I love living in Southern California – if only for the awesome blog friends in the area I can get together with in real life!

Ever since we bought our house a few months ago, Kam and Justine have been talking about making the LONG trip up to visit! And, yes, it’s long. I think Justine drove 35 minutes to Kam’s and then the 2 of them drove another hour and a half up to my house.

On a Sunday morning.

But, obviously, it was worth it. Between my delicious lunch and the kittens and my chalkboard wall?

I made one of my 3 go-to recipes : turkey black bean chili

I make this chili recipe for guests ALL the time because A) it’s delicious; B ) it’s easy and (relatively) quick and C) it’s gluten free, dairy free and sugar free so works for a lot of food allergies/aversions

Also, Andrew and I love having the leftovers ….

So chili, fresh fruit and ice cream …. YUM!

All 3 of us instagram’d a bunch of photos! We had our phones out all afternoon.

Mostly of my kittens … who are about 10 weeks old in these photos (if I’m doing the math right) … and so much fun!

(and yes, that tin foil is to deter gnawing on the corners)

We also did the first photo shoot in front of my chalkboard wall!

You may remember, my office looks a bit like this. I’ve unpacked more of the boxes, so there’s a bigger expanse of wall bare, but it’s still in-progress…

Andrew – bless his heart – came and took a slew of photos of us, and then the 3 of us handed off the cameras to take some more.

I need a more up-to-date go-to profile photo ….

And yes, I really am that white. It’s not just a contrast to the black wall.

The kittens had followed up upstairs into the office – and I’m sure they regret it after this photo

There are a bunch (a TON) more, that will have to wait ….

SO much fun spending the afternoon with Kam and Justine! I love those girls …. I don’t have a ton of girlfriends, and even fewer who understand living life on the blog, so it’s so nice and easy to pass hours and hours talking with these 2.

Next time, I’ll make the drive down to one of their houses …. I really do live pretty far north for “SoCal”