First Wedding Anniversary Trip to Ojai

Ojai is our favorite little town in California. It seems like whenever I tell people that, they either TOTALLY get it and are in agreement, or are kind of confused. It’s a very small Southern California town, without the world fame of Palm Springs or the recreational activities of Big Bear/Lake Arrowhead, but it’s so very special. We plan to live there one day.

For now, we love spending our special weekends, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. We’ve stayed in pretty much all of the main hotels/resorts in town over the years, and this year for our anniversary we tried somewhere new - the Lavender Inn! It was adorable and we’d definitely stay again.

Today I want to recap our sweet first wedding anniversary getaway weekend in Ojai, and I hope show a little bit about why we love this town so much.

We left town on Friday afternoon with Willie in tow (Bean stayed at his favorite doggie “summer camp”) and made the quick two-hour drive up to Ojai. We checked into the Lavender Inn, where I’d booked the Provence Cottage. The Cottage is a separate building from the rest of the Inn, so we had our own little garden and yard for Willie, which was a huge selling point. The Inn is tiny—only about seven rooms total—and it’s a bed and breakfast, so we had a full breakfast every morning and wine, cheese, and board game night in the evenings. We loved it!

The steps up to our cute cottage

We had a cute little kitchenette too, which was nice for keeping champagne chilled and preparing Willie’s food. We loved that the Inn was dog friendly (not all the rooms are - so check if you are thinking of booking), and having our own cottage was so nice! It had the space and privacy of an Airbnb, but with the amenities of a bed and breakfast. A dream! Our little garden was so cute:

I think Willie really loved how lush the Inn was, and they were so sweet to him there. A dog named June Carter lives at the Inn, so of course Willie Nelson and June Carter had to meet!

Musical dog legends

Our first night in Ojai we decided to walk down the street from the Inn to a cute place called Hip Vegan. They had an outdoor patio so we could bring Willie, and the food was SO GOOD! Looking back at the photos of the food we got is making me hungry.

The people there were so friendly to us and to Willie too. Spoiler for the rest of this post, it’s a lot of relaxing, trying out local restaurants (the Inn was walking distance to everywhere in town), resting and reading in our garden, and just enjoying small town life. There’s no major secret to what’s fun to do in Ojai, we just really enjoy the pace of life, how friendly and welcoming everyone is, the mountain views, and the amazing restaurants.

This book was incredibly good in my opinion, by the way.

The next day we enjoyed the breakfast at the Inn, followed by strolling around town and checking out cute shops.

We absolutely loved Bart’s Books, an all-outdoor book store (yep!) that welcomed Willie in to browse with us.

Bart’s had a whole section just on Antarctica travel (somewhere I’ve always wanted to go), so I loved perusing and picked out a book about the white continent. Grace got a true crime book.

We had lunch at The Nest, a restaurant we’ve been to and loved before.

Probably some of the best fries I’ve ever had! And again we ate outside so Willie could be with us.

After spending some of the afternoon napping, relaxing, and doing more walking around town, we enjoyed the Inn’s happy hour with wine, cheese, and board games you can borrow. We played scrabble at a cute little “secret garden” corner of the Inn and it was so lovely.

After happy hour, we went back to our garden before going out to dinner and popped some anniversary champagne (served in the flutes we toasted with at our wedding), looked at our wedding album, and read our wedding vows.

The dress I’m wearing here is the dress I wore to my bridesmaids’ luncheon the day before our wedding! I love incorporating sentimental things like that on special dates.

For dinner, we walked to a place we’d never been called Ojai Rotie, which I had seen described as “upscale picnic food”. That piqued our interest, plus they had a dog-friendly patio for Willie. It was another incredible meal! Ojai restaurants really do not disappoint, in my experience.

We got a bunch of little bites like a cheese and bread board, deviled eggs, cucumber salad, labneh, and more. It was the perfect “snacky” meal after we’d already had two heavy meals that day.

The next day we headed home to LA! We ended our anniversary weekend with takeout from Tatsu Ramen (our favorite local ramen shop) and the defrosted top tier of our wedding cake, which ended up being perfectly preserved. Just writing this post is making me miss this incredible weekend. The whole weekend felt like what we love about Ojai - slow, sweet, familiar yet fresh, and delicious :)

I can’t wait to plan our next trip!

Christmas in July

This past weekend we celebrated Christmas in July, and it was so simple and sweet! For those who have no idea what Christmas in July is, it’s a southern tradition that apparently started in North Carolina (where I’m from). But, I actually haven’t celebrated it before this! I didn’t grow up with the tradition but would love for my kids to grow up looking forward to it. To me, Christmas in July just feels so imaginative, whimsical, and fun. Even the sound of it is like saying “pish posh!” or “when pigs fly!”

The idea behind Christmas in July is that for one day, you just do Christmassy things, eat Christmas food, listen to Christmas music, etc. We didn’t do gifts and I like it that way. It’s far away from actual Christmas, so it’s just a pop of fun in the calendar and by no means comes close to how much I go all out in December :)

This year, for our first Christmas in July, we just kept it very simple and listened to Christmas music, ate a vegetarian Christmas “plate” of food for dinner, watched a Christmas Prince on Netflix, and drank hot chocolate. I also diffused some cinnamon and pine essential oils to make the house smell like the holidays.

