After my week in Las Vegas for a work conference, my dad flew out from Maine and together we jumped on a plane to Los Angeles. I haven’t seen my west coast family since my trip to Los Angeles last spring with Samantha, so I was thrilled to be back. My family in Los Angeles is big, really big and some of my fondest memories ever are of my time spent with them. My cousins are incredible hosts, always make us feel at home, and sure know how to throw a party. They are wild and fun, hilarious like no other, and beautifully diverse. Plus, they make up the side of my family that is lesser known by my sister and me. When I visit, they share stories from decades ago, stories of my grandparents, and my great grandparents. They share historical stories, how our family came to America and settled in Los Angeles. And best of all, they share stories about my dad’s childhood.

My dad lights up when he is around his west coast family, he radiates happiness while spending time with our cousins, his cousins. So it was seriously a privilege for me to travel to Los Angeles alone with my dad. Just the two of us. I’ve always been more connected to my dad’s family than my sister. I’ve made 3 visits by myself recently that she didn’t make, so I’ve seen the cousins more frequently than she. I’ve met the new husbands, and boyfriends and bonded with the young children that were too young the last time my sister visited. And most special, I’ve been the babies. The little ones that weren’t born when she last visited.

We arrived on a Friday and left Sunday at midnight, but you would never know it given all that we packed in those days. We wined and dined with our incredible hosts, we sat together in the living room for hours, talking, gossiping, snacking. We drove around the city, seeing the Hollywood sights. We shopped and window shopped, and drove down the hottest streets hoping to spot a heard of paparazzi. We spent a night at karaoke with two of my cousins, their children and a few family friends. We had a game night with all the cousins. A night filled with an incredible family style dinner, desserts, wine and hours of games like apples to apples and gestures.

I even squeezed in two fabulous visits with friends. I spent a morning driving south on the 405 to Long Beach to see Corie, Matt and baby Jaelyn, and then back north to Manhattan Beach to have lunch with my college roommate Claire. All of that in a few hours leading up to the big night.

Then the big night. Sunday night. The Thanksgiving gala event. With a tent erected on the front lawn, my dad’s cousin hosted 50+ people for a one of a kind Thanksgiving dinner party. It was glorious. More food and desserts than I have ever seen. And endless conversation, laughs with close family and family friends and friends of family friends.

And then, just like that, it was time to leave. Time to leave my incredibly gracious hosts, to say goodbye to my cousins and babies that will likely be grown kiddos by the time I see them again. With a full belly and warm heart my dad and I returned our rental car, boarded a plane at LAX, and left the city of angels. The city that houses our favorite family.

Until next time.

Well I’m off to Las Vegas! I finished packing, made it through the work day, back home to grab my suitcase and I’m now waiting at the airport, absolutely exhausted. I just keep thinking: in 6 hours I’ll be at The Cosmopolitan. Surrounded by bright lights, big casinos and rooftop pool parties. Then I remind myself that I’ll also be inside each day between 8-4 at a conference for work.

By Friday I’ll be in Los Angeles. I’m even more excited for that leg of my trip. Although my stay is short — just two days — my family out west is incredible. I can’t wait to spend Friday night my cousins. We’re going to a karaoke bar with the little kiddos!

The entire weekend calls for rain, but that’s just fine with me. Saturday I’ll catch up with friends. Sunday is the family Thanksgiving. 45 people are coming to my cousin’s dinner. Can you believe that? 45 people! My dad and I are contributing a dessert from Maine. We had to pick something simple, since staying in a hotel doesn’t exactly make cooking or baking easy. So we’ve shipped a few bottles of Maine maple syrup and will serve pecan ice cream topped with maple syrup! Yum.

So there you have it. I’m off for the next 6 days! I hope you all have a fab work week and even more wonderful weekend. Stay tuned from pictures of the strip and our Thanksgiving party in California!

Do you love the picture? It’s my view each evening when I leave my building and walk towards the T. Now that it’s so dark by the end of the day, the buildings are all glowing. It’s gorgeous. I’ve started snapping iPhone pictures (above included) and may have to begin a gallery of almost the same photos like my bridge obsession!

