family style, orange county

April Vacation! You dream, you. We had the absolute best time last week enjoying California and Las Vegas. And now I will attempt to blog about it all! For the memories of the people and the places and also to give these photos a chance to live somewhere other than my hard drive. After all, they deserve to be seen!

The first few days of our trip to Cali we spent with Zan’s older sister Stephanie and her family in Irvine — Orange County, USA. We drove in from the airport and went straight down the coast — the fish tacos were calling to us! As was the salt air and sea breeze. And 85 degrees! Sigh. I love it so.

Here we are at Bear Flag Fish Company in Crystal Cove. We got some poke, fish tacos, and coconut water straight from the source. So so good and the perfect way to start our adventure.

This place is an AMAZING home decor store I discovered right next to Bear Flag Fish Co, Juxtaposition Home. I was full on love eyes while I was in there and I know you would be too.

The first night we had lots of Zan’s California family over for a big awesome dinner. We were lucky to spend time with three of Zan’s aunts, his uncle and two of his cousins — plus a lot of Stephanie’s husband’s family too. The meal was delicious and it was so nice to be in a faraway place with faraway family. It’s also nice to know we have so many people to visit out west! Definitely makes the return appealing. :)

Here they are L to R: Henry, Peter, Ian, Stephanie and Nash. They took is out on a duffy boat ride around Balboa on Sunday morning. Such a nice way to get a look at the awesome houses on the water!

After our boat excursion we walked around Newport Beach a little bit — mostly on the search for candy per Ian and Henry’s request. We stopped into the arcade to play a little Skee Ball, too. How could we pass an opportunity like that up?

Found the candy shop! ^^

And more tacos!

In the afternoon we ate our second round of fish tacos, this time from Wahoos in Laguna Beach and then walked the streets for a bit before heading to the beach…

While walking out of Wahoos I stumbled upon another store I had heart eyes for called LaLa by Kerry Cassill.

(Fun fact: After doing a bit of research just now to find a link I discovered they sell her designs at Anthropologie. No wonder I was in love!)

This awesome place is called Urth. All organic coffee and teas in a cafe on a mission for sustainability and quality. We got smoothies there before our drive back to Stephanie’s house. It was hot out and they were delicious!

You’re singing the Laguna Beach theme song in your head now, right?

I sure hope so.

And last, but never least, we went to the Anaheim Ducks playoff game on Sunday night — California’s favorite hockey team — THE MIGHTY DUCKS! It was no Boston, but we knew some major fans who were kind enough to share some tickets with us — so we cheered those Ducks on and had some fun while we did it. :)

A really great end to a really great weekend. And a really perfect start to vacation. ♥