One of my fav Christmas albums! The Charlie Brown Christmas album is also so perfect and timeless.

My “vegetarian Christmas plate” consisted of mac n cheese, garlicky green beans, roasted brussel sprouts, and sweet potato (fries, haha).

I made the hot chocolate from scratch and it was the best!! Equal parts cocoa powder and sugar, a pinch of salt, whisked into simmering almond milk on the stove. I dashed in some vanilla extract at the end.

So cozy!

All in all, this was such a sweet beginning of a tradition and I think we’ll definitely continue to celebrate it. There are a lot of fun possibilities for Christmas in July with kids. Also, in case anyone is concerned that this is somehow sacrilegious (probably not but who knows), December 25 is just an arbitrary day chosen to be when we celebrate Christmas :) Astrologers have actually suggested (based on star patterns at the time) that the first Christmas occurred on June 17—my birthday! The point is, no one really knows when the first Christmas was, so I think it’s fine to give a nod to it in summer as well as celebrating in full-force in December.

I can’t wait for Christmas this year!!

Have you ever celebrated Christmas in July?

How We Do LA Pride

For West Hollywood residents, Pride is one of the happiest times of the year. Grace and I have been lucky enough to live in WeHo for the last few years, and slowly we’ve perfected how we like to celebrate Pride. As you are probably aware, Pride month goes for the whole month of June, and in WeHo there are events all month long. But what we think of as “Pride” is the day of the parade that goes through our city along Santa Monica Boulevard. Together, Grace and I have been to six West Hollywood Prides, and this past Pride (just a few weeks ago) was one of our favorites yet! For the past few years we have hosted a pregame and breakfast and then everyone walks from our house (or Grace’s apartment, before we got married and lived together) to where the parade starts, since it’s just a couple of blocks away.

There are a lot of different ways to celebrate Pride in LA. There are a million parties going on, there are ticketed and non-ticketed aspects of the parade day, and of course some people are actually IN the parade itself on a float. Grace and I keep it super simple, and we love this formula! Starting at 8am the day of Pride, we open our doors to anyone and everyone who wants to join us. We have mimosas, bloody marys, and breakfast, and we blast Cher and other gay icons on our speakers. A bit before 11am, which is the start time of the parade, we do a last call for drinks and then we head into the street!

We like to just set out a bunch of stuff and let people mix their own mimosas and bloody marys.

This year, with the help of my best friend who has a culinary degree, I made the yummiest six-layer rainbow pride cake!

As we head out to the parade, we usually make a game plan as to where we’ll meet in case anyone in the group falls behind (the streets can get really crowded and hectic—but it’s always fun). We love Micky’s and that’s where we all met up this past Pride.

We hang, we drink more, we dance, and then by mid afternoon we usually are ready to hit up Shake Shack (don’t know why, but it’s a Pride tradition!).

One of the best things about Pride is the afternoon nap. I know some people stay out all night, but I absolutely love coming home around 4pm and napping and then waking up, cleaning the house, and ordering pizza. It’s just the best end to the sweetest day! This year, of course I also ended the night with an extra slice of Pride cake.

To end this post, I just want to say that if you haven’t yet gotten to experience the joy of attending a Pride parade/celebration or feel like you can do so safely or openly, my prayer is that one day you get to be yourself in vibrant, joyful community. The joy I feel on Pride is something I hope every LGBTQ+ person gets to experience, and I’m so grateful for West Hollywood. If you don’t know much about West Hollywood’s history, I encourage you to read this article (or many others) about how WeHo decided to incorporate as its own entity in 1984 and become a self-governing gay city separate from Los Angeles. We love living here so much.

New Year's Eve in New Orleans

Continuing my theme from last week of catching up on overdue blog posts—today I’m sharing all about our FABULOUS week in New Orleans! We spent the last week of 2018 in New Orleans, our first time visiting the city. The last night was New Year’s Eve, which also happened to be our dear friends’ wedding. And Grace officiated! Ever since the trip Grace and I keep saying to each other how it was one of our favorite trips we’ve ever taken together. New Orleans is magical, and attending such a meaningful marriage celebration—especially in our first few months as newlyweds—is something we’ll never forget.

We left for our trip 2 days after Christmas, and we were SO EXCITED!

All smiles on the airplane

We had booked a room at the Hotel Provincial, one of the hotels the grooms recommended staying at. We loved it and would totally stay there again! It’s right in the French Quarter, and beyond charming.

The cute view from our room.

Our hotel had courtyards and wrought iron furniture and charming southern touches galore.

It wasn’t the best weather for the pool, but it was pretty.

Hotel Provincial is on the National Register of Historic Places and is supposedly haunted. We weren’t bothered though—and where better to stay in a haunted hotel than New Orleans?! The location was also just so prime. The first night, we grabbed drinks to go (such a fun novelty) and strolled around to see the charming balconies in our neighborhood!

I loved seeing all the decorations still up for Christmas.

