California Weekend Recap- Manhattan Beach

Hey Guys!

I hope you are having a terrific Monday so far! So this weekend recap is a days late because I have been playing catch up since I got home!

If you follow me on Instagram (which you should!), you know I spent a great weekend in California. I believe what they say, the first 5 days after the weekend are always the hardest! Today, I am back to work but sporting a new Disney mug in my office. Be sure to check out Instagram to find out which one I decided on out of the 50-100 choices I had in front of me!

To give you a little vacation lead in, Thursday night was date-night. Damiean and I enjoyed some delicious Chicken Katsu at Ono Hawaiin BBQ. If you have never tried it, I highly recommend it, especially if you like sauce that has a slight kick to it. After dinner, we checked out a few websites and finally decided on a Kayak that we both liked enough to purchase. Once that was done, I finally got a chance to check out the treadmill that is going to be living in the dining room for a little while. This thing is awesome! My personal treadmill is very basic and user friendly. This one is connected to the WI-FI and shows videos of different locations as you are running. At the time I was barefoot and already dressed for bed so I have not gotten a chance to run on it yet. We spent the rest of the night watching a TV show about murder, because love in a long term relationship= take out, comfy pants and shows about murder!

I worked on Friday and right around 4:00 in the afternoon it got crazy busy. Sometimes, that is nice- 4:00 on a Friday? Not so much! But I made it through and then it was officially time to switch to vacay mode. I has been packing all week so there was just a few pieces to add to my suitcase and I would be ready to go.

Before I knew it, it was 6:00 a.m. on Saturday and we were packing the car and ready to go. I always pack an “in the car bag” of things to do while we are on the road but I will be honest and tell you that a majority of the time is usually spend sleeping when we travel early in the morning. After we stopped in Cathedral City to stretch our legs, I finally dug into my bag and started a new book. I had a realization last week at Target (go figure) and started thinking about the last time I started and finished a book…it has been a long time! I cannot tell you how many half finished books are currently sitting on my shelf. So I did what anyone would do, I purchased 2 more books and promised myself that I would make a commitment to finish 4-5 books before the end of July. I feel that this is an extremely attainable goal and will be sure to let you know what books have made the cut. I will say that right now I am currently reading Sharp Objects. I saw an advertisement on Facebook for the HBO series and then found out it was actually an adaptation which made me interested out more. Sharp Objects was one of the two books I picked up at Target this past Friday night. It definitely has kept my interest so I am excited to keep reading.

After a few more hours, we finally made it to Manhattan Beach. Once there, our first stop was Uncle Bill’s Pancake House. This is a “hole in the wall” type place that has an ocean view and serves a huge variety of meals. The menu was huge and the fact that they served breakfast all day made it tough to decide. I chose to have breakfast for lunch and went with a ham and cheese omelet with sourdough toast. It was DELICIOUS! My mom, Sydnee and my dad went with the burgers, which were juicy, well seasoned and thick. My sister, Cierra, went with chocolate chip pancakes that were to die for. Needless to say, it doesn’t seem like you can make a bad choice at Uncle Bill’s. Fun Fact: One of the sides they offered to me in lieu of toast was a side of two pancakes.

After enjoying our delicious meal, we ventured out and about Manhattan Beach. The weather was beautiful and in the 70’s which meant people were out in droves. Luckily, we were able to avoid a majority of the beach traffic while we walked around the shops and picked up Starbucks. Once we had our coffee in hand, we took a walk down the pier.

Once we had taken in our fill of the beautiful view, we headed back to the car since our parking was due to expire soon. Once we were back to the parking lot, we waved goodbye to Manhattan Beach and headed up the coast to Malibu!