I'm in love with how green and lush Portland is! Such a beautiful city, with trees everywhere. It actually reminded me a lot of upstate New York where I'm from, tons of trees on every street. I sometimes forget how much I miss all that green. Even though I love our LA palm trees, there's something so magical about green, leafy forests. Maybe that's why I felt such an instant connection to Portland - it made me feel like I was back home. When I found out there was a Portland Japanese Garden, I knew I had to visit.

Finally got to visit Portland last week, and I fell in love HARD. Being a Portlandia fan, I already knew I was going to really dig the city - but it ended up exceeding my expectations tenfold. What a lush, gorgeous, tree-filled wonderland! Eddie and I seriously loved everything about it. The food was delicious, the people were so friendly, and the shops! I had so much fun hopping around visiting all the perfect little boutiques. A few of my favorite places we visited are below - I can't wait to go back and explore more on our next trip! 

Happy Cinco de Mayo! To shake things up a bit, I wanted to make a yummy tekillya drank that isn't a margarita. Even though I lobbb a good marg, it's always fun to try new flavors. I whipped up a delish take on the Mexican Ofrenda cocktail - this melon-y delishness is the perfect blend of fruity and spicy!

You guys, I finally made it to cactus heaven. I've been wanting to visit the magical Moorten Botanical Garden for a while now after seeing so many glorious photos on Instagram, and I have to say it's even more stunning in person! We were greeted by Clark Moorten when we arrived, the son of the garden's original creators and now the curator himself - he gave us a little map of the grounds and off we went! 

COACHELLA! Another year of amazing music, yummy food, and good times with friends. My legs were so sore from 3 straight days of dancing and running around the Empire Polo Club where the fest is held - it's actually still a lil painful to walk right now if I'm being honest. So here I am, thankfully sitting,  rounding up my fave memories and highlights from the weekend.

This spring in SoCal has been such a dream. That crazy amount of rain we had this winter has made all the plants explode! I've never seen it so green and jungley here, all the parks are super lush right now. On Easter Sunday, Eddie and I visited the beautiful Harriett M. Wieder Regional Park in Huntington Beach where the super bloom is in full effect.

Coachella Music Fest in less than 1 week! I'm living vicariously through all the weekend 1 festival goers, and I'm very jealous of their under 100 degree weather. Weekend 2 is supposed to be scorching! But the music, friends, and good times make it all worth the crazy heat.

It's hard to imagine, but there was once a time we had zero plants in our home! When we first moved into our place after I graduated college, I really wanted to get some plant babies of my own - but being a first time plant parent I was a little afraid to bite the bullet. What if I killed them? I'd feel awful, not to mention it would be money down the drain.