Living the OC Dream — My Orange County Life

Alexis BellinoPublished: April 9, 202616 min read

People assume Orange County is all perfectly tanned housewives sipping champagne by infinity pools. And sure, that happens. I've been that woman. But there's so much more going on here than what you see on Bravo. The OC I live in is carpool lanes at 7:15am, parking lot arguments at Trader Joe's, and sunsets so beautiful they make you forget you just sat in traffic for forty-five minutes.

I've lived here for over fifteen years. Long enough to know which freeways to avoid on Friday afternoons (all of them) and which taco stands are worth driving twenty minutes out of your way for (Taco Mesa in Costa Mesa, no debate). This section of my site is about all of it — the glamorous parts and the messy parts and everything in between.

Why I Chose Orange County

I didn't grow up here. I'm from Missouri, which is about as far from the California coast as you can get without falling into another ocean. When I first drove down PCH — Pacific Coast Highway for the uninitiated — I actually pulled over and cried. Not a dramatic cry. Just a quiet, overwhelmed kind of tears. The ocean was right there. Just sitting there being magnificent like it was no big deal.

In Missouri, the biggest body of water I'd seen was Lake of the Ozarks, which is beautiful in its own way but doesn't exactly prepare you for the Pacific Ocean stretching to the horizon. I remember calling my mom and saying, "I think I'm going to stay." She said, "How long?" I said, "Maybe forever." She laughed. But I wasn't joking.

What sealed it was the weather. Not the sunshine everyone talks about — although yes, 280 sunny days a year is insane and I still appreciate it. It was the evenings. That specific temperature drop around 6pm when the sun starts going down and the air goes from warm to cool in about fifteen minutes. You throw on a light jacket and walk outside and the whole world smells like jasmine and salt air. That's when I knew.

Morning Routine: Coffee, Kids, Chaos

My alarm goes off at 5:45am. I don't want to talk about how early that is. I just need you to know it happens. The first thing I do is make coffee. Not fancy coffee. Not pour-over or cold brew or whatever the current trend is. A Nespresso pod. Vertuo line. Intenso flavor. I've tried being a coffee snob and I can't do it at 5:45 in the morning. My taste buds aren't even awake yet.

By 6:15, the kids' alarms start going off. This is where the real action begins. Three children, three different morning speeds. My oldest is up and dressed in twelve minutes like a military operation. My middle child needs to be reminded that shoes exist and are required for school. My youngest operates on what I call "dream time" — she moves through the morning as if gravity is optional and clocks are a suggestion.

We're out the door by 7:10. Usually. Sometimes 7:15. Once it was 7:38 and we don't talk about that day. The drive to school takes either eight minutes or twenty-two minutes depending entirely on whether someone is making a left turn onto Jamboree Road. If you live in OC, you know exactly what I mean.

My Favorite Neighborhoods

Corona del Mar. This is where I'd live if money were no object and I didn't care about school districts. The village feels like a small town that accidentally ended up next to a major metropolitan area. There's a flower stand on PCH that puts together bouquets for $12 that look like they should cost $60. The Quiet Woman restaurant has been there since 1968 and the bartender remembers your drink order after two visits. I love it here.

Laguna Beach. Look, I know it's touristy. I know parking costs more than a meal at most restaurants. But walk past the Main Beach crowds and head south toward Victoria Beach. There's a trail that drops down to a stretch of sand that feels completely private. At low tide, you can see the tower — this medieval-looking turret thing built into the cliff that everyone calls the Pirate Tower. My kids are obsessed with it. So am I.

Old Town Orange. This is the OC that nobody expects. A genuine downtown circle with antique shops, a used bookstore that smells exactly the way a used bookstore should smell, and a Cuban restaurant called Havana that serves the best black beans I've had outside of actual Cuba. It's the opposite of the manicured, planned-community OC that most people picture. And that's exactly why I love it.

Dana Point. The harbor is peaceful in a way that most of Orange County isn't. It's slower. Quieter. You can sit at the Coffee Importers patio for two hours and nobody rushes you. The whale watching boats go out every morning and come back with stories that make landlocked people jealous. My favorite thing to do here is absolutely nothing. Just sit and watch the boats.

Weekend Rituals We Never Skip

Saturday morning is farmer's market morning. Period. Non-negotiable. We go to the one in Irvine — the Great Park market — because it's huge, there's parking, and the strawberry lady (I don't know her actual name, everyone just calls her the strawberry lady) has berries so sweet they taste like candy. My kids eat a full pint on the walk back to the car. Every single time.

Sunday is beach day. Even in January. Even when it's 60 degrees and the kids complain that it's "freezing." Sixty degrees is not freezing. I grew up in Missouri. I know what freezing feels like. Sixty degrees in January on a California beach is a gift. We bring blankets, hot chocolate in a thermos, and usually a football that nobody actually throws but everyone argues about who gets to hold it.

Sunday evenings are for meal prep. I know that sounds boring. But here's the thing about being a single mom with three kids and a business: if I don't prep lunches on Sunday night, Monday morning becomes a disaster. I chop vegetables, portion out snacks, and make one big batch of something that works for both lunches and dinners — usually a chicken tortilla soup or a pasta bake. My kitchen looks like a war zone by 8pm. By 8:30, the fridge is stocked for the week. Worth it.

The Food Scene Nobody Talks About

Everyone knows about the fancy OC restaurants. Nobu in Newport. Maestro's in Costa Mesa. But the places I actually eat at regularly? They're a lot less photogenic and a lot more delicious.

Taco Mesa in Costa Mesa. Cash only. Loud. Crowded. The best fish tacos I've ever had anywhere. Not the best fish tacos in OC. The best fish tacos anywhere. $3.75 each. I get three, plus a horchata, and I'm done. My total is under $15 and I'm happier than I've ever been at a $200 dinner.

Zinc Cafe in Laguna Beach. The avocado toast is $16, which sounds ridiculous until you eat it. Thick sourdough, perfectly ripe avocado, this herb oil drizzle that I've tried to replicate at home at least seven times and failed every time. The courtyard seating is pet-friendly, which means I'm eating surrounded by at least four golden retrievers. This is not a complaint.

The Beachcomber at Crystal Cove. You have to park at the top of the bluff and walk down a steep path to get here. Half the people give up before they reach the bottom. Their loss. The fish and chips are simple and perfect. The view is absurd. You're literally eating on the sand. Reservations recommended unless you want to wait 90 minutes, which honestly, on a nice day, I've done willingly.

Hidden Gems Only Locals Know

There's a bookstore in San Clemente called Sandcastle Tales that has a reading nook with beanbags and a view of the ocean through a tiny window. My daughter and I