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Travel diary: Crestline, California

By Tina - December 24, 2016

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful holiday spending time with family and friends!

Last weekend I went to Crestline with friends to spend pre-Christmas in the mountains. We stayed at a charming little cabin I booked through airbnb in Crestline, CA. Originally I had a full itinerary planned, with the group going to Big Bear for snow play and hiking at Heart Rock in Crestline... but we ended up just staying indoors for the entire weekend.

We spent the time watching Christmas movies, baking cookies, making chocolate covered strawberries, solving puzzles, and playing board games. We also set up a Secret Santa gift exchange and I got a ukulele! I don't know how to play it yet, but I plan to learn and impress by next year!

Anyway below are some quick snapshots of my Christmas cabin weekend. The photos are not in any particular order, but that should be okay!!!!!! Happy holidays everyone!

We didn't do much during our weekend Crestline getaway. We mostly stayed indoors but the gang did venture outside one afternoon to check out the little shops in town. The storefronts were very cute.

I think that this was the only restaurant in town. We walked to a grocery store so I could buy apples to make caramel french apple tart, but yelp lied and from the looks of it the grocery store was closed a long time ago. Anyway we didn't eat at the restaurant- I am a gourmet chef with a love for cooking!!!

This picture was taken on the first day. It was super foggy driving up the mountain. The following pictures will be more on the fog.... which I realize now is kinda silly since you literally can't see anything in the photos because of it.

I am happy I did not have to drive this.

The road had just one hairpin, not so bad.

The fog got really dense up here. We almost missed our turn into the Valley of Enchantment. And yes that's the name of the road.

This is a picture of the same little town. I like it better when it's sunny.

We took the right at the fork. The slope is really steep and we got stuck in the morning because of the snow.

This is the living room area of the cabin. The sofa was incredibly comfy. I brought Trader Joe's onion corn puffs and my SQL textbook because I still had to turn in a final that day. Cry.

This is one of the bedrooms in the cabin. The quilt is cute.

It snowed on the first night!!!!!

This pic is of the morning after the snow. Everything looks better under a blanket of white snow.

I wish it snowed a bit more though. Still too much green!

I got a Pokemon puzzle which the group took a whopping 20 minutes to finish. That is embarrassing considering it is a 100 piece puzzle and there were four of us.

I want to eat this.

This is the entrance to the cabin. It is a wonderful place to stay! If I ever am rich, I would love to own a cabin like this and rent it out to strangers.

I cooked and baked a lot over the weekend. These are oatmeal white chocolate craisin cookies. They're delicious! The cookies have a nice crunch on the edges, but they still have the highly sought after soft and chewy center. Yes, very good cookie.

For one of the lunches, we had chunky tomato basil soup...

... paired with pepper jelly cheddar grilled cheese. "Pepper jelly is a dangerous thing," said one of the cabin patrons.

I also baked brie in puff pastry. The brie is topped with apricot jam and then wrapped in puff pastry. We ate the cheese with sourdough crackers. I am a little sad I did not think to take pictures of more of the food. But I wanted to eat it too badly I guess.

Image source: https://activerain-store.s3.amazonaws.com/image_store/uploads/5/8/0/1/3/ar124884779531085.jpg
http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2015/04/hith-father-christmas-lights-iStock_000029514386Large.jpg

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Ingrid Michaelson concert

By Tina - November 01, 2016

I went to see Ingrid Michaelson with my sister last week in DTLA. The ticket times were misprinted so we arrived at the venue way too early. To pass the time, my trendy sister took me to a very swanky bakery+restaurant where I had the best lemon tart ever.

If you have $15 to spare and would like to eat a single serving dessert, Bottega Louie deserves a visit at least once.

My sister ordered a Saint Honore, which is a puff pastry base topped with candied cream puffs and chestnut cream. I've never had chestnut cream and it was insane how good it was. The cream was rich and thick and it almost tasted like a custard. I thought that the cream had a custard base, but all the recipes I found on google do not point to the thick eggy pastry cream roots. Anyway, chestnut cream is amazingly delicious and I plan on making it as a filling for cakes or something for Christmas.

The sugar high certainly helped with the concert timing mishap disappointment and so my sister and I walked back to the venue about 40 minutes after doors open.

The concert was held at a seated venue at the ACE Hotel. The seats were nice and plushy and there was enough elbow and leg room for some head bobbing and feet jiggling. The marquee and lobby area looks exactly like all the other theaters down the streets of LA so that got a little confusing.

I wanted to get a photo of the marquee spelling out Ingrid Michaelson or something related to the night but alright whatever this is fine too.

I find that most theaters are designed in a super creepy way with old chandeliers and way too much velvety things.

The view from our seats wasn't the best but I am not complaining because complaining does not solve anything. Throwing money at the problem would do it though.

The opener for the night was a brother trio named AJR. The band name is a combination of all their first initials. They had some catchy tunes, but I didn't really care for them.

The highlight of the night (as it should be) was definitely seeing Ingrid Michaelson and her band perform. They are a talented group with a great sense of humor.

Ingrid Michaelson has made a ton of albums and she recently released a new one called It Doesn't Have to Make Sense, which my sister and I do not know too well (I do have a CD of hers- Lights Out which I love). But that was okay! Her set list pretty much included all of her popular hits so that was very nice of her.

Anyway I had a very fun night and I would totally recommend catching her live.

Also I realize blog posts about concerts are probably the most boring to read about. And they are not very fun to write about either. I only do it because I spent the money on tickets and I want documentation I did these things...

Travel diary: Crestline, California

Ingrid Michaelson concert

Travel diary: San Francisco and Sequoia National Forest

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