Monday morning at Logan airport, we stepped off a bumpy red eye flight into the blistering cold. We'd had a great weekend in LA-- one that went by entirely too quickly and almost without incident.

It’s been two years since we arrived in LA, ready to start anew on the left coast. Fresh off a mostly snow-laden road trip, we were wide-eyed and optimistic among palm trees.

The 24 months since have gone by in an absolute blur. I put together the video below over the course of weeks and months. With gin on my breath and tears in my eyes, I scoured thousands of photos, hunted down video clips, and listened to song after song on a mission to find what evoked this season of my life.

This piece of history is positively one-sided. I took photos and video when things were good, when I felt happy, when the sun was shining.

Missing from this, are the moments when my knees gave out when I got a phone call about my mother’s health. The minutes spent searching for a flight to Boston that left within the next few hours so I could go home to my dad’s side.

I don’t depict the nights I got out of bed and paced the living room, or the nights it seemed like I was hugging Matt and my friends just a little too often and fervently.

Or the day I got let go from the company I'd spent most of my career with.

I also don’t show the twenty-something fruitless job interviews I embarked on, or the hellish three-day career I had for a flood restoration company that turned out to be a positively weird yet enlightening experience.

I don’t detail the countless “we appreciate your time but have decided to go in a different direction…” emails, or the hours spent figuring out how to apply for unemployment for the first time.

Missing are the moments spent on a cool tile floor in North Hollywood, hot tears streaming down my cheeks, while a sweet little dog kept trying to get me to play fetch.

And missing from this video is the fourth of July last year, when I awoke to find out my dad—my absolute rock through two years of hell—was having a heart attack.

 Matt and I were barely on a plane back to Boston when he uttered what we both had been thinking. “We’re going to have to move back,” he said. He didn’t make it a question, or act like there was anything at all to decide. We were going to do what we could to help my family, and we both knew it from that moment on.

Moving back to Massachusetts was energizing and gut wrenching all at the same time. A second cross-country trip that demonstrated the obvious majesty of this country left me feeling like there’s still so much more to see.

And remind me that wherever we lay our heads, we’re never too far from where we began.

Home is just state of mind.

For the past year, Matt and I have been calling North Hollywood our home. Our own little corner of this sprawling metropolis we moved to, NoHo seemed to be the perfect fit: reasonably priced rent (with outdoor space!), plenty of spots to drink, and (I hoped) good places to eat as well.

Of course, my wishes came true, and shortly after moving right near an illustrious In & Out Burger (which is the only fast food I have eaten, or will eat, in decades. Seriously), we started to realize our neighborhood had a lot to offer. So much more than when Matt called it home eight years ago, and it seemed like a new place was popping up every day.



One place that had just opened its doors for the first time right around then was the District Pub. Our first venture was, I believe, two days after they opened, and we have become quite the regulars since. It's a great example of a simple concept done superbly well-- a large craft beer list, house-made sausages, and burgers. That's about it. There's also a huge, delicious, chewy pretzel if you're into that sorta thing. And really, really good French fries. But otherwise?



Go for the beer.
Stay for the meat.
Repeat.

It was a while ago now, but Matt and I spent New Years in Palm Springs with some close friends. I've wanted to start beefing up my travel stories around here, and I love some of these photos too much not to share.

We stayed at the gorgeously colorful Saguaro hotel, and spent the mornings in the hot tub after snacking on a short rib skillet at the hotel's El Jefe bar. The Saguaro is dog-friendly, too (!!) so we brought the boys along and snuck in a quick hike at Murray Canyon on New Year's Eve before settling in at El Jefe with our friends for tequila and noisemakers.

Before leaving town, we headed right down the street to the amazing Moorten Botanical Garden to check out some cacti and other gorgeous plants. We came home well rested and fed, with a few new little succulents to add to our collection.

While Palm Springs is currently full of Coachella chaos, I loved our quiet holiday here so much. The mountain views, the bright colors, and friendly faces of Palm Springs made for a great little getaway we were in desperate need of. It was a hell of a year, and I was thrilled to bid it adieu on a balcony in the desert with my guy.

We've been calling North Hollywood home for about a year now.
Matt lived here-- back in the day, when us being together seemed like some far flung dream that could never come to fruition. There were just too many miles between us. But, of course, he sacked up, packed up, and moved to Boston for me in 2009. The rest, as they say, is history.

