Chelsea: A Happy Hour at Tank House

Story time, guys. Every day on my lunch hour, I take myself on a walk. Usually to get a tea at one of the myriad Starbucks locations within walking distance from my office, but occasionally I just walk for the sake of walking and seeing what I can see. One day, I decided to deviate from my usual route and meandered around for a while. As I came out of Peet’s Coffee, mango sunrise tea in hand, I see across the street (cue angelic chorus)….a huge meat smoker.

What you may not know about me (yet) is that Southern barbecue is my jam. In spite of being California, born and bred, deep down in my little soul, I know that I belong somewhere in the Deep South where I can eat my weight in smoked meat any old time I want. Keeping that in mind, seeing that smoker on my walk had my interest piqued. I decided to cross the street and check it out.

Jullie: California Vibes

My family's Disneyland annual passes expired last month, and though we ultimately decided not to renew, we were at least able to get in one more trip to The Happiest Place On Earth! My parents are also Disney Vacation Club members (as mentioned in a couple of previous posts), so they were able to book a room at the Grand Californian Hotel! We loaded up the car, picked up my cousin Samantha (again, mentioned plenty of times in previous posts :P), and made the oh-so-familiar drive down to Anaheim...and we had a couple of fun stops along the way! I'll be using a combo of photos and video clips from my Snapchat throughout these posts, so here's a quick preview of what I'll be talking about in Part 1:

Jullie: Carmel-By-The-Sea

Back in July, my cousin Samantha sent out a group text to all of the Aquino cousins. Get ready for a beach day in August, baby! :D As all of the RSVP’s started to pour in (the group text was LIT)…I started to get really excited for another big family party! It's always a blast when we all get together, and I was definitely interested in exploring the picturesque Carmel-By-The-Sea. :)

Chelsea: Fish Face Poke Bar

I think we all know that I have a restaurant crush. It's on North Shore Poke Co down in Huntington. After the awesomeness that is North Shore, I was excited to get back home and try out some poke spots near me. Which inevitably led me to Fish Face Poke Bar in Sacramento. Believe it or not, there are actually a few poke spots in the Sacramento area, and they've all made it onto a list for me to try in my search for a spot near me to help me get over North Shore.

Jullie & Chelsea: Socal Finale | DCA & The Anaheim Packing House

Happy Friday, everyone! We hope you enjoy the finale of our SoCal trip recap! Today, we’ll be talking about a couple of stops in Disney California Adventure and an awesome Anaheim gem to hit up for even more food options. They’re all great places to take note of and to help plan your next vacation! :)

Jullie & Chelsea: SoCal Day 2 | Disneyland

Our SoCal recap continues! Matching t-shirts. Matching birthday buttons. Yup. Jullie and Chelsea take Disneyland! (Oh, and a little tip? You don’t need to wait in a ginormous line at City Hall to get your buttons. Most shops all over the park have them at the cash register. You just have to ask!)

Traveling together was really awesome. Both of us are veterans when it comes to Disney vacations, so there wasn't any pressure or “we have to do this” situations. We know what we like to do, ride, and see, and those are the things that we put at the top of our list when planning our trip.

Jullie & Chelsea: SoCal Day 1 | From Pasadena to Huntington Beach

Happy hump day, everyone! Jullie here! Chelsea and I are excited to finally share all of the details from our recent SoCal trip together. For those of you who don’t know…our birthdays are only a few days apart, so we planned a little weekend trip back in March, as a joint celebration. Over the next couple of days, we'll be talking about Disneyland (one of my absolute favorite destinations to talk about on the blog!) and each of the fun stops we made along the way! First up, Pasadena and Huntington Beach...

Chelsea: The Best Sandwich Shop I've EVER Been To

Two weeks ago, I took a mini vacation down to Southern California with my boyfriend. Just a quick little jaunt to get out of town and take a little break from real life for a minute. While we there, we stumbled upon The Carving Board in West Hollywood.

Located off of West Sunset, this sandwich shop is quirky and kind of unassuming, tucked away between two Russian delis and a ramen shop. In fact, you would drive right by it if you didn't know it was there. When you walk in, you can't help but feel like you're just at your favorite neighborhood sandwich shop...that is until you realize that this place is Zagat rated, and for good reason.

I think that the best part of this little culinary find is that it came about completely by accident. See, after driving all day, we were starving and boyfriend suggested that I check Yelp out for something close by that would be quick food. The second listing on Yelp was for the Carving Board and as I read the reviews and perused the online menu, reading snippets aloud, it was decided that we would have to try it out because anywhere that had those kind of reviews had to be worth the detour.

Jullie: Girls Date in Santa Cruz

My cousin Samantha has been featured in quite a few adventure posts already, particularly in vacations to the Philippines and to Disneyland. We just share a love for eating, traveling, and exploring a city. Often when we get together, it's for some kind of combination of those things. Most recently, we decided to drive down to Santa Cruz for a spur-of-the-moment Girls Day!

Jullie: Lemongrass Thai Cuisine in San Francisco

Lately, if I'm too lazy to cook after a long day or I'm just craving takeout, I turn to one of three types of foods: sushi, burgers, or Thai. You really can't go wrong with any of those, and in San Francisco in particular, it's always easy to find a quality spot to chow down.

This time around, I was in the Russian Hill neighborhood with a few friends. We ended up ducking into Lemongrass Thai Cuisine simply because we walked past it on Polk St...and there was also a Loving Cup next door that we were eyeing as a dessert option! ;) It was a smaller, casual space, but the "Best of the Bay Winner" signs definitely got our attention. And since none of us had ever been there before, we were all excited to try something new.