Our first meal was at Cafe Amelie. So good. I got a Penicillin (traditional New Orleans cocktail) and some kind of Cajun seafood pasta. We went to bed so happy and excited to explore the next day.

We woke up and strolled over to Cafe Du Monde for some coffee and beignets! There was a little line but it was well worth it.

Luckily, we beat the rain and made it into the cafe before the downpour . . . but then it REALLY rained. Our strolling and sightseeing plans were temporarily put off.

But right about the time when we were trying to decide what to do in the rain in New Orleans, the grooms (Tommy and Philip) texted us! We ended up going with them to get their marriage license and get Grace registered to be a marriage officiant in Louisiana. I don’t have any pics from that, but it is actually one of my favorite memories of the trip—just getting so giddy and anticipating that our friends were getting MARRIED so soon!

After dealing with the official business, we decided to stop for a late lunch at Coop’s. OMG. There, I had the best po boy of all time.

We continued strolling, sightseeing, tasting, and enjoying. Tommy and Philip showed us the gay corner of Bourbon Street, which was adorable.

About that time, we had to split off from the guys to go on a ghost tour we had booked! There are a ton of ghost tours offered in the city, and while obviously I have nothing to compare it to, I thought the company we used—French Quarter Phantoms—was awesome.

That’s us waiting for the tour to start with our two-for-one hurricanes that came with the price of the tickets. Amazing. We also stopped halfway through the tour to refill our drinks—doesn’t get much more NOLA than that :)

It was dark on the tour so I don’t have pictures, but we saw some really interesting historic places in the French Quarter. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, it’s a very cool historic tour. I’m also glad we did the tour one of our first nights in New Orleans, because the rest of the time we felt like we knew our way around the Quarter better and could use certain buildings (that we now knew to apparently be haunted) as points of reference.

I don’t have pictures from this, but after dinner we strolled out to an awesome, tiny Cuban restaurant and got some small bites. The place, which we loved, is called Manolito.

The next day, pre-wedding festivities began! We started the day with a jog along the Mississippi River, which was gorgeous.

Then for breakfast on the way home from our jog, we randomly stumbled on a hole in the wall where we found the most DELICIOUS breakfast plates! We both got the fried catfish breakfast plate which came with eggs, fried catfish, potatoes, and toast or English muffins. It is one of my favorite things we ate the whole trip! The place is called Johnny’s and it’s cash only. Go there if you are in NOLA!

After relaxing a bit and freshening up, we headed to the first wedding event of the week: Drag Brunch at the Country Club! It was such a fun welcome event for everyone invited to the wedding, and it was great to start to meet some of the other guests we didn’t know. The Queens were awesome and we felt so at home in a new state attending a fun drag show.

Grace getting ready to hand out some dollars.

The adorable porch of the Country Club.

We had some r&r time after brunch (turns out, drinking during the day and eating decadent Cajun food all the time really wears you out), and then for dinner we headed to the INCREDIBLE Cafe Sbisa. Cafe Sbisa gave me one of my favorite dates with Grace, the best and friendliest service, and *maybe* my favorite meal of the whole trip (but that’s a very difficult call to make).

The photo above is Cafe Sbisa’s courtbouillon, kind of a cousin of gumbo—but in my opinion, far superior. This one had a rich creole stew/soup base with rice in the middle, surrounded by lump crab meat, tiny bay shrimp, mussels, and catfish. I seriously DREAM about this meal. It was that good.

The next day: rehearsal day! We started off the morning with a visit to the gorgeous venue of the wedding, the Marigny Opera House.

It’s an old converted 1853 church, then an opera house, and now a venue and events space. Here’s Grace practicing her officiant role for the wedding!

After the morning rehearsal, we headed to Brennan’s for the sweetest rehearsal brunch. I LOVED the idea of a rehearsal brunch so much—almost made me wish we had gone that route (as opposed to a rehearsal dinner).

The grooms!!

One of the signature drinks, pictured above, was a New Orleans breakfast punch. It was a rum punch with a milk-based base, that honestly tasted like the most delicious cereal milk imaginable. Maybe that sounds gross to you, but trust me, it was amazing. A little cinnamon on top was the perfect touch.

After brunch, we strolled and explored.

And on our walk back to our hotel, we saw a dog who looks like Casper. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Casper was our first dog together, and I’ve never seen a dog who looked like him. This one was so sweet and I got pretty emotional meeting him. For reference, our two dogs (the New Orleans dog first):

We had some rest time in our room (becoming a theme), and then headed to the next wedding event: the welcome party! It was such a fun gathering in the home of Tommy and Philips’ friends who live in New Orleans. It was also another chance to sample more delicious New Orleans traditional food.

The cutest idea for napkins for a welcome party!

One corner of this GORGEOUS New Orleans home—Grace and I couldn’t get over it.

After the welcome party we left and Grace got a tattoo to commemorate our time in New Orleans. It’s a heart with a ghost in it. I feel like for many people getting a tattoo wouldn’t be such a casual thing, and I get that, but I also love Grace’s collection. That’s just Grace!

