Weekend Report

I started my Friday off with a much needed manicure and fell in love with this color, Opi's Houston We Have a Purple. 

 
Joel works in the heart of Beverly Hills so on Friday I joined him and his co-workers for happy hour on the rooftop bar at the Thompson. I love this bar because it makes me feel like I'm back in Chicago. It's on the 14th floor and has sweeping views of LA - and really good tequila. Which....also, makes it a great place to take my parents next week.

The group had made reservations at Nic's Beverly Hills to try out the famous Vodka Box. It's a 20-25 minute "experience" and costs each person $21. Before you enter the small, 28 degree room, everyone is outfitted in fur jackets and hat.

The room has hundreds of bottles of vodka from all around the room. I'm not a huge vodka person, but our hostess inside the room could pair a vodka with any of your favorite tastes. I started out telling her I usually drink tequila - and she found a vodka that finished just like my favorite Don Julio. Each person gets two to three shots of vodka, and so I ended with a cake batter vodka that seriously tasted like dessert.

Dressing up like Russian alcoholics really sealed the deal on this place for me.
 
Saturday morning we woke up to unusually cool temps and even rain - which is a rarity here in LA. It made it so hard to get out of bed, but when I finally did Joel dragged me and my girlfriend Shelby to a trail in the Pacific Palisades.

It rain the whole time, and the first 45 minutes were entirely up hill and freaking hard. It was a good training run for our 10k race on Thanksgiving morning, and it took us 1:20min to finish the 5.5 miles that we did.

5.5 miles on the trail is just so different than running it on the roads, and my body is still not used to it. When we got home around lunchtime, I had a beer (which Joel swears is the best recovery drink for any trail runner - which I obviously don't argue with) and fell asleep for almost 3 hours.


We stayed home Saturday night and I nursed my sore legs with red wine and the movie What to Expect When Your Expecting, which we surprisingly both enjoyed.

With my parents and Claire coming in the next few weeks, I'm trying to get my house as organized as possible. The closets have not been touched since we moved in - in March - and so I spent most of the day Sunday clearing them out and making them pretty.

Isn't it sinful that baskets can put you back like $75 bucks? 

I do keep admiring my pretty linen closet though, so maybe it was worth it! 

That night Joel and I decided to treat ourselves to a "fancy" dinner at home. 

Joel set this table, and the napkins are seriously bothering me, but it was sweet....right? Even though it's all wrong.

We scoured my Pintrest recipe board until deciding that we would replicate Gina's Seared Scallops over Parmesan Risotto.

I've never made Risotto before - and damn is it time consuming - but this dish was the best dinner we've ever made. Joel seared the scallops while I manned the risotto and our team work worked! Every bite was seriously divine and was totally better than any dinner we could have ordered at a restaurant.

The to-do list is long this Monday.

Bring on the coffee!