US West Coast

What’s Hip & Delicious in Los Angeles? Silver Lake’s Alimento

Alimento

Our visit to Alimento in the historic Silver Lake neighborhood ~

If you have visited here before, you know that delicious food and fabulous restaurants are very high on our adventures list. We do try to search out the most talked about and well reviewed restaurants around the U.S. so we can share them with you! Today’s focus is located in our very own La La Land, Los Angeles. We travel a great deal so our Los Angeles restaurant adventure is a little slow going. I did however just go with my friend Keri to Petit Trois for an authentic French bistro experience recently! You can check that out => here.

However, we were able to get a reservation this week to experience another one of LA’s best restaurants. The tiny and hip area of Silver Lake boasts many fantastic restaurants and now that we live in Pasadena, we are less than fifteen minutes away from this outstanding foodie village.

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Luxury in San Diego: A Sensational Stay in a Presidential Suite

Presidential Suite

To stay in a Presidential Suite is VERY special!

Being loyal is an important personal attribute and being loyal to a particular brand(s) will help a great deal when you travel. We have been traveling for years together as a couple and my husband travels almost every week for business. We discovered years ago that paying special attention to your choices in accommodations as well as the airlines, makes a HUGE difference. If you stay within one chain of hotels, you build loyalty points that can be used for more travel, upgrades and for status.

If you travel a lot, it is especially nice to be upgraded and/or offered lovely amenities, bottles of wine and delightful snacks. Traveling isn’t always as glamorous as it seems. It can be frustrating, exhausting, confusing and there is no one there patting you on the arm telling you all will be ok. If we have issues with our travel plans, we have to solve them. If there are delays, we have to endure them.

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Ten Romantic Getaway Ideas for Empty Nesters

romantic getaway

Planning a romantic getaway for your sweetheart?

February is here and maybe you are thinking about a romantic getaway with your sweetheart? Maybe you are not… but just maybe you should think about it? I recently participated in a fun post with Expedia where fourteen travel bloggers offered their best ideas for a couples trip somewhere in the U.S. I was super flattered to be included and you can click ==> here to read the article! There were so many cities to choose from and I thought I would add to the list here.

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A Special Cake Baking Class – Seattle Style

cake baking class

A Cake Baking Class Adventure While Traveling ~

Yes, we did it again. Alex and I took a Birthday Layer Cake Baking class at The Pantry in Seattle. When your busy adult child wants to spend time with you… you always say yes! We have found such camaraderie through our common passion for cooking and our son Nick also loves to cook! Lightening struck twice, lucky me!

When I make plans to visit a city, I try to look deeper into activities that most likely are not filled with tourists. I look for things that we (I) have a strong interest in learning more about. We always look for local bookstores, cooking stores, sports related tours, foodie tours, architecture tours, music/record stores, cooking classes, breweries, and distilleries.

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Where to go this Fall ~ 7 Great Destinations to Enjoy!

where to go this fall

Where to go this fall to enjoy the best of what this colorful season has to offer ~

Summer has ended and we are headed to Fall, my very favorite season! Funny thing is that I live in Southern California where the temps are hovering around 90 degrees! How can I think about cool, sweater weather, drinking hot cocoa, eating warm apple pie and enjoying walks through the autumn leaves?

I can find these desirable images in my imagination, or I can plan a fall getaway! Where can we go? Many of my friends who live on the East Coast will chuckle when I write about how I long for the cooler weather, because I don’t really experience any type of super cold weather in Pasadena. I think I wear a coat maybe once or twice all season at home.

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Happiness in the Empty Nest (The nest is full this weekend!)

photo 4

Happiness in the Empty Nest

Just for Labor Day weekend, our nest will be full! Oh happy day, our kids are coming home for the weekend and I am over the moon. How lucky are we that our busy, adult children want to come home to visit, hang out and attend an event with us.

Partly because there was a free airline ticket, partly because there will be free delicious food and free handcrafted cocktails and partly because they really do love us and want to come home!

Can I get a woo hoo? So often Craig and I attend a really fun event which usually involves very special food and drink and we say to each other, “I really wish Alex and Nick were here to experience this with us.”

The Taste

We said this a couple of times when we attended The Taste, a culinary extravaganza on the backlot (which is super cool) at Paramount Studios. Craig and I have attended this Los Angeles Times event twice in the past four years and missed last year.

We thoroughly loved the experience so much and the kids were able to arrange their schedules to come down to LA and join us this year. Yay!

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Adventure Update: A trip to Seattle and Kennebunkport, Maine!

We are off on another trip to Seattle for our daughter’s 27th birthday. I just wanted to check in to say hi! If you are reading this, you obviously care about our Empty Nester adventures! Thank you so much for reading and for caring about what is happening with us. The Empty Nest Downsize (“rightsize”) project …

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