The next day we woke up and it was the last day of 2018, and WEDDING DAY! Oh my goodness, I could never begin to describe all of the wonderful things about this wedding. It was just BEYOND. But here are a few:

• Vows that took my breath away, and that Grace and I still talk about

• About 200 glasses of champagne all lined up with tiny escort cards with our names balanced on top—one of my favorite creative escort card displays I’ve seen

• An elegant tented dinner outside

• A second line (like a mini marching band for those who don’t know the term) where we danced around the entire neighborhood with a police escort after the ceremony

• An amazing dance party to ring in 2019

• The most fun live band

• Confetti showers at midnight

• A super fun (maybe TOO fun) after party in the French Quarter

And so, so much more. A few favorite snaps from the wedding:

As good as the food in New Orleans was, as colorful and inspiring as the city was, as sparkly and fun as having New Year’s Eve there was, none of it compares the joy of seeing our friends get married. And, a big part of that is that this was our first gay wedding as guests. Seeing how Tommy and Philip’s communities rally around them and how this was the event of the YEAR for so many people made me cry multiple times throughout the week. After we left, Grace and I commented how we felt like we’d been at summer camp and made a bunch of friends that we can’t wait to see again. It was just all so good. Tommy and Philip, thank you. We love you!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and thank you so much for reading Have Dog, Will Drive this year! This is a pre-scheduled post that I wrote because if you’re reading this on Christmas (or any day, really), I want to share a Christmas poem with you that I have loved for years. It’s almost a hundred years old but still perfect today in 2018.

Keeping Christmas

There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing...

to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you;

to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world;

to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground;

to see that men and women are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;

to own up to the fact that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life;

to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness.

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing…

to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children;

to remember the weakness and loneliness of people growing old;

to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough;

to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts;

to try to understand what those who live in the same home with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you;

to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you;

to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open—

Are you willing to do these things, even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing...

to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world—

stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death—

and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?

Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you can keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.

-Henry Van Dyke

Christmas Decorations House Tour!

Decorating for my first married Christmas is something I’ve looked forward to for a really long time. This year, Grace and I are celebrating Christmas in our own little house (our first time not being with our families). A big part of this is because we’re traveling right after Christmas through the New Year, but also, it’s sweet to start our own traditions as a married couple.

Fun fact: for the past several years I have wanted to wait until I was married to get a Christmas tree (I’m not even really sure why, it just seemed like a romantic idea) so this is my FIRST ever Christmas tree of my own! And I love it so much!

So, welcome to my Christmas home tour!

Getting fresh greenery for Christmas was my favorite thing about decorating. I know artificial trees, garlands, and wreaths are popular, but nothing compares to the smell of the real thing. I love getting a festive pine scent from our wreath every time I walk in and out of our front door.

And here’s our lovely Fraser Fir! We picked a nice round tree and I have loved having it in our house. It still smells amazing and is the perfect size for our still-growing collection of Christmas ornaments. Speaking of which, here are a few of my favorites:

Even though it’s just the two of us, I’m very excited for Christmas morning. Every year up until now, Grace and I have chosen to give each other Christmas gifts of no monetary value (like something we write for each other, or a song from Grace). This year, we decided to do presents for the first time which I am actually so excited for-I hope Grace likes what I got her!

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care . . .

This is the same stocking I’ve had since I was a baby. Last year, Grace was with my family on Christmas Day, so they had one embroidered for her too. This year, we have them both in our house!

We have a few other little details in the living room:

Our running list of Christmas movies to watch!

This is a fresh garland from the same place where we got our Christmas tree. I took a few small ornaments and threaded them through the strands of pine needles for pops of color.

For this, I took some of the trimmings from the bottom of our tree and just put them in a vase with some gold spray-painted branches! And you can see my chocolate Advent calendar in this shot too :)

This bowl of ornaments has a few leftover fairy light strands from our wedding exit in it! It’s so cozy and festive to me to turn on the lights at night.

I also changed out our usual throw blanket for a red plaid Christmasy blanket (which the dogs oddly LOVE laying on much more than the old one), and added a “Home for the Holidays” throw pillow to our couch!

In the dining room, I changed out our usual table runner for a seasonal one, and placed some more tree trimmings under our centerpiece.

I also got some Christmas Crackers for a Christmas Day feast we are having with a few friends! I think this is more of a British tradition but I love them, so I just had to get some :)

I also added the same type of garland by our TV to our piano!

I dressed up our bar area with some greenery too.

In November on a date night we went to our favorite record store and picked out a few Christmas records. I think the Charlie Brown one in the picture is our favorite, but there are so many good ones! Willie Nelson’s Pretty Paper album is so good too.

As a final touch, I used some leftover decorations to add a little festivity to some of our house plants! They make me smile every time I see them.

And of course I had to put up some mistletoe!

Merry Christmas! xoxo

East AND West Coast Bachelorette Weekends--With Dogs!

