Three Year Blogiversary

Three years. It seems so crazy that I've been blogging since December 29, 2007 (check out my first post!). With 2011 fast approaching, I want to thank all of my readers who have been with me the past days, weeks, months, and years. I cannot even describe the joy it brings me to receive comments from each of you, to read and comment on your blogs, and to make the connections - friendships - with you.

I've met so many amazing people and had so many amazing experiences as a result of this blog. Thank you all so very much!! To commemorate the milestone, I am hosting a giveaway!

One lucky reader will win a Stila set that includes:

• 1 oz Illuminating Tinted Moisturizer in Shade 01 (supposed to be for light complexions; however, I own this and it's pretty much just translucent moisturizer - should be suitable for most)
• 0.02 oz One Step PrimeColor in Per Suede (dusty rose)
• 0.08 oz Lip Glaze in Mayberry (rose with shimmer)
• 0.09 oz Eye Shadow Trio in Anya (soft peach shimmer/ soft brown/ deep purple shimmer)

To enter, become a follower, become a Facebook fan, become a Twitter follower, and/or tweet about this giveaway including @jointhegossip.

You can do any one of these, or all of them. The more you do, the more entries. Just be sure to let me know how you are entering in your comment(s).

The winner will be selected Wednesday, January 19 @ 9am PST. Good luck!

Photo courtesy of: Wonderful Worte World via Sephora

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, friends! I hope your day is filled with lots of love, joy, and peace...well as much peace as possible at a family gathering ;)

While there are never white Christmases in LA, I'll be daydreaming of one. How are you celebrating?

Photo courtesy of: aarthiraghavan.com

Pink Friday

Let's talk about something that completely surprised me - Nicki Minaj and her debut album "Pink Friday." I am loving it and her! Totally not my style either. I'll listen to pop stations, and rap comes on occasionally, but it's definitely not my genre of choice. This album is literally THE first rap album I have ever bought.

Nicki is so strange, yet so entertaining. She's constantly making faces and singing/rapping in crazy voices, but it totally works for her. I listen to Pink Friday on repeat over and over and it pumps me up every time. I highly recommend it.

Here's a little taste of "Check it Out" featuring will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas:

Does anyone else have this album? Or an opinion about Nicki Minaj?

Photos courtesy of: Amazon and MinajPhotos.com

I'm Only Happy When it Rains

And yes, I sing that Garbage song over and over when it rains!

It's been pouring for several days in LA. While everyone else is hating it, I'm loving it! We don't get rain enough and despite the fact that Angelinos can NOT drive in wet weather, I enjoy splashing around in the puddles and taking in the extra green scenery.

Instead of hiding under the covers all weekend (I only did that all day on Saturday ;) I hung out with friends, kicking the weekend off with dinner at Tart. The restaurant is a small but classy establishment located across the street from the famous LA Farmers Market and The Grove.

Although a bit on the pricey side, the food was delish! We all split an order of fried green tomatoes - yum! I followed up with the truffle mac & cheese and Partridge Pear (pear liqueur and champagne), while my friends got the cheese pizza and the BBQ chicken salad.

Of course we had to get dessert so we ordered a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie smothered in vanilla ice cream (think BJ's pizzookie).

Sunday I headed back to the same neighborhood to meet up with a friend at The Grove for lunch at Maggiano's where I ordered gnnochi. To my amazement, they had a special where when you ordered certain dishes you could get another order, for free, to go! Score. Now I have eggplant parmesan waiting in my fridge for dinner tomorrow. I'll be going back for sure.

After the tasty lunch we caught a screening of "How Do You Know", the Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, Jack Nicholson film. It was different than I thought it would be but it was pretty good. I could have waited to rent it because it didn't blow me away, but I don't feel that I wasted money seeing it at the theater. If you're in the mood to catch a romantic comedy, I say go for it.

Puppy Love!

In addition to being MIA due to my Dominican Republic trip, I have another reason that I haven't been posting regularly. I got a puppy! First let me say I love the little thing, but geeze! I feel like a single mother. This little girl is hard to take care of!

A few months back a friend of my brother had a pit bull that got pregnant...by a basset hound. No joke. Let's just say this guy is a moron. I've never met him but I hate him. They didn't want the puppies in the house because they cried too much. Well yeah, duh! They are babies. Babies cry! The solution was to keep the pups outside (at the time it was raining). These poor things were only weeks old. Being huge animal lovers, my amazing parents took in all four puppies at six weeks old, in addition to our own two dogs.

After a lot of pooping all over, long sleepless nights, and a few vet trips, they managed to find homes for all of the little cuties - one of which was me!

Not gonna lie, it's lonely living alone and I really miss having my own dog. I've been wanting one but was afraid of the commitment. However, since this little girl just kinda fell into my lap, I went with it.

Meet Coco!

Female dogs can be very protective so I am looking forward to taking her on hikes and not being afraid of LA weirdos. I'll feel safe with her.

I am hoping she doesn't get too big since I'm used to lap dogs. I'm thinking the basset hound in her will keep her pretty short and thick. This chubbers is only three months old (today actually) and already weighs 13 pounds!

She goes to the bathroom on the carpet, bites the heck out of me, and eats everything. But I am already so attached! Can't wait to watch her grow.

Punta Cana

I'm back, friends! My trip to the Dominican Republic provided just the downtime I needed. No more headaches!! It was pure relaxation. I guess the warm sun, turquoise water, white sand, and fruity blended cocktails will do that to you ;)

A quick recap: getting to the Dominican Republic from California is a pain! There are no direct flights so we laid over in Miami for five hours. Not many flights go down to the Caribbean island so the best travel plan we could do was leaving LAX at 10:30pm (traveling on the same plane as Patrick Dempsey), arriving in Miami at 6am, boarding a plane to Punta Cana at 11:30am, and arriving at 3:30pm. Whew, were we tired and hungry when we got to our resort. The four hour time change took a bit to get used to as well (Waking up at 8am local time was like waking up at 4am LA time.).

Unfortunately when we arrived at out hotel, they put the three of us in a two person room...looking at a fence. Not cool. The next room wasn't much better better as far as sleeping arrangements but it had an ocean view. We were all really disappointed with the resort. It's supposed to be the second best in Punta Cana but we weren't fans. Maybe it's because we had such a great stay at the Iberostar in Riviera Maya a few years back. I highly recommend that resort!

Our resort at dusk

So many palm trees!

Shops right on the sand

I think the fact that there were only like 15% Americans at the resort was hard, too. I know it's a culture thing but it's difficult to get used to ladies with no tops on...especially the really old and really large ones. You could tell we were American because our culture is WAY more modest. We wore cover ups and my dad had shorts on that went past his knees lol. I knew that the banana hammock thing was inevitable, but I even saw some dude take his tiny suit off! so.not.cool.

For the eight days and seven nights we had the same routine - we ate A LOT, drank A LOT, and hung out at the beach A LOT. I've only stayed at all-inclusive resorts and I wouldn't have it any other way. Our biggest worry all week was having to adjust our lounge chairs to point in the direction of the moving sun throughout the day.

Sunset in paradise

Warm, inviting water

So peaceful

Many of the pictures are on my dad's camera so I'll do a follow up post with more pictures, including our dune buggy excursion.