For many, "home for the holidays" means cozying up by the fire, hoping for a white Christmas, and donning festive flannel pajamas. Maybe I made most of that up based on my novelty idea of what Christmas means outside of a Southern Californian weather pattern. For me, "home for the holidays" elicits more of a generalized "vacation time with family and friends and hopefully hiking." Checked all of those off this year, with a handful of Yahtzee games and visits with family to boot. 

Dallas, as I've stated and reiterated and and repeated too many times to count, is my second home sweet home. The more I live in and explore Dallas, the more I love it. But we all know that. Los Angeles is still a mystery to me. Eighteen years and some change of living in LA, and it still feels like a mystery to me. So I finally ventured out of my usual Manhattan Beach and Santa Monica destinations and did what any tourist would do - go to the most Instagram-worthy spots north of LAX.  

First, I had the absolute pleasure of photographing my best friend and her family at a beautiful park off Arroyo Seco Parkway (the first freeway in the Western US by the way), aptly names Arroyo Seco Park

Second spot: coffee at POT Cafe and brunch at the Commissary at The Line Hotel. I will just say the greenhouse ambiance was really interesting and fun to photograph and I loved catching up with two good friends, and enjoyed a fun shoot with Fe who is in amazing LA blogger. 

Third installment of my hometown adventures was rooftop drinks at the Ace Hotel, which is where I will likely return whenever I am back in LA, probably because it reminded me of somewhere I'd go in Dallas or Austin.. 

Also went to the Bungalow, but if my goal is to end this post on a high note, I won't go into it.