Today I’m sharing all about my bachelorette weekends! Yes, I had two. And it was one of the easiest decisions in wedding planning. I had a large wedding party and didn’t want my friends to have to fly all over the country. I also invited a few close friends who weren’t in my bridal party to extend the celebration. So, I had an East Coast bachelorette party at my parents’ Chesapeake Bay house in Virginia for my East Coast friends, and a West Coast one at a cabin in Lake Arrowhead for my gals in the West!

Also, in a way this post gets back to my blogging roots after weeks of all-things-wedding: both of my bachelorette weekends involved road trips and dogs! I wouldn’t have had it any other way :)

I had my East Coast weekend in June and my West Coast weekend in July, leading up to our August wedding. They were two of my favorite weekends of summer.

First up: East Coast! My wonderful maid of honor (and little sister) did a lot of the planning on this one, and it was a no-brainer to spend the weekend at my parents’ adorable cottage right on the water. When I got there, my mom and godmother (who had been there the week leading up to my bach party) had decorated the house with a bridal theme! I wrote a whole post about my parents’ Chesapeake cottage last year, if you want to see more pictures of it.

And my sister put together adorable little swan floaties with bachelorette goodies! She had these amazing custom cups made.

The first night was so much fun waiting as everyone got there one by one! Some friends I hadn’t seen in a year or more (who live far away). It was the sweetest reunion and we ate a delicious homemade meal on my parents’ cozy porch and drank wine catching up til the stars came out.

The next day we got up, had a slow morning, and then headed out for lunch, wine tasting, and shopping! The first stop was the Carwash Cafe, one of my favorite places in the Chesapeake area with the BEST softshell crab sandwich. If you’ve never been to the Chesapeake Bay, crabs are the big local product, and there’s even a seasoning named after the area (Old Bay!). I grew up partly at the Chesapeake and there is nothing better than local crab and oysters to me.

The softshell sandwich at the Carwash Cafe

After lunch we went to my favorite boutique in the area, called Farm, for some shopping. I picked up a couple of cute things to take on my honeymoon!

The Chesapeake area of Virginia also has a bunch of vineyards, and the wine from that area is awesome! Next up, we went to the Dog and Oyster vineyard for a delicious wine tasting.

We got caught in a huge rainstorm on the way to the wine tasting, so as you can see we were soaked while we sat in the tasting room! But it was so much fun.

After wine tasting and once the rain passed, it was a beautiful day! We headed back to my parents’ house to spend some time outdoors and went swimming off our dock. One of my best friends brought her adorable corgi, Butters, and much to our surprise he jumped off the dock and went swimming too (in his life jacket)! It was too far for me to bring either of my own dogs on the trip, so I was so glad Butters could be there—he was the mascot of the whole weekend :)

After enjoying the sun and the salt water, we got ready to go out to dinner, and one of my best friends had the HILARIOUS and amazing idea of having temporary tattoos made of Grace’s face. We all put them on and then went out to eat in town!

We went to my favorite restaurant in the area, Merroir. It’s owned by the Rappahannock Oyster Company, and oysters are predictably their specialty, so we had to get some on the half-shell. All the food was amazing and we had so much fun sharing a bottle of rosé and chatting into the night.

The setting of Merroir—gorgeous.

Butters came to dinner too!

Hanging out on the dock by the restaurant :)

My wonderful maid of honor!

The next morning it was time for my friends to head home :( I stayed with my sister for an extra night and flew home Monday, but everyone else had to head back to work and left Sunday. But, it wasn’t too sad of a goodbye knowing I’d see everyone again for the wedding in 6 weeks!

—

ROUND TWO: West Coast Bachelorette! Just two weeks after my Virginia bachelorette weekend, I headed with several friends to a cabin in Lake Arrowhead, California, for my West Coast round! And because Lake Arrowhead is just a road trip away from LA, I got to bring my dog Bean with me! The first event of the weekend was picking up one of my best friends who lives in Portland, Oregon, from LAX and driving up to the cabin. Of course we had to stop at In-n-Out on the way there—her first time trying it!

It was already dark once we got there, and the first night was spent being silly, playing games and checking out our accommodations. In the morning, we had an amazing breakfast cooked by my friends! One friend made an amazing shakshuka egg bake and another made my favorite pancakes.

After that, we headed down the mountain for a lake day! Lake Arrowhead is beautiful and we had a lot of fun strolling around the little town and hanging out on the shore.

Of course my Bride swimsuit had to make another appearance . . . there is only a very short window of time when you can wear one before it becomes very weird, haha!

In a parallel from my East Coast bachelorette when the same thing happened, we got caught in a rain storm! We decided to head back to the house and hang out/do girly things/watch a movie. The movie we unanimously decided was perfect? Parent Trap!

Hanging on the couch with little Bean!

Sheet masks with friends

During the movie, we said that Bean is like the boy at Camp Walden who shows up thinking it was an all-boys camp. This won’t make any sense if you haven’t seen the movie, so I hope you have.

We also had some amazing snacks, featuring the hilarious decorations my friends put up.

And later we got dressed for dinner, took some pictures and popped champagne out on our beautiful porch, and walked up the street for some awesome Mexican food and margs.

After dinner it was more cocktails plus a viewing of Troop Beverly Hills. Our movie selections were supreme if I do say so myself.

