Hello! I hope your 2017 is off to a great start because out with the old and in with the new, am I right?!

I spent the very end of 2016 and the very start of 2017 in my hometown of Houston, Texas, or as we like to say, in H-town! I did SO much while I was home with both family and friends and I enjoyed every second of it.

In Houston, there is a famous graffiti wall in East Downtown where everyone goes to take cool pictures, so as a Houstonian, I had to go and take the iconic picture in front of the Houston art wall with all sorts of different poses. And of course, I was still representing LA and USC (peep the Dodgers shirt and the Fight On)! You can check out my iconic Houston pose on my Instagram!

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I did all sorts of cool things like have a Gutierrez Girls Night where all the Gutierrez girls, including my mom, aunt, cousins, sister, and myself, went out on a movie night to watch Sing. It was the cutest movie ever and I totally recommend everyone to go watch it! It has great ratings and it’s by the creators of Minions and Pets. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t like Minions?! And of course while we were there, we had to do what all women do when they go to the movie theatre: we took a mirror selfie.

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With my friends, I went to the Galleria which is the largest shopping center in Houston with all sorts of different stores. For Christmas, they set up this gigantic Christmas tree that’s like 4 stories high! I also went bowling with some old friends that I had not seen in a while, so it was wonderful to simultaneously catch up and kick their butt at bowling!

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While I had a wonderful, wonderful time in Houston with friends and family, I was extremely excited to come back to LA on the 6th of January because that day was my boyfriend’s birthday and I was ready to spoil him! I took him to the Perch, a French restaurant in Downtown Los Angeles with an amazing view of the skyline. The restaurant is on the 15th and 16th floor so Downtown LA looked beautiful. I highly recommend the Perch to anyone who is looking to find delicious French food. Their menu has nothing but appetizing choices, so you can’t go wrong!

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I also took him to the Los Angeles Zoo Lights, where after closing hours they have the entire zoo decorated in lights of all shapes and sizes! They had beautiful light shows with water and the only animals that were actually awake were the reptiles. They had screens set up with colorful lights in the back to cast shadows so we had to take a picture!img_0407

To finish his birthday weekend off, I bought us tickets to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, which is a huge ship (think the Titanic) with cool winter wonderland themes, like Alice in Winterland, which is an interactive maze with all things Alice in Winterland! At the end of the maze, you entered into the Ice Queen’s palace where we took a picture. We also went ice gliding, which is where you slide down an ice slide on a big donut. There were plenty of activities to do like ice skating and different carnival rides. Definitely a sight to check out!

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