Except when we came west and started looking for a place, Matt was astounded and ecstatic to see what had become of his old neighborhood. Instead of one shady bar amid a stretch of thrift shops and car dealerships, in the seven or so years he was gone, so many establishments have opened their doors and welcomed in locals. One of the first places we discovered was EAT. I think I'd just come home from a business trip and was ravaged one morning, and hellbent on finding some sort of smoked salmon to put in my gullet. A cursory Google search revealed a few bagel places way too many minutes away-- and EAT, right on Magnolia. And they had other things like "scrambles" and omelets for my gluten-free fiance. Sold.

Almost exactly a year old, at this point, but this trip is still fresh in my mind. We drove from Boston to LA in just under a week, and now that we're fully settled into left coast life, I'm oddly nostalgic for this week last year. The open road and our optimism was boundless, and it's nearly palpable in these photos.

Hello from the road.
Today, we're on our way to Omaha.
Yeah. I know. Not the most glamorous road trip destination, but not the worst by any stretch of the imagination. We are leaving Chicago well rested and full of love, after quite the "hello/goodbye" type-party at Matt's mom's yesterday.

So, needless to say, I probably won't have recipes for a while. And though this may not mean much to many of you, I figured it'd be nice to share some of our final moments in the city that has been Home, to me, for the past ten years. Between the freezing temperatures, the packing of all our worldly possessions, and the well-attended farewell party we had last weekend-- it was the absolute definition of bittersweet to say goodbye to our friends, our apartment, my parents' house, our favorite stomping grounds... everything.

I don't know what this adventure will bring. I don't know what California will hold.
All I know is I will miss these moments, these faces, these places, that lobster roll (obv), and everything else my fair city has offered me over the past decade.

Oh, Boston. I love you so. But I've got to go.

I'm currently sitting in a living room in Chicago, watching more snow relentlessly drop from a gray sky. We are halfway along on our cross-country voyage to Los Angeles, and I have a lot of photos and recipes I need to sort through from our final days in Boston. Our last few weeks out there passed in quite the blur-- after a decade in the city, it took all I had to sort it out, pack it up, and move on out. It still hasn't really hit me that we don't live in Massachusetts anymore. There's so many people and things I am going to miss.

Toward the top of my Boston miss list is, of course, Mei Mei.
I've been on team Li kids since the beginning -- watching them turn their food truck dreams into reality like the smart, scrappy business owners they are. This past November, the siblings did it again and opened their brick-and-mortar restaurant in Audobon Circle.

For one week, each and every summer, Matt's somewhat extended family gathers on Lake Michigan, a few hours north but a world away from their usual lives in Chicago.

I have been fortunately able to attend these vacations for the past five summers. It is always an amazing time -- some years are more monumental than others, but I always return happy and refreshed, with an overwhelming sense of love. And a need to eat a salad and stay away from Bud Light for a while.

I have poured over thousands of pictures I took during that week in July, and have put together some carefully edited photos that capture just what an amazing time it was.

I couldn't be more thankful for this extended family I am marrying into, and the traditions they hold so dear. Here's a peak at the best week of the year.

A little while back, I headed out west to LA for work. Due to some recent developments on the career front, I now find myself slinging ads for my beloved company, and I needed to get up to speed on all things digital advertising, especially in the West.

PSA: If you're inclined to find out more about my professional life, you can check out the newly developed alliebeau.com for my résumé and some other pertinent details. Yes, I can build you a website. No, it won't be quick, nor free. Yes, my skills are abundant. No, I won't leave MocoSpace and come work for you.

There were many handshakes, and meetings, and Keynote presentations. And, I assure you, plenty of business was done.

But, there were moments when I was able to sneak away from my MacBook, and my room at the Standard Downtown, and I remembered just why I love Los Angeles so very much.

Every once in a great while, the gods of love and weekends and beer all get together and say, "let's give Allie's Boyfriend a Saturday off!" Entirely. Also, "let's not make him go back to manage the bar until 5PM on Sunday!"

And when that happens, we don't want to let down the love-weekend-beer gods (who would?), so we do our best to appease them. This Saturday, it included a food truck festival that happened to be at a horse track, so we were able to check off both the "unnecessary gambling" and "eat till you hate yourself" boxes in one trip!

For a brief rant, I would just like to say that I hate waiting in line. Furthermore, I hate waiting in line for over 45 minutes to order food at a food truck festival and then waiting an additional 30 minutes for the food to actually make its way to my pie hole. But I digress. All the trucks were busy, so we opted to wait it out for Lobsta Love.