birthday freebies:

So Nick & I celebrated our birthdays last month, our birthdays are about a week apart which is nice because we get both of them out of the way ;) I'll be honest - I don't get super excited when my birthday rolls around each year and the fact that I'm getting older, does anyone? But anyway, this year I signed up for a couple mailing lists for companies that give birthday perks. I'm not a huge coupon person, but birthdays only comes once a year so why not get something for free on your birthday? I think it's really cool that companies even offer freebies for birthdays, don't you? I totally want to do that if I ever open a shop. Well, here are a few of them that Nick & I stopped at, along with links for you to sign up too!

First you can start your day off with breakfast at ihop
They give you a free meal (up to $10) I got the crepes, my favorite :)


Then you can stop for lunch or dinner at rubios for a free meal (up to $7)


For dessert, get a free scoop of ice cream from baskin robbins!


and buy 1 get 1 free pretzel at auntie anne's.


Last stop - free birthday gift from sephora, how generous!
The nice thing about these coupons are that they are good for a period about 1-2 weeks so you don't have to go on your actual birth-day. Some very extensive lists of birthday freebies can be found here and here :) If you have any to share, feel free to do so in the comments below!

flower fields:

When I saw Lillian's post about the Carlsbad flower fields, I wanted go check it out right away - I had never even known about this place before! So when I was down in San Diego for business, we stayed an extra night and stopped here on the way back up. It was endless rows of flowers - so lovely. and so cool to discover new places + sights to see through other blogger friends! Nick & I are always looking for fun date things to do together, this was great & perfect for pictures too. The fields are closed now but mark your calendars for next year when they reopen. What sort of places have you been going to lately for dates?

Exploring Orange County:

I received an email from Apartment Guide with a fun challenge to explore my city. I've grown up in Orange County but haven't shared too much about fun places in OC. To be honest, having visited so many other cooler-than-orange-county cities - I have always felt OC doesn't even compare to some of the other cool stuff going on in other areas. But what can I say? OC has some great weather year round and they do have some cool stuff going on ;) So Nick & I went and explored. Here are some fun places we came across that I wanted to share with you! Whether you live here or are even stopping by for a visit, be sure to mark these places on your list!

First on the list, let's start with some delicious pastries for breakfast at Cream Pan in Tustin! This place has some serious reviews and ratings on Yelp. You haven't lived until you've had one of their strawberry croissants!


Next we have a fun morning/afternoon activity - strawberry picking at Tanaka Farms in Irvine! I've blogged about this before but it's just such a fun activity to do as a date or share with friends.



Something we always enjoy doing is visiting the zoo. There are quite a few zoo's all over orange county, like The Santa Ana Zoo or even the Orange County Zoo. Zoo's are always a good time.



Then for lunch, we stopped in at Umami Burger. Umami burger used to have locations only in LA but they finally came to Orange County! and boy are we happy about it, these burgers are so delicious. Nick got the "manly burger" and I got a good old fashion "cali burger" .. they put cinnamon sugar on their sweet potato fries - yum!

These are 3 different places but all within about 5 minutes of each other in Costa Mesa - The OC Mart Mix, The Lab, and The Camp. (Umami is located at the camp!) These are probably the coolest places in OC, in my own opinion. I mean, it's probably as close as you can get to Portland or Austin, which are pretty cool urban cities. There is some pretty stylish design, architecture, shops - it's a cool hang out for sure. I love Costa Mesa, it'll always hold a special place in my heart. Went to college here & met Nick. When we were house hunting, I so desperately wanted to move to Costa Mesa. If you're thinking about a move, Costa Mesa is a great city! Whether you're living, looking or moving, Apartment Guide has some great how-tos for making the most of your space, city and neighborhood. We did find some houses in Costa Mesa but the neighborhood's we were looking in weren't the best - and it is all about the neighborhood! Check out this article by Apartment Guide - How to Choose the Best Neighborhood for You!

Our last stop was Sticki Picki in Irvine. I had never been before but somehow stumbled upon this on Yelp. Sticki Picki consists of photo booths, and props. These aren't just average photo booth's - they're huge standing ones with serious backgrounds and silly add-ons. It ranges from $11-$13 for a photo booth picture, but it's really fun. After you take your photos, you go to another booth and 'glam' your photos with little cartoon drawings and things - it's pretty fun and Nick and I spent about an hour at it, haha. Then you choose your layout and get little sticker pictures printed! It was a lot of fun.

So we did quite some exploring. I know there is probably a whole list of places I missed around the area, these are just some of the places we stopped at. Thanks to Apartment Guide for the fun opportunity to have a super-date day with my husband! I'll be doing one more exploring post, about Austin! A cash giveaway will be included in the next post too, stay tuned :)

If you're moving to a new city, check out this great article at Apartment Guide. “Like” Apartment Guide on Facebook, follow them on twitter and "circle" them on Google+ for real-time tips and updates on exploring your city and neighborhood.

Disclosure: Apartment Guide and owner Consumer Source, Inc. partnered with bloggers such as me to participate in their monthly blogger programs. As part of that program, I received compensation. They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about the products used, and believe that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Consumer Source’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations. The winner of this giveaway will be randomly chosen and gift card fulfillment will be handled by a third party.

strawberry picking date:

A couple weekends ago, Nick and I headed to Tanaka Farms in Irvine to go Strawberry picking. I wanted to do it last year but we didn't have any time to go during strawberry season so it's pretty crazy it's been an entire year since!

It was a nice sunny day for strawberry picking, actually a little on the warm side.

We got sunburned! Then it rained the weekend after. That's OC weather for you.

So you go up and pay for your tour ticket and they give you a

little strawberry carton to put your strawberries in. How cute is that?

For some reason I think Nick looks like Christian Bale in this photo.

Anyone else see it? hehe.

So you basically get on this wagon pulled by a tractor and they take you around to all the different stops and give you fresh grown vegetables to try. We got sweet peas, carrots, onions, celery, and spinach. It was all really good! Minus the onions, we don't like onions ;)

Last stop is the strawberry patch. I'll be honest, I've never tasted sweeter strawberries! Now it's hard to buy strawberries at the market cause these were sooo good. We had about 15 minutes to fill our cartons and eat as many strawberries as we could!

I totally recommend this kind of thing for a simple date. Nick didn't know if he'd like it but he said it was really fun and now he wants to go back for pumpkin picking ;) Have you ever gone to pick fruit? I think apple picking would be fun. What kind of dates have you gone on lately? Always looking for fun ideas, would love to hear yours. Have a great day friends.

date night at the drive-in:

So a couple weeks ago, Nicholas & I headed for a little date night at the drive in theater! There is something so nostalgic and awesome about drive in theaters and I'm really glad they haven't shut this one down yet! (since all others in this area are closed) We grabbed some snacks, pillows, and blankets. Thought I'd share some pics with you!

$8.50, not bad since they feature 2 movies!

I'm not a big popcorn fan but I do like cracker jack!

So we grabbed some of our favorite snacks and some fruit.

Fruit dipped in Nutella is also good too ;)

Nutella with pretty much anything is yummy.

*Note: We didn't keep the lights on the entire time.

I just thought they were cute for pictures ;)

If you're in the orange county area, I totally recommend going to the Drive-In for a fun date night with someone special or with friends!

So that was it! We saw bridesmaids and we were going to stay for another movie but it started raining! How random is that - for June summer weather. I'm not complaining though, It was so cozy and I would have stayed in the rain but our blankets were getting all wet.

ps: Not sure how updated this site is but there's a list of drive in's by state at this website if you want to check and see if there are any in your area!

most of these photos were taken by Nicholas,

i snapped some too ;)