I wish. I really do. My upcoming adventures might not be quite as glam as the word jet setting implies, but I do have a number of upcoming trips that I just can’t wait to embark on.

• September: Let’s not forget about the Mexican vacation that the boyfriend and I shared.
• November: Las Vegas, staying at the new Cosmopolitan, mostly for work, but also for play.
• November: Then Los Angeles, to celebrate an early Thanksgiving with my incredible family.
• January: A week away with the girls at Ocean Club West in Turks and Caicos.
• January: (Part 2) A long weekend with my best friends in North Carolina.
• March: A couples getaway to our own private house in Puerto Rico.

Feeling lucky, beyond excited and in desperate need of some new clothes.

I can sum up the loveliness of my entire Los Angeles vacation by sharing with you three pictures.  So, without wasting any more time, I present you exhibits 1, 2 and 3.

(Exhibit 1)

(Exhibit 2)

(Exhibit 3)

Okay, I’ll share more, but first, can you scroll up a bit and just take another look at those shots?  Don’t worry, your keyboard can handle a bit more drool. Yes ladies and gents, that is me.  Yours truly.  Snuggling close to Kevin McKidd, Patrick Dempsey and Eric Dane. What hunks, huh?  And just to clarify – exhibit 3?  That’s McSteamy himself showing Samantha and I home photos (on his Blackberry) of his (at the time) 24 day old beautiful baby girl Billie Beatrice.  Let’s hear a group “aaaaaaw.”

Moving on, the rest of my trip was filled with typical Southern California things.  Lots of orange trees, lemon trees, palm trees.  Shopping on Robertson and (window) shopping on Rodeo.  Drives through the hills, hikes through Runyon, sight seeing trips at the Pier.

Orange trees

Lemon trees

Santa Monica Pier

There was also time to kick back and relax with good friends.  After all this was a vacation!  I enjoyed joy rides down the 101, lunches on Sunset and a night out at Sky Bar.

Me, Claire, Ashley

Me, Sam

Sam, Claire, me

And, last but most certainly not least, the best part – I said it, and I meant it – the best part of my trip involved spending time with my beautiful family. My dad is from Los Angeles, so there remains a whole bunch of cousins and babes that I rarely get to see.  My California family is amazing.  I stayed with two of my cousins, spent the day on the set of Grey’s with another, and visited with the entire bunch o’cousins (all 17) on my final night.

We gathered at our cabana at the Bel Air Bay Club, and began with a toast over champagne.  A toast to my visit and to our family.

We all caught up, laughed until our bellies ached, watched the little ones with awe, and shortly after the sun set over the Pacific we packed up the leftover cheese and crackers (in my family there ain’t nevah leftovers in the wine department!) and enjoyed the most delicious dinner in the formal dining room.  It was pretty cool, a table set for nearly 20, with walls made of glass overlooking the beach, waves crashing in the foreground.

Bay club

View from the cabana

Cutest babe

Click to enlarge! About half of my cousins (all the adults).

Certainly a life I could get used to.  After even more bottles of red, and a perfectly presented cup of vanilla bean crème brulée, the night just had to come to an end.  After all I had a terribly horrible red eye  to catch back to the East Coast.  Had to make it home for Easter dinner with the family.  So teary eyed, and hearts full I said my goodbyes to the most gracious hosts an East Coast gal could ask for, and headed to LAX.

I miss your home, your fresh fruit and english muffins with jam in the morning and glasses of red in the evening. I miss you cousins, and I miss you LA. To my favorite hosts, I love you and cannot wait until January when I see you again.

Cousin Susu, cousin Leroi, me

Okay, so in less than one week, 6 days to be exact, I’ll be boarding a plane with my bff (not to be mistaken by the BF) and heading west to Los Angeles.

