Hi there! I’m back from Los Angeles and wanted to share some cool things from my trip.

me and the hubs at the Universal Studios globe

While I was visiting Universal Studio LA (for the first time ever), we were lucky enough to catch a taping of Extra TV. Mario Lopez and Maria Menounos are SO good looking in person!

Ahh Mario Lopez, only gets better looking with time

It was so cool seeing them in person. Mario Lopez is so handsome and Maria Menounos was stunning! While watching them get their makeup touched up in between takes, look what I spotted –

ahh the star treatment – yes, that is a heater you see on the bottom right lol

Isn’t that  a MAC nocturnals lip glass he’s using? While I’m not sure which one it is exactly, it’s definitely one of the lighter ones from the sets. I was just so excited to spot the makeup artist using a product I could semi-identify, that I wanted to share 🙂

MAC nocturnals sets

In case you did happen to catch last Wednesday’s episode, we made a teeny tiny little appearance in the bottom left corner of the screen!

while my face got covered, there’s a clear view of my husband’s!

Among the many things I love about Southern California is that they have Nordstrom Rack! They finally opened one in NJ, but they are everywhere in SoCal. You can score some really great deals on high-end items, so we couldn’t resist stopping in. You know the beauty department was my first stop. Check out these great Nars finds!

Multiple, lipgloss and mini face primer

The set includes a full size multiple stick in Copacabana and lipgloss in Dolce Vita. How much those cost individually – multiple $39 gloss $25. How much was this set at Nordstrom Rack? Only $39!

mirrored palette with 4 shadows plus bronzer & blush

mirrored palette with 4 shadows and 2 blushes

While I couldn’t recall specific info on the palettes, a similar palette with different colors is at Sephora for $65. How much were these selling for? Again, only $39. Though they’d make great gifts, you can see the packaging wasn’t pristine on these – so they may be best to buy for yourself. I certainly didn’t need to add any of these into my makeup collection, so unfortunately I passed on these.

The last photo I’ll share is to show you why we were in Cali in the first place – my niece’s 10th birthday!

haha look at my younger niece wanting to blow out those candles so badly!

Though it was a bit colder than we anticipated, we had a blast eating at cool new restaurants and doing touristy things like Universal & Palm Springs, as well as just resting and relaxing doing nothing on our much needed vaca. As much as I love traveling, I also love coming back home. Over the next few days I’m excited to share some new posts I’ve been working on 🙂