This has been the scene in LA since Thursday night. No, this is not from September. Yes, it’s December. Yes, Christmas is less than one week away. I don’t mind the rain, but it’s interfering with running at this point. But who am I kidding? This is way better than the freezing cold temperatures I’ll face when I go to Chicago Monday.

I did brave the rain and drove to Pasadena for a book exchange and dessert at Pop Champagne. Pop Champagne is a restaurant, dessert and champagne bar. The decor was super cute and the food was good too!

Love a chandeliers! The menu had a great mix of appetizers, desserts (hello, jello shooters!) and drinks.

All I wanted after my drinks the afternoon before (and uh, the bottomless mimosas from earlier that afternoon) was a simple prosecco.

Simple and crisp, as always.

Emily’s drink was pretty noteworthy, she wanted to avoid sweetness so she got a Guinness and sparking wine. I am not a big fan of Guinness but this drink was pretty good. I would order this next time I go out!

Before Catie arrived Em and I ordered fries with truffle salt and Parmesan. Yum, yum, yum! I love that I’ve hooked all my friends on truffles. Such a bad influence.

After going back and forth for a while about what I wanted to order I settled on nutella crepes. I mean, how can you NOT order the nutella crepes?

Vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, nutella and crepes with sugary syrup. It was pretty delicious.

The book exchange was good too! I got Water for Elephants. Many of my friends have read it and loved it. It will be good plane reading. Tomorrow I take off for Chicago for a little over a week to celebrate Christmas! I am very exciting to head home for the holiday season but I’m worried about the cold. Now that I’m a California Girl I’m not sure how I’ll take to the cold but hey it should be super “holidayish” unlike the rain in LA.