day 161: Yesterday evening we went out to happy hour for a friend’s last day at work. This shot is hilarious… George was showing off his new iphone to Rachel… and this is her actual reaction to seeing it…. no joke. She really put her hand to her face and gasped. Is it honestly that amazing?

day 160: Tonight we went out to a movie that we were long overdue to see. If you haven’t seen once and it’s playing near you … go see it. If only for the music. Which is lovely. And on the way out take a photo of the empty parking garage. At least that’s what I did.

day 159: Today you get 2 photos for the price of 1. We went out this evening and took a walk around Hermosa Beach. The light was fantastic and I was excited to just be out shooting for fun… this is one of my favorite shots from the night. That would have been my photo of the day but later in the evening Ben surprised me with a bouquet of flowers… so I had to break out the macro and take a shot of them. I couldn’t resist!

day 158: I felt like heading outside to the beach this evening so we went out to Santa Monica and wandered around. Our wanderings led us into Henessey & Ingalls, a fabulous art & architecture bookstore which on a funny sidenote was designed by our office. Small world. It’s a dangerous place since all of the books seem to be calling out to be bought and taken home. We resisted temptation and just got dinner instead, and as promised here is my non-macro wide angle shot for the day!

day 157: I can’t seem to help myself taking lots of close up shots since I got my new lens on Friday. I’ve become macro crazy! I’ll put on my wide angle tomorrow and take a few steps back… but for now one more extreme closeup. Bonus points if you recognize what this is a photo of.

day 156: On Sunday night my parents came up to LA to visit for our birthdays. We had a nice afternoon at the Getty Center and then went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Real Food Daily. The most amazing thing about this restaurant is that it makes such good nachos that even my sister (a self-proclaimed cheese hater) loves them. Here it is! Proof that Allison ate nachos! It may be cashew cheese, but it’s still amazing!

day 155: On Saturday we had some friends and family over for birthday dinner and I made some delicious Magnolia bakery recipe cupcakes. The frosting wasn’t as impressively towering as it would be from the real bakery, but I thought that they tasted pretty darn good.

day 154: Today’s fun fact is that yes, my mom and I share the same birthday! It’s always funny when we call each other up on our birthdays because we’re both wishing each other happy birthday. Anyways, today I got a fabulous gift from my wonderful husband … an awesome macro lens I’ve had my eye on for a while. I can now get super close up shots which is so fun… even though it shows the scratches on our rings I still like this shot. This lens is going to be fun!

day 153: It seems that one of the dangers of the photo-a-day blog is that you run the risk of taking photos of the same thing repeatedly. I seem to be posting a lot of photos of food lately but I just couldn’t resist a shot of the delicious strawberries we had tonight with dinner (and delicious french cheese as well… mmm!)

day 152: This evening after work Ben and I did some much needed cleaning and filing. Oh what an exciting life we lead. Although I must admit that while not thrilling it does make for a much more pleasant home.