And in 2 days, I’ll be driving 5 hours north to spend a wonderful weekend at the boyfriend’s grandparents sprawling farm. Yes, you heard me correctly.  A farm.  You know, the kind with a big red barn and tractors and animals and fresh eggs and vegetables.  And of course, lots of dust and dirt.  Forget not, that before city life and Chanel came along I was, and continue to be, a Mainer.  A good ol’ fashion Mainah.

See?  I even shot a gun.  Me, I shot a gun, and I wore orange.  Anyways, that really isn’t the point.  The point is that my entire life I’ve had a serious overspending problem, and my choices as far as when I buy what have never really been too appropriate.

Like now for example.  When I’m working for a tiny non-profit, making minimal amounts of cash money mula and continuing to live my not-so-minimalist lifestyle – if you need me to spell it out more clearly, I’m broke.  I’m broke, and about to spend a week in Los Angeles where I will undoubtedly make plenty of inappropriately timed and unnecessary purchases.

I’m broke, about to embark on a vacation, so logically, what would this overspending gal decide to do?

Get ready folks.  I’m buying a new camera! A nice, big, fancy, DSLR. This all started only a week ago when I decided that I really, really want to take pictures like Heather and Ashley and the rest of the SLR using photographer bloggers out there.  But really, you know, I can’t afford a $700-900 camera.  And unfortunately, I have nothing huge and exciting like a wedding or graduation coming up, from which I might be able to receive such a gift.

So I started doing some Consumer Report reading / googling to see what the world is saying about point and shoot cameras for those of us who just can’t quite afford the SLR yet.  And then, my next step was to talk to Dad.  Dad loves all things geeky: cameras, TVs, computers, cars.  Anything that he can research, buy and then play with – he loves.  So Dad sent me some CR articles.  Great.  Knew he would.  But what I didn’t know, was that the next day he would actually go out to a camera store and talk to some camera store people who know their camera stuff.  And, even more exciting, and (maybe not so) unexpected – Dad informed me that he would help me finance such a purchase.  Which, has all of a sudden thrown the dreamy SLR back into the cards.   Can you believe it?!

Now I realize any such purchase is going to set me back a bit as far as saving goes, but this is a quality investment, right?  Stay tuned as I hope to purchase, and figure out how to use this bad boy by the weekend!  (Ha, yea right) But no really, it would be fantastic if I were able to purchase this by LA, and even more incredible if I could have my hands on this guy by the weekend.  The farm is beautiful, and I’d love to capture the true landscape of Maine.

Currently planning a fantastic getaway to Los Angeles: the one and only, the love it or hate it LA. Since the age of um, I don’t know, maybe 3 years old, I’ve been fascinated with Hollywood. Fascinated is the respectable way to state the situation, obsessed may be a bit more truthful. So in 7th grade when Samantha and I took our friendship to the best-friend, attached at the hip level, it was quite a relief to find that I was not the only Mary-Kate and Ashley wannabe, obsessed with being: skinny, famous, rich, and having 90210 in my address.

A few years of therapy and 23 years of maturity have helped me get over the obsessively skinny thing. Thankfully. However, the rich and famous and 90210 dwelling pieces… not so much. I’m the type of crazy cat who thought, and continues to think things like ‘hey, I’m pretty cool, and pretty pretty, and pretty nice, if only I ran into Justin Timberlake somehow, he would totally dig me.” With the same kind of twisted reality, I’m quite convinced that I would make a marvelous actress, and could surpass any of the trashy reality TV show stars that I love and adore so much. I mean, the OC hardly had even remotely quality acting.

So, anyways, since 7th grade, Samantha and I have dreamed of taking a trip to LA and POOF! with a snap of our fingers becoming rich and famous. Now here we are, well over 10 years later and actually planning the trip to LA. Unfortunately for our youthful dreams, this trip won’t be the POOF! snap our fingers and become rich and famous kind of trip… it will be more along the lines of visiting family, partying at the spots we’ve always dreamed of frequenting and trying desperately to wine and dine ourselves into the company of someone maybe on the D-list.

Man, I can’t wait.