Another month, another recap! Here’s what I did in January 2017…

On New Years’ Day, I went for a very cold sunset walk at Red River Beach on Cape Cod with my parents and their adorable Bichon, Missy. My parents kindly let me play paparazzi with my camera. The light was beautiful.

Isn’t she the cutest?

I love this image as a metaphor for New Years Day — one year in, another year out.

Back in Connecticut, I baked eggplant and cooked homemade butternut squash. Went out to our favorite Greek diner and got the stuffed scallops with sweet potato fries. And dined at a new-to-me restaurant (Maison Mathis at Yale) in New Haven with my sister.

Enjoyed leftover Christmas cookies and coffee in this new mug from Target, and snuggled often with Missy.

Had a great night with the Shefts! Bruce even brought over his postcard collection, a bunch of which I’ve sent their family over the past few years of travel.

Long shadows in late afternoon:

My sister and I took a quick trip to Massachusetts to visit our cousins Liz, Lauren, and Lauren’s husband Beau (Jay and Bill, we missed you!). It was so great to hang out with them. Here we are at Roadhouse Cafe:

After talking about Portuguese egg tarts (pasteis de nata), Beau ran out to get us some. These are so tasty and bring back fond memories of my trip to Portugal the year before last.

Growing up, we loved to play games every time our families got together (namely, Payday and Murder in the Dark). We reminisced over a game of Trouble!

I went into NYC to see a few shows, which I’ve written about here. Walked through Central Park at dusk and admired the skyline. Right after I snapped this photo, I met up with my friends (now newlyweds!) Sarah and Ben for a delightful dinner.

Dinner another night at Grey Dog while editing photos between shows:

More snaps from NYC… also, the cast album for Dear Evan Hansen is now finally available — I’ve been listening to it non-stop. Do yourself a favor and see this show if you are near New York!

By mid-month, I flew to LA. It was so uplifting to participate in the Women’s March downtown.

So glad to reunite with my friends! Got a ramen dinner at Jinya with Jenny & Ziggy:

I meant to grab a photo the night a group of us saw Amelie with (that show moves to Broadway next month) — a bunch of us bought tickets for the same performance without consulting each other! What a happy accident. We got dinner at a Vietnamese place in Echo Park afterwards.

My friends Bryan and Eva celebrate their birthdays one day apart, and we met for lunch on their birthday weekend! So good to catch up and eat delicious Mediterranean food at Dune in Atwater Village.

Speaking of delicious Mediterranean food, I went to Spitz (my new favorite spot) with Adam & Sabrina. We did our best to make it through a pitcher of sangria.

My friend Kelley and I binged on Stranger Things — can’t believe it took me so long to finally watch this show! We loved it.

Brunch at Steampunk in Valley Village with Naz, Laura, Yaz, and Michael — so good to see everyone. Naz and her mom are currently volunteering in Chios, Greece with the same group I worked with last October! Another friend, Jen, is also there — I met her in Tanzania through a co-worker. I am so proud to know people going over to support the refugee crisis.

Walking through Burbank on a sunny weekend:

Sunset in Toluca Lake:

Rainbow in my neighborhood following a few days of rainstorms:

I spent the latter half of January working on The NHL 100 — a 90-minute live show that honored the best players by decade over the past 100 years, hosted by Jon Hamm. Here is the scenic courtyard of the building we worked out of in Santa Monica:

Here are some photos from show night at the Microsoft Theater in downtown LA (thanks to Julie for taking the script team photo!):

John Legend rehearses:

Backstage at pre-read, where presenters (Michael J. Fox, Keanu Reeves, Alyssa Milano, Alex Trebek, Al Michaels) rehearsed their segments before going out on-stage:

We had several broadcast partners showing the feed in Canada and beyond — here’s one of them interviewing Alex Trebek backstage:

Signing wall:

The whole LA Live area was in full NHL mode:

Our script team — Adam, Marissa, and me:

We worked out of an office near Sawtelle Blvd., which is a hot spot for dining and restaurants — of course I took full advantage. I got bananas foster bread pudding at B Sweet… and a delicious flatbread at The Butcher’s Dog.

I got ramen… twice… at Tsujita, and then got shaved ice cream at Blockheads. Also sushi at Sushi Stop.

And there are great coffee options in that area — my favorite was Balconi Coffee Company, which has an Almond Essence Latte special right now. I also tried Coffee Tomo. I read two books while working on this project: You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein, and The Handmaiden’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. They couldn’t be more different and I highly recommend them both.

A closer look of our lunch at Dune in Atwater Village — I got the falafel pita, but the fried chicken pita looked SO good.

Brunch at Steampunk — I got my favorite, The Stack (fried chicken and waffles with kale; I substituted the egg for avocado).

My friend Casey runs the website Modern Hiker — the premiere hiking resource for Southern California — and he wrote a book about day hiking in Los Angeles! He hosted a discussion at The Last Bookstore in downtown LA that was highly informative and well-attended. It was great to see him in his element, speaking so eloquently on hiking and outdoor conservation.

Here’s Casey and his partner Daniel — I am so proud to know both of them!

If you haven’t been to the Last bookstore, it’s a real treat — you can spend hours exploring there. I brought my camera to do just that.

To the family and friends in this post, I am so glad I got to see you last month!