much-to-recover-from-monday.

Or, alternatively titled: the weekend I wore red lipstick, consumed a lot of amazing meals, drank scrumptious lattes daily and waayy too many cocktails both day and nightly.... and documented it all via instagram, of course. 

If there is one thing LA takes seriously, it's birthday celebrations. Knowing my love for birthdays aaand celebrations, I was beyond excited to return to my happy place this weekend to celebrate Carly's 25th birthday! After arriving in the wee hours of the morning Friday, I spent the first part of the day half asleep in Tate's chair getting my hair did sipping on some coffee bean post a wonderful run through WeHo. {It's the simple things in this city that I miss the most!} Lauren met me for lunch at the fabulous Taste for some hand-picked grilled cheese and then the birthday girl got off work and the four of us sang Wicked, drank champagne, ate a wonderful Italian meal prepared by Chef Abruzzo and applied a lot of red lipstick before we met all of Carly's friends at Bar Lubitsch. We stayed until it closed and may have refused to leave unless the bouncer escorting us out sang "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins with us. Oh lord.
Saturday {mid}morning, we walked to Urth Cafe for the most amazing birthday breakfeast before hopping in the car to make the two hour drive north along the PCH to Santa Barbara.

After perusing the {vintage} shops on State Street, we continued the celebration at a tire-shop-turned-tasting-room for a flight of wines by Oreana.

We ate a yummy seafood dinner at the FisHouse, lobster for the birthday girl, shrimp scampi for me... before jumping in a shopping cart having a few cocktails and laughs at a tequila bar. 

The next morning, we grabbed another latte {and saltines} and headed for Santa Ynez Valley for a lovely day of wine tasting.


Part II, tomorrow.