The Day After Christmas

Ever since we got home from San Francisco, Levi and I have been trying to recreate the feeling of being on vacation with little day trips, so on the day after Christmas, we headed to Pasadena... for coffee. Yes, we drove all the way to Pasadena for coffee. We're devoted. It turned out to be the perfect day to go - absolutely NO traffic. Empty LA freeways are glorious.

I love the drive to Pasadena. The 110 freeway is so old and cool. When we got off the freeway, we drove past all the Rose Parade bleachers on the way to Intelligentsia, where we had some delicious coffee.

After coffee, we walked around and looked in shop windows. I was sad that 'lette was closed for the day...

The day was mostly spent wandering around: grocery stores (Gelson's is the best), sidewalks, little shopping centers.

We capped off the evening with dinner at Bottega Louie.

Perfect day.

ladies who lunch

a couple weeks ago, my sister and i took a little, impromptu trip to downtown LA because we were craving bottega louie.

i usually order the bianco pizza (seen here), but this time we tried the margherita.

oh my gosh.

best pizza of my life....as evidenced by my face in these photos.

(that's probably the happiest i've ever looked.)

(how cute are these cupcakes?? they have baby macarons on top!)

on the way out, we picked up some macarons and headed over to intelligentsia in silver lake for some coffee.

bottega louie has good macarons, but paulette's are waaaaay better. best macarons i've ever had. go there! trust me!

i love LA. i love coffee. i love pizza. i love macarons. and i love my little sister.

last week/this week

last week, at this time, we were heading to downtown LA to take care of our wedding rings.

(side-note: i had to leave my ring there, and i'm hating not wearing it. i'm sooooo excited to get it back though and to see levi's ring! ohhh, they're gonna be amazing.)

and this week, we're heading back to downtown LA to get some supplies for wedding décor. wish us luck!

i'm kinda hoping that we'll pop into bottega louie for something yummy like we did last week...

(not as good as the macarons at my beloved paulette, but still quite delicious)

(don't they look like roses? so pretty.)

(prettiest pastry boxes ever)

(tiramisu éclair)

(this is our very good friend, ed. he's levi's "big brother" and my {almost} "brother-in-law." he's the BEST.)

(they serve their iced tea with simple syrup! it's the little things.)

(little things like complimentary sparkling water & pink salt in the shakers)

(poor levi was sick & running a fever. he let me & ed do most of the talking.)

(bianco pizza with ricotta & arugula. divine.)

it was the most beautiful restaurant. i want to buy it and live in it. pretty sure we're going to have to stop in for lunch today...