The next morning on our way out of town, we stopped by The Tudor House for the most amazing champagne brunch! It was so yummy AND I got to bring Bean in with us (in my purse!). He did so well and was adorable.

Bean’s little face in this one is so hysterical to me

We weren’t ready for the weekend to end, but at the same time I was so excited because at this point, it was less than a month until our wedding.

Thanks for reading this extremely long post letting me relive two of the best weekends of the summer! I would say they were only second to August 4, 2018 :) If you’re torn about how to celebrate your bachelorette, why not have two?! I highly recommend it. And, of course, dogs are the best guests of all to have at them!

Birthday Weekend in Ojai

This past weekend Grace and I drove up to Ojai for my birthday, and I am so grateful. Leading up to this trip, even though it had been booked for weeks, I refused to let myself be excited for it. I've been in the busiest season of my life and honestly a bit down--feeling like it's impossible to count on any plans or set good boundaries with work. Up until we were physically in the car driving to Ojai, a big part of me didn't believe the trip would happen. But I fought for it, and it was so worth fighting for! A couple days before the trip, I asked Grace if we should still go, given that I'd probably be working a good bit of the trip and had been in a stressed-out mood for days. She said it was my call, but she reminded me that road trips are our sweet spot, and what sets us on fire as a couple. I knew she was right and we had to make it work.

I feel very humbled by the fact that this trip happened at all, and the down-to-the-wire nature of whether we'd get to go actually set me up for a really beautiful experience of letting go of control with planning trips. Normally, for a weekend getaway, I'd spend a good bit of time researching the area and having a few options in mind for each meal or activity, and maybe even some advance reservations. But because I didn't know until that day whether we'd actually get to go, I didn't spend any time planning ahead, and it was actually SO special. Everything felt really magical, like we'd just stumbled upon things, whereas if I'd researched in advance, it would have lost a bit of that wonder I think. I'm not saying I'm now totally converted to only spontaneous travel--I did book this hotel weeks in advance after all--but I think it was really meant to be that we got to just wing it.

For example, on Friday night when we drove up, it turned that there was an oyster food truck right in the parking lot of the hotel! We'd already eaten dinner on the road, but we decided to get some raw oysters as an after-dinner snack, and they were SO good. It put me in the best mood and just felt so FUN--an oyster food truck steps away from our hotel room--how cool and serendipitous is that?! But had I researched in advance, I would have seen that it was on the hotel's schedule, and I would have pressed Grace to make sure we got there in time to go to it. We ended up getting there only 20 minutes before the food truck was supposed to leave, which would have stressed me out had we been counting on going to it, but because I didn't know in advance, it just felt like perfect timing. And had the truck driven away before we got there, well, ignorance is bliss.

It's a good reminder, especially with our honeymoon coming up, that knowing all the local hot spots in advance can actually minimize your ability to stumble upon something and make the trip your own, not the internet's version of the perfect trip to that area. 

Now with that dose of travel philosophy out of the way, here's the recap of our trip!

We stayed at the Ojai Rancho Inn, which is now our favorite place in Ojai! This was our third trip; we previously stayed at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa and a Hipcamp treehouse in Ojai. By the way, if you have never heard of this small town and are perplexed at how to say the name, it's pronounced like this: OH-hi. Kind of like Ohio, but without the "o" at the end, and the emphasis is on the first O rather than the hi. Hence lots of "Oh hi, Ojai" puns. It is a beautiful, lush town in the foothills, historically an artists' community. Similar to Palm Springs in some ways, but more of a green hilly feel than the desert like Palm Springs.

Here are some pictures I snapped for a visual feel for the property at Rancho:

While we had a fabulous time at both the Ojai Valley and the Ojai treehouse in the past, we both agreed that Ojai Rancho just felt like the "Goldilocks" of places in Ojai. The Ojai Valley was our first foray into all that Ojai has to offer, and it's really special that we got to go there with Casper. But it's more of a golf course resort/pool scene kind of place, which is fine, but a little bit less our style. It's also slightly more removed from Ojai town, which is SO cool. The Ojai treehouse is also incredible but VERY removed from town (up a mountain), and rustic. I would totally go back there for camping, but it's not ideal if you want to explore the actual town.

Ojai Rancho was a dream. It's sort of rustic, but spotlessly clean, and had a funky cool vibe that just put us in the best mood. Our room, which felt more like our own cabin, was one of the coolest hotel rooms we've ever stayed in. Here are some pictures of that:

Having the piano in the room was clutch because Grace is working on tracking for her new record. Psst--you can get in on her record early here.

Since we don't have cable, watching House Hunters when we're on vacation is one of our guilty pleasures.

