Laguna Beach & Aliso Canyon

As you can see, we didn’t have any fun

For all of the traveling and sight-seeing we did before we moved to Los Angeles, you’d think we’d have ventured outside our little bubble of a city and explored the beaches, landscapes and sights in our new home state. Better late than never, right? We finally made a day trip to somewhere not in a 10-mile radius of our apartment and drove an hour south to Laguna Beach.

Laguna came highly recommended (5 stars, in fact) from our friend in Hollywood, who has been super helpful in suggesting awesome restaurants and things to do in SoCal. So on Sunday, we took off around 11 AM, breezed along the freeways listening to some Bob Marley, Edgar Winter and Coldplay and found ourselves in a beautiful and quaint little beach town with half the amount of tourists as Santa Monica. It was charming, fun, hip and we wanted to move there immediately.

We arrived just after 12 PM and grabbed lunch at a sweet cafe called Goko Cafe & Deli. Not surprisingly, it was flanked by three surf shops! Only in California… Ky got the Veggie Burrito and I got the Chicken Gyro and both were awesome. We took the food to go and made our way to The Aliso Beach, a beautifully quiet stretch of beach that ended with a weathered rock formation that stretched out across the sand and into the water.

Every time the big waves collided with the rocks, it sprayed a refreshingly light mist up onto the sand. We walked down to where the ocean met the land and let the waves of the Pacific rush over our feet for the very first time – and it was FREEZING!

We spent a solid two hours laying in the sand and reading in the warm May sun.  IT WAS BLISS.

We left the beach around 2:30 PM in order to get to our 3:28 PM tee-time at the Aliso Canyon Golf Course and Resort. This place is siiiiiiick! The course and resort are located inside the Aliso Canyon, which has amazing views. Scenery-wise, this was definitely the coolest course I’ve ever played at. The course is a pretty easy, 9 hole, par 4 that had some fast greens and very lush fairways. We were paired with two great guys, Mike and Max, who only added to the enjoyment of our round. I finished the round 9 over par with four pars, 2 bogeys, 2 double bogeys and a triple bogey, but overall I think I played well.

      

We left the course around 6 PM and arrived back in Hollywood shortly after 7. I think it’s safe to say that we will definitely be revisiting Laguna again as soon as possible.

Hello, Strangers.

Would you look at that? It’s been exactly four months since we’ve posted on here. I know that’s not really good form for a blogger and I’ve probably left our readers in the dark, wondering what the heck Austin and I have been doing since January. In all honesty though, I think we really needed that time to figure out what we were doing in our new home of Los Angeles and try to make sense of our new lives. I don’t ever remember thinking this was going to be easy by any means; I guess I just didn’t count on it taking us this long to feel good about this life-changing decision.

So let’s recap, since it’s been so long! The first three months after we moved, things were looking pretty bleak (or at least they were to us). We had found an apartment, but finding work was another story. The jobs we managed to secure early on where infrequent and underpaying and Austin and I ended up having a very real discussion about whether or not we would be able to afford to stay in L.A. for very much longer.

By the end of January, we both had found full-time work that helped restore our energy and faith that we could indeed make it here. We focused on the positives in our lives and began to express our gratitude instead of sweating the small stuff. We started to climb out of that bottomless hole of fear and doubt and finally we can truly enjoy the place we’re in and everything it has to offer. I started volunteering with a great local animal rescue organization that coordinates dog adoption events and Austin found a pretty awesome driving range and golf course (one of his most favorite things) close by.

We’ve also found some really great things in and around Los Angeles that we just love: Runyon Canyon hiking and yoga, Black Market Yoga in Hollywood, Santa Monica and the Pier for a fun, beachy & touristy attraction, and some incredible, will-leave-you-speechless hot springs in Ojai, CA. On the weekends, we love to hike, bike and just enjoy the (almost) perpetual sunshine.

A friend gave us a travel list of places we need to visit in Southern California and we’re slowly crossing some of them off our list. This summer, we hope to visit Santa Barbara and San Diego for the first time and make a return weekend trip to Las Vegas. A little bit closer to us we have Laguna Beach, Malibu and Venice Beach to explore. We’re also starting up a savings fund again, so we can do a big travel adventure trip in the next couple of years (a week in Hawaii or a trip to Europe perhaps).

These last few months have been tough, but we’ve learned so much. We’re continuing to expand daily on our experiences, love and gratitude, and most importantly, our perspective.