OC Highlights:

1. Checking out The Strand - greedy OC developers turned a cliff overlooking the ocean into a new spot for custom built mega-mansions that will cost at least $15 million each, and until they are built, they will water empty plots of land. In the desert. With a serious drought. So wasteful and typical of the ridiculous Orange County greed and consumption that makes me not want to live there.

2. Lunch with my family and brunch with friends at Cafe Mimosa in San Clemente. I love everything about this restaurant from the decor to the jazzy Rat Pack music to the Frenchie posters to the delicious food. For lunch I had probably one of the best burgers of my life - a kobe beef white cheddar cheeseburger that was pure perfection, along with a blackberry mimo and home made hazelnut gelato for dessert. For brunch another day I had the lobster eggs benny, a peach passion mimo, a blueberry one and a lot of hungover chuckles with friends as we discussed our shenanigans the previous night.

3. A night of outdoor baseball with my family at Angels stadium. I love outdoor baseball and cannot wait until the new Twins stadium is complete next year and we can walk to games from our loft. The entire stadium started shaking at one point and after consulting everyone around us and the Cal Tech website on my iPhone, we figured out there had been several earthquakes with an epicenter right down the street in Yorba Linda. The biggest was a 4.0 - not very big, but still big enough to feel.

4. Lots of walks on the beach and even a day laying out in Laguna Beach when it was 90 degrees and sunny. Beautiful sunsets - this photo is of Corona del Mar, between Laguna and Newport and one of my favorite spots.

5. Sangria at Aurora, a cozy little Mediterranean bar/restaurant loaded with candles and red lights in Newport Beach where our friend works. I joined my little sister, my actual bro and his brahs at some other OC drinking establishments they frequent in the little beach towns..all laid back surfer guys chillin' with their bros, trying to pick up some...ladies.

6. Lunching on salads and diet cokes with Kaskade and his wife at Romano's - amazing Italian restaurant and then following/attempting to keep up with the little speed demon in his sporty luxury car to their house to chill for a bit and check out his new in-home studio. So cool to see where all the magic happens, and he played me some new tracks and remixes that were incredible. Love that my favorite artist now lives 20 minutes from where I grew up so I get to see them whenever I go home for a visit.

7. Hanging in LA with a good friend who just moved from MN to Marina del Ray and is now living in a sweet house with an amazing deck on a bird sanctuary, blocks from the beach. We walked around Venice Beach and had a cocktail on the water but were kind of freezing with the cool ocean breeze. Then met up with one of my oldest friends and former SF roomie for dinner at Harrison Ford's son's restaurant - Ford's Filling Station. The menu was pretty eclectic..rabbit pate, octopus, ox tail and a random assortment of foods that seemed like things lil' Ford thought his daddy as Indiana Jones would enjoy. I probably wouldn't go back there, but we had the time catching up and talking about La La Land.

8. Tennis match with my lil' sis in Laguna Beach up in the hills, overlooking the ocean and charming little artist village, then lunching on salads at Zinc Cafe, a cute little place on Ocean street.

9. A night out on Del Mar street in San Clemente with my hilarious crammsters that ended with the Cafe Mimosa brunch the next day..we hit The Cellar for a glass of vino, a new Cuban tapas restaurant called Romantica for delish mussels, salad, tacos and Cuban sammy and Duke's for a game of pool and way too many citron sodas with a splash of cran. A lot of hilarity ensued as it always does, but my favorite was Jamie started telling me about how the end of the world might be nearing with the whole 2012 being the year that the Mayan calendar listed as the last, much to Aimee's chagrin as she's sick of hearing about it. So he said "it's almost 2012!" and I said in a very buzzed, very SoCal valley accent, "Not Really," which handily put the kabosh on any more discussion of 2012. I think its about on par with everyone thinking all number systems and computers would freak out as we rang in "Y2K" and everything was just fine. Simmer down people, simmer down.

10. Being home with the family, always a good thing.