A little in-room picnic before dinner with all of my favorites for my birthday eve :)

And the Rancho is dog friendly! We decided not to bring Bean (although they do allow up to two dogs per room), because I just never want to be "that person" who brings a puppy that ends up peeing on something or disturbing guests. Bean got some extra social time being boarded at his favorite home away from home, Posh Pet Care in West Hollywood, and Willie got to be reminded of the good ole days when he was an only child. Just kidding :)

If you're curious, the room we stayed in was the King Garden Cottage. It's the only one like it at the hotel, and if you stay at the Rancho, I HIGHLY recommend the little bit extra it costs to rent this room. The other rooms seemed nice from pictures, but this one is a little bigger and more special. You also have direct access to the pool from your room (which we didn't use, but would be perfect if traveling with kids), and out the other door, you walk straight out onto a little patio and green space for your dog. Plus, the piano, cool leather sofa, and record player make a stay all the more unique and cozy. I think the other rooms are more like traditional hotel rooms with just a bed, though some have a Jacuzzi, which ours didn't have. I didn't take any photos of the bathroom, but it was nice and big.

Since we didn't have any plans in advance, we decided to just explore the town and have down time in our room, pretty much alternating those two things the whole weekend. It was great. The first night we stayed in and had the above-mentioned oysters.

On Saturday morning we went down the street for some breakfast and to walk around in the parks with Willie. Funny story, the road in front of the hotel is kind of busy so we drove (2 mins) into town, later realizing there is an AWESOME greenway trail that runs behind the hotel and all the businesses in the main district of Ojai! So everything is super walkable and pedestrian--I just didn't know in advance that you could get there by strolling behind the actual street where things are. Here's a picture of us on the greenway:

The first morning we ate breakfast at the Marche Gourmet Delicatessen--so good and friendly! Super European, right in the middle of Ojai.

Ojai is a very small town and easily walkable, though old man Willie was a little tired. We saw the sights and then headed back to the hotel for some rest time (after our extremely busy morning, clearly).

Ojai has the prettiest tile work everywhere. I love it. Walking around Saturday morning is when we really started to both say we could see ourselves living here. It's not that we don't love LA, but we are the type of people to think about retirement when we're 27, and this is exactly where we want to be when we retire. And maybe even buy property earlier than that so we can fix it up and spend time on the weekends there. A part of me even wants to move to Ojai to raise a family, because it seems like such a great place to do that. But that's probably not in the cards in the immediate future.

Anyway, after some down time in the afternoon, we ventured back out on the greenway for dinner. We had a few names in mind of places that had outdoor seating for Willie, and ended up selecting The Nest, which was a really cute place with a nice patio. The food was yummy. Grace got an anchovy margarita pizza and I got calamari tacos.

I also had one of my favorite cocktails I've had in a while there. The one I got was called the Ventura Fog, which was fitting because it was a pretty foggy/chilly weekend. It was made with earl grey infused gin, lavender, meyer lemon, and egg white. It reminded me of a lavender macaron, but not super sweet, which I always prefer in drinks.

After dinner we got some fro yo and walked back to our home away from home! Walking along the greenway, we passed right behind a local amphitheater with an event going on, and we heard some familiar tunes trickling through the trees. I looked up the schedule for that amphitheater and saw that it was actually the band Vampire Weekend playing. I had never heard them live so we lingered a little bit on that part of the walk, thinking how fun it was to unexpectedly hear a band we knew playing in the park in this little town. It was a sweet, simple night. We drank some champagne when we got back and randomly watched the original Jurassic Park which was on TV.  I'm not sure if I'll see the new movie coming out, but the original has always been a favorite.

The next day was my birthday! And also the one year anniversary of Casper (our first dog) dying. It felt really full circle to wake up on my birthday and hug Willie (last year I was awoken on my birthday at 5am to basically Casper's last moments/getting really sick) and just feel grateful for all the healing--and new fur babies--we've had in the year following Casper's death. 

I opened some gifts and then we checked out of our hotel and drove to the Ojai Coffee Roasting Co. for breakfast. It was definitely the hot spot in town that morning (which was also Father's Day), and Grace waited in line while I sat outside with Willie. We got some lox, a really good PB&J, a parfait, and some coffee and a chai latte for me. It was all delish.

And after that we headed back to LA! We clocked how long it took for us to get down to the coast, and it was only about 15-20 minutes. That was also a big selling point on our plans to move to Ojai one day--I think of Ojai as being more inland, but it's actually quicker to the beach than where we live in West Hollywood! 

All in all, the weekend away was just what we both needed. I honestly could have spent a week at Ojai Rancho Inn, and we hope to go back for a longer vacation soon! I can't wait to spend more time in Ojai and get to know it better. We feel like we just scratched the surface of all there is to do there. Ojai also has a big wine scene with a bunch of tasting rooms, which is something I would love to try out next time. If you are looking for a getaway in Southern California that isn't a far drive but feels like a world away, I cannot recommend Ojai enough. The sign below says it all--Ojai vibes are very real!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Sunday, friends! As I got up early this morning and walked Jellybean, watching him bound through fresh spring green grass taller than he is (ha!), I felt these words on my heart that I wanted to share in a short post.

Years ago, I heard this Easter message: "The worst thing is NEVER the last thing." That's what Easter is all about. Whether or not you celebrate Easter, I hope this is encouraging and hopeful for you.

Have a beautiful Easter Sunday!

How to Throw a Surprise Party

As you might have seen on my Instagram stories, this past weekend Grace and I threw a surprise party for our best friend Tina! This was my first time throwing a surprise party for anyone, so I'm by no means an expert. But, I was really happy with how it went, so I thought I'd share some tips from what I learned! A really sweet suggestion I got from my Survey a few weeks ago was to share some posts on hospitality, decorating, etc. That inspired me to write this post!

That's Tina in the middle. Grace has known her since college, and I met Tina when I moved to California a few years ago. Tina is also our neighbor in West Hollywood! We go over to her apartment at least once a week (to watch the Bachelor), and sometimes twice a week if Drag Race is on. She's one of the most loyal people around and we just love her! A couple of months ago we were talking about Tina's birthday (Grace and I get REALLY excited about friends' birthdays and often discuss them months in advance, haha), and for some reason, the idea to throw a surprise party popped into our head. We've always wanted to throw one because they're so fun. But it's really hard to keep the person from suspecting something. We realized Tina would probably not expect us to throw her a surprise party, so it was the perfect cover.

With that in mind, my first tip for throwing a surprise party is to pick a time, occasion, or person that is low key/unassuming. I feel like surprise parties can be stressful when they're on the person's actual birthday, and you have to convince them that no one could hang out or that everyone forgot their birthday. To me, that kind of ruins the fun and celebration. So in this case, we actually had Tina's surprise party a week before her actual birthday to throw her off. I also think a surprise party could be really fun for a non-birthday occasion, like a bridal shower, congrats party, going away party, etc. I think it's a lot less suspicious for those types of occasions.

My next tip is to keep it simple. Our plan was to take Tina out to dinner at La Boheme in West Hollywood (SO good!), and at dinner casually mention that I had baked a dessert back at our house (we all live really close together so it makes sense to just stop by our house on the way home to drop her off). Key to all of this was to pick Tina up, so at that point we had her captive until we brought her to the party, haha! Again, it made sense because we told Tina we wanted to drive so she could kick back and have some drinks at dinner. We tried to keep everything within the realm of what seemed logical, so we didn't tip her off that something was going on.

Also in terms of keeping it simple, we went really basic with the decorations, food, and drinks. Planning a surprise party has enough complicated elements as it is! Because we were taking Tina out to dinner ahead of time, we just had a few store-bought snacks at our house for the party. We also got a cake decorated with a RuPaul phrase (Tina, Grace and I watch a lot of RuPaul together).

For decorations, we went to Vine-American Party Store in our neighborhood (I've used them a bunch of times for balloons and they're great). We picked out some things we thought were festive and/or went along with Tina's interests. For instance, she loves Disney and she's Italian, so we got some themed decorations along those lines. Pretty kitschy but fun :)

Speaking of keeping it simple--we actually recycled this birthday banner! Grace ordered it on Etsy last year for my birthday party. I have a drawer in our bar area with all kinds of party decor (I have birthday banners, Happy New Year banners, rainbow Pride banners . . .) it makes things really easy when it comes time to throw a party. And I'm always adding to my collection!

In case you can't tell, these are Minnie Mouse party decorations.

I loved how pretty the Chrome balloons turned out.

Last "keeping it simple" tip: don't feel like you have to buy every type of alcohol under the sun (if you're choosing to serve alcohol at the surprise party). In my experience, if people are really particular about what type of alcohol they'll drink, they will just bring their own! For this party, serving about 15-20 people, we bought: a case of beer (24), a bottle of vodka (could also use gin), a bottle of bourbon, a couple bottles of champagne, some flavored La Croix, grapefruit juice, and tonic. That amount was plenty, and everyone seemed happy!

Another thing that really helped us have a successful surprise was recruiting friends to be the "point people" for coordinating the surprise. We asked a few friends to come over about 30 minutes earlier than everyone else, and we left a key for them and told everyone else to text them with questions. That way, while we were at dinner with Tina I wasn't stressing about whether people were arriving okay. I knew our point people had it covered!

Seen in the picture above, before we left we set out a bunch of party hats, noisemakers, fun glasses, etc. I think it makes the surprise feel extra festive.

For the actual surprise, we decided to leave it up to our friends what they thought would be easiest and most effective. They ended up hiding off to the side in a nook off of our dining room, and then when we walked through the door, they jumped out and surprised Tina. I texted the point people when we were parking the car so they could get ready. When we walked in, they actually waited a beat before jumping out, and then they all broke into song for "Happy Birthday" (much to the embarrassment of Tina). It was SUCH a fun moment to fully pull off the surprise, plus to see a bunch of our friends all at once! 

For the rest of the night we mostly just hung out, caught up with friends, and celebrated Tina! Tina is very beloved, so it was awesome to see so many people from various facets of our friend group all come together. 

And, it wouldn't be a Have Dog, Will Drive post without a mention of our fur babies, who were very much present at the party:

My brother got to meet Bean for the first time!

This picture is so funny to me. Parties seem to make Willie tired, and he usually retreats to his bed partway through. This time, he hopped right up into our bed, and of course some of our dog-loving friends were not far behind. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about our first surprise party! This was also our first party in our house (we've had a dinner party but not a bigger group like this), and it makes me so excited for lots more.