I just realized that the past two posts in the series have been 5 Things: The Weekend. I’m not sure if it really works both ways so we’re taking it back to the original. This year’s birthday celebration was similar to years prior in that I prefer to stretch it out. After celebrating with my friends the weekend before my birthday, I decided that the weekend after I would travel to sunny San Diego to visit my BFF Ash!

It was an incredible weekend full of shopping, seafood, and pampering.

My weekend actually got started on a Thursday since I was flying out Friday morning. On Thursday evening, I drove up to the city (what?! In the middle of the work week!) to catch London Grammar at The Independent. I had listened to a few songs before randomly, but never consistently. They were amazing live and with a packed house, it was pretty apparent that nearly everyone in the room was a hardcore fan. I didn’t feel worthy enough to be there, but I did feel pretty lucky since I heard it was a sold out show. Hannah was phenomenal. Her boys are pretty dreamy too.

During our shopping trip at Fashion Valley, we stopped by “Typo” – a division of Cotton On that sells cute desk accessories, trinkets, and home goods. How cute are these straws? They’d be perfect for any summer soiree.

Pacific Beach was perfection and so are my new favorite sandals by Dolce Vita. More on that later.

Whoooo!! This girl is my best friend. Since we’ve been friends, we’ve never spent a summer apart and this year, we won’t have to because we’ll both be in the Bay Area while she is interning at Stanford. Summer 2014 – the summer of Ash and Katie.

We found the Oh Joy! collection at Target and we fell in love. Definitely more on this later.