This weekend completely flew by! I left my summer home in Santa Barbara on Friday and drove the long trek home. As soon as I got home at night, I decided not to unpack a single thing and just curled up on the couch with all of my puppies It was great. Buuut my car is still stuffed to the brim with all of my stuff and I am not looking forward to unpacking today. After a solid nights sleep Friday night, I woke up on Saturday excited and ready to begin apartment hunting with my mom!

I woke up around 8:00 to get in a quick work out in our home gym before we head out (one of the many perks of being home is having a gym in our bonus room!). I did a 50-minute elliptical interval workout that was over in a flash thanks to the constant changing of pace (thanks for the work out, Julie). Love intervals! Then I showered and grabbed my breakfast out of the fridge to take on the road. Overnight oats of course: oats, almond milk, chia seeds, sliced banana, peanut butter. Standard.

It took my mom and I about an hour to get to our designated spot in Palo Alto to meet with an extremely nice and helpful leasing agent. We spent rest of the day looking at what felt like a miiiillion apartments/cottages/guesthouses in the area. It was super crowded in Palo Alto because the Stanford USC game was that day. Wish I could’ve joined in the fun, but we had an agenda! Go Stanford!! They won by the way, which was a huge upset apparently. (I am a Stanford fan because my Dad went there and grew up rooting for them. Also because USC rejected me when I applied back in 2008 )

By the late afternoon, my mom and I were tired and mildly grumpy because we hadnt had anything to eat or drink all day so we gave the apartments a rest for a lunch break. We ended up going to this little place called John’s Cafe that what pretty much the first place we drove by and could find a parking spot. My mom ordered a salad and I ordered a panini, so we split them both. We literally INHALED it and it was one of the best lunches I’ve had in a long time. Both my mom and I were raving about the panini between mouthfuls. We probably looked like we hadn’t eaten in months.

Ciabatta stuffed with portobello, goat cheese, tarragon aioli, roasted tomatoes, and lettuce. So good. SO GOOD. The aioli was one of the best I’ve tasted, and I want to make some at home to eat on all of my sandwiches.

My mom got a simpler salad that was greens with shrimp, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber. Light and refreshing, but no where near as delicious as the panini.

After our late lunch we decided we had enough for the day and headed home so my mom could get ready for her dinner party and I could finally go see one of my best friends, Katie. I went over to Katie’s house and chatted with her and her sister for a while before deciding we needed to go get celebratory drinks (to celebrate me being home, of course). We ended up going to one of our fave italian restaurants, Mangia Mi. We sat up at the bar because there was a 30 minute wait for a table, which ended up being just fine. I ordered the pineapple infused vodka, and Katie got the Tahoe Lemonade (pomegranate lemonade vodka drink). They were both really yummy!

About half way through our drinks, we couldn’t stop staring at the meals being handed out around us and decided to split an entree since we both still weren’t hungry but the food looked mouth-watering. We got the summer fettucini pasta, recommended by our waitress: fettucini, charred corn, toybox squash, cherry tomatoes, wild arugula, goat cheese, and chive pesto. Perfectly summery, light and fresh for a pasta dish. We both loved it.

After hours of catching up, we headed back to her house to hang with her family for a while (I am good friends with her mom too, Hi Patty!). Then I headed home exhausted and ready to sleep in my own big fluffy bed. It was a wonderful day, and it’s so good to be home. Today I am going hiking with my dad and our dog Jake and then my sister is getting home from a weekend trip and I can’t wait to see her! This next week is going to be busy every day since I have so many people to see and things to do. I love it though!

What did you do this weekend?