This past weekend, my friends, Kellie and Shannon, and I took a long awaited road trip to visit my apartment and roommate Erika up in San Francisco! We ate at some of my favorite spots in the whole city, and gave the twins the full touristy run down of the city, without the wharf because that is just way too much for a weekend trip. We drove up Saturday morning and came back Monday night. It was the perfect weekend get away and I would love nothing more than to do back!

Gillroy pitstop for some cherries

My new friend

We left our hearts in SF

Straits | Chicken Lollipops

Straits | Beef Randang

Straits | Wok Veggies

Chilling at the Marina

The bests

Tacolicious

National Ice Cream Day! | BiRite

Roasted Banana & Chocolate Coconut

Goodbye brunch at Stacks | Bacon Scram

Golden Gate Bridge!

Bridge

Best cookies EVER | Miette

Costco pitstop | Swirl FroYo

Last picture before home | Being dangerous and stuff

Weekend Trip! | Laguna Beach

Every year, my parents and I take a little road trip south to the beautiful city of Laguna Beach, celebrating my dad's birthday. We have our favorite restaurants and shops, stop by the beach, and enjoy the Pageant of the Masters, a show where works of art come to life. Below are some pictures of my amazing weekend! The weather was perfect, and we discovered some new food places! I also scored a really beautiful necklace (: 

(If you follow me on Instagram you may have already seen some of these pics!)

My weekend was amazing, but last night was hard- I found out that Cory Monteith passed away. I met him once, briefly in passing, meaning he was singing at Glee Live, walked past me, grabbed my hand, and I grabbed his sweatshirt because I didn't want him to leave. He was, and still is, my celebrity crush, and I am so  sad that this world lost an amazing talent. 

Cherish and love your family and friends, and don't take anyone or anything for granted!

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend (:

Crispy Tacos | Asada Restaurant

Print making- Step 1! | Festival of the Arts

Finished product! | Festival of the Arts

New favorite necklace! | Tuvalu, Laguna Beach

Yummy Seared Ahi | Sundried Tomato Cafe

Morning breakfast on the beach!

Saturday OOTD | Necklace, Tuvalu; Dress, Anthropologie 

Sneaky picture inside the pageant!

Artsy fartsy free chocolate that had weird caramel inside

Salty Suites- AMAZING band! | Festival of the Arts

#selfies | taken by my father

Rosemary Hummus Platter | Festival of the Arts

Artichoke Bacon Pizza | Festival of the Arts

Pre-Dinner photo shoot #1

Pre-Dinner photo shoot #2

Appetizers: Lumber Logs (Zucchini)  | Lumber Yard

Appetizers: Tuna Tar Tar  | Lumber Yard

New York Steak | Lumber Yard

Molten Lava Cake  | Lumber Yard

Best Vanilla Bean Creme Brûlée EVER  | Lumber Yard

Poached Eggs & Vanilla Late | Zinc Cafe

Unexpected Compliments

Now by reading the title, you might be thinking okay, I walk down the hallway and someone compliments me on my new hair, or pants. And as much those are great and can turn an okay day into a great day, those aren't the kind of compliments I'm talking about today.

If you don't know, when I come home for summer and winter breaks, I work at a local park as a camp counselor. Now this isn't just any camp. I used to be a camper there and progressively worked my way up, and I have now been at my camp for longer than my directors. Crazy, right? So after being a camper, I became a CIT (counselor in training), to a junior, and I am now in my second summer of being a senior counselor. As much as I love my campers, the crafts, the cooking, the games, and being a counselor in general, it isn't always the easiest of jobs. Kids don't always listen, crafts go wrong, nobody always gets along, and sometimes there is even drama.

Every Wednesday, we go on field trips, and today's happened to be to Six Flags Magic Mountain. Unknown to me, my two bosses that were going on the trip drove vans with some campers and CITs because there was not enough room on the bus, leaving me in charge of that area. I have had minor interactions with the entire bus process, but it was never just up to me. All went fine and well and when returning to camp, after everyone else was off the bus, our bus driver stopped me and said that I was the youngest most pulled together counselor she has ever seen, and that she has driven near 100 camps. I was speechless. The first thing out of my mouth was, "oh, well I am 19" to which she responded that I was even younger than she thought, and if I could get 55 campers quiet and to pick up their trash by myself I was amazing.

As random as this post is, it is always nice to get a compliment and know that your hard work is not going unnoticed! I hope you all had a fantastic Wednesday, and keep the weekend in mind because only two more days!

I am off to Laguna on Friday morning until Sunday for an early birthday celebration for my Dad (:

Perks of Being a Tweeter

As much as I love a good Tumblr rant or clever Facebook status, Twitter is my one social media outlet I can just spew out my thoughts on. Not spew in a bad way, but more so just a sentence thought that isn't funny or maybe just doesn't really pertain to anything other than how I feel at that exact moment. either way, Twitter is always fun to talk to your favorite celeb, if they ever reply, Youtube sensation, or now even restaurant.
As random as this is, I thought this conversation with my friends, myself, and Toast cafe on 3rd was pretty entertaining and was definitely the cherry on top of our already delicious lunch!

Follow me on Twitter to be the first to know about these fun tweets: @KathrynMichel

Minor Adjustments

Dear Kathryn Michel never quite made sense to me, but I liked it anyways. My main problem with it was that I am not an advice blog and I felt that with dear Kathryn Michel I became sort of a "Dear Amy" or whatever name the LA Times has chosen this year. While watching some Nick at Nite in my computer on this nice Tuesday night, As Told by Ginger popped up on my screen, and with the go ahead from my best friends, I decided to claim it.

So the change to the blog is the name- but what's in a name?

AsToldByKathryn.blogspot.com will now follow my life, my food, my beauty addiction, and my travels, and I hope you come with!

Tacolicious 4th of July

If you follow me on Pinterest or on Instagram, you may know that I have a slight obsession with tacos. So in order to kick off America's birthday, I decided to make an american flag tray of tacos! Mhmmm...

What you will need:
Crispy taco shells

 Soft tortillas

 Meat of choice- I used the pulled pork in the soft tortillas and pulled chicken breast in the crunchy tacos to add different flavors

 Any toppings you may like- especially white and red toppings

 Black or blue toppings (there were no blue toppings I wanted on my tacos, so I stuck with black beans)

Onions, if you like

Tada! American flag tacos!
The red stripes are crunchy tacos with pulled chicken breast and pico de gallo...

The white stripes are pulled pork on soft tacos with monterrey cheese and onions...

 And the "blue" corner is a mixture of crunchy and soft tacos with either pulled pork or chicken, black beans, onions, and cheese for the stars!

 And after about 45 minutes, this is all that was left! I hope you all had a fun and safe Fourth of July!