Hello from yet another plane! This month has been so crazy with travel but I feel so lucky to have been getting such cool opportunities. As you guys probably already saw over on my Instagram and Twitter, I was out in San Francisco this week with Stitch Fix, LUNA, and a bunch of my fitness blogger buddies!
I’ve been getting Stitch Fix on a monthly basis now for the past year and it’s basically the best thing ever. In case you haven’t heard of it yet, Stitch Fix (<—affiliate link) is an online personal styling service. When you first sign up with them, you fill out a style profile answering questions about your style, sizing, shape, price preferences, etc., including selecting how much you like certain pictured outfits. I love this because while I’m not really able to define a specific style in words, I can certainly select what I like and don’t like from pictures!
Once you finish the style profile, you schedule your first “fix”, which is a box of 5 clothing and accessory items that have been hand picked for you based on your style profile. What you get is a surprise and no one box is alike – cool, right? When you get the box, you try everything on, keep what you like, and send back the rest. You’re charged a $20 styling fee up front, but that goes as credit towards whatever you keep.
You can read my full review of the process and the first box I received here if you’re interested: Stitch Fix review.
As for the trip, I was excited to see some fun fitness adventures on the agenda! On Wednesday morning, we were treated to an outdoor yoga class taught by a woman named Sadie who is the resident yogi at Clif Bar (which owns LUNA).
It felt amazing after so much time on airplanes (and doing ALL the running) lately!
Next up on our adventure was a visit to Stitch Fix headquarters to check out some of their latest and greatest items! Loved the color of this purse.
Isn’t this a cute way to display necklaces? Might need to copy this at home!
You can see a few of my other favorite of the new Stitch Fix items over on my “Stitch Fix wish list” Pinterest board! I was especially loving some of their summery (but still nice enough for work/meeting clients) dresses. For those of you that use Pinterest, apparently starting a style board or wish list board is a good idea for two reasons: 1) you can pin specific Stitch Fix outfits that you see others wearing and you want to see in your next box, and 2) your stylist can check out the board to generally get a better idea of your style/better customize your box. Sweet! I just created the board this morning and am hoping to see some of the items I loved in person show up in my next fix!
We enjoyed a wonderful picnic lunch outdoors with the Stitch Fix & LUNA crew after our fashionable morning. They picked up an assortment of goodies for us at a place called Heyday, which I loved.
I ended up going for some of the kale salad, a slice of potato/bacon quiche, and a big serving of their quinoa and chickpea curried salad, which was amazing. I love lunches like this with lots of flavor and variety – and lots of veggies! I went back for seconds on the kale. 🙂
I’m going to try to recreate that chickpea salad recipe for you guys at home – stay tuned!
Our afternoon adventure on Wednesday was a fitness-themed scavenger hunt! I loved this since it was a fun way to get to see more of the city.
My teammates Sarah, Danny, and I had a blast. My two favorite photos from the adventure are on my Instagram – this one of our yoga skills and this one of our fun partner plank!
We ended our adventure with a lovely view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
On Wednesday evening, our crew was treated to a special cooking class at Sur la Table!
Iron chefs, clearly. (With Monica, Julie, and Gina – sweet photo bomb courtesy of Sarah.)
Proven fact: cooking is better when wine is involved (either in the food or in your mouth, you decide). Did you know that Clif has a family winery? I really loved their reds!
Our fearless chef Stefan led us all in cooking some fabulous and healthy dishes: a kale salad with pickled watermelon (!) and feta, grilled citrus chicken skewers, quinoa, and a corn, avocado, and lime salad. Everything was really, really good. I especially loved the pickled watermelon! He gave us the recipes to share if you’re interested, so just let me know and I can post them!
For dessert we made a flourless chocolate lava cake. Clearly took a bite before remembering the photo! I’m not a huge chocolate person but even I had to admit that this was insanely good.
Fueled by chocolate cake, Monica and I were up bright and early on Thursday morning to meet my grad school BFF Elle and her friend Erin (who live in San Francisco) for a run!
Elle and Erin are currently training for the San Francisco Marathon (their first!) and had 14 miles on the docket. We were out the door at 5:30 a.m. to meet up with them about a mile from where we were staying, then continued on together, chatting away and enjoying the views! So glad I was able to squeeze in a little time with this beautiful lady. <3 I miss her and the rest of our Chapel Hill grad school girls!
Monica and I ran with them to the ferry building and then along the water. So pretty, even though it was really foggy/cloudy!
We ended up making it 7.3 miles before the girls turned around and Monica and I hopped in an Uber back to our place. Awesome way to start the day! (Pic of Monica’s watch since I forgot to start mine!)
Next up on our adventures was a trip to the Stitch Fix warehouses, where we got to see firsthand what goes into packing a box – aka a “fix” – for someone.
We even got to pack a box for someone ourselves – fun!
When I started folding up the clothes for my person’s box, I discovered they were getting the shirt I was wearing! Too funny. Hope she likes it, too! 🙂
My box was for someone named Andrea – I hope she loves it and is also impressed by my totally stellar folding job. 😉
Later in the day, we were in for a very special treat: professional makeup and a visit to DryBar! Have you guys ever been there? I hadn’t before and it was amazing! Everyone else went beachy/curly but since that’s how my hair is normally I decided to go straight and sleek. I love how they styled it!
After our hair and makeup, we got to raid the sample closet at Stitch Fix and do a little photoshoot. These were my favorites of the outfits I tried – pinning this photo and hoping that all three of the outfits end up in my future fixes! I loved them!
The grand finale of the trip was dinner out at a place called Central Kitchen.
This restaurant was wonderful – fresh and creative, with a big focus on local and seasonal food. Highly recommend it if you’re looking for a place to eat in San Francisco! The ambiance was cool, too – they had us set up in the little shop attached to the restaurant so we could all be at one huge table.
Thank you again to the fun ladies at Stitch Fix and LUNA for hosting us on such an amazing trip, and to my fellow bloggers Julie, Gina, Monica, Brittany, Bex, Sarah, Nicole, and Danny for being awesome! Loved spending the past couple days with you guys. 🙂
And now, it’s back to work! Thank goodness for wi-fi on planes nowadays. So nice to be able to get in nearly a full work day on cross country flights!
For those of you joining in on the Summer Shape Up, I’ll have the first week’s meal plan and grocery list up shortly! Click here to see the main landing page – it’s still a work in progress for now, but that’s where I’ll link to the meal plan when it’s up. And don’t forget to join the private Summer Shape Up Facebook group, too! 🙂
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend – when I land in DC Matt’s picking me up and we’re headed straight to Pennsylvania for my 10 year college reunion (has it really been that long?!?!) at Dickinson! I’m going to be so tired by Sunday but I can’t wait to see everyone. 🙂
