & Brew's sandwiches were off the hook. Seriously. I may still be dreaming of them and how I can recreate their secret dipping sauce. They were THAT good. 

For the rest of our last day, we met up with Chris' friend again and did a little more exploring in San Diego. One of my friends who used to live in San Diego suggested we check out Balboa Park, so we headed on up there. 

The park is more than your typical park.. it actually houses all sorts of museums as well as the world-famous San Diego Zoo. It has to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever been too.

Truly breathtaking! I took so many photos of all of the buildings. Just so pretty! After we adventured for a few hours in the park we headed to another neighborhood, Mission Beach. Chris' friend knew about our love for burgers so we decided to head to the neighborhood as a last stop on our trip.

Mission Beach was cool! It had a different vibe than some of the other parts of San Diego and Del Mar that we had been to so I'm glad we checked it out. 

Now time for burgers! It was all about Hodad's! There was a little bit of a wait (lots of burger lovers in Mission Beach!)

Such a funky, fun spot! Monster, tasty burgers and awesome onion rings! A+ from the burger lovers! My tip is to stick to the single too. Chris decided he'd go in for the double thinking their burgers weren't going to be that big, and well, they were massive. 

And that's a wrap! We really couldn't have had a better more amazing trip. San Diego and Del Mar were absolutely gorgeous and I cannot wait to go back to visit! Orrr... if I could talk Chris into moving there I'd be there in a heart beat. I liked it that much. A HUGE thank you to the whole America's Best Racing team who set up the most amazing trip for us and truly made us feel like VIPs every step of the way. To our America's Best Racing host José for being such a wonderful host for us at the races and catching some of our wipeouts along the beach. To Jenny from the Del Mar Surf School for the awesome surf lesson and making me feel like I'm only a few steps away from being a surfer girl. To Chris' friend Mark for taking us under his wing and being an awesome tour guide along the way and to Nicole who sent over some awesome suggestions for us to check out while we were there! Truly the, Best. Vacation. Ever.