Breakfast (9:30 p.m.): I had a wonderful weekend. Saturday began with me and Kevin getting up early in the morning to partake in the wedding “sneak peak.” We got to visit our wedding venue and watch the set-up process for a reception that was taking place that day.  It was a random couple’s wedding that we were getting the glimpse of, but it totally gave us good ideas on how we want our wedding to look and feel.

Before arriving to the venue, we stopped by Joan on Third for a quick breakfast of chocolate croissant (I only ate 1/3 of it because it was mediocre and I didn’t want to waste my daily calories on something that’s not spectacular) and half of Kevin’s ham and brie sandwich (this was pretty darn good). We only have a few minutes so we ate in the car.

After the sneak peak, Kevin dropped me off at Roya’s place, and Roya, Tiffany, Shannon and I headed to a girls’ weekend trip to Santa Barbara. On the way, I had tall strawberry smoothie and banana bread from Starbucks. (Oh, and we also stopped at Dash in Calabasas because Shannon and Roya are fans.)

After we checked in to Harbor View Inn in Santa Barbara (highly recommend this place), we went out for a five-mile run on the beach. The first two miles were really tough because they were all uphill but coming down felt really great.

We found a local community college along the way so we went to the track to do stairs. I did 1.5 rounds (I think the girls did three or four), and ran two laps around the track. I actually wanted to do more rounds but I got a little scared coming down the steps!  It was such a wonderful day for an outdoor exercise!

Dinner (5:00 p.m.): After the workout, we went to this neighborhood Mexican place that Shannon saw on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, but was closed, so we went to another, more fancy Mexican restaurant, Casa Blanca, down the street from the hotel. We had a round of drinks (I had blood orange margarita with jalapeno) and chips and salsa. We were only going to stay for drinks and appetizers, but we ended up eating full meals. I absolutely loved the steak salad that I ordered. It was one of the best steak salads I’ve had in years!

Late-Night Dinner (11:00 p.m.): We soaked our tired muscles in the Jacuzzi after we returned from dinner which felt incredible! We had a few more cocktails there, and came back to get ready to go out. We ended up at a pub full of Santa Barbara locals, and we shared Mac and Cheese (with bacon, Gruyere, and arugula) and French fries (sweet potatoes and regular). We knew that she shouldn’t have eaten such fatty foods so late at night but we figured we’d have fun on our vacation. The good news is that I didn’t drink and we didn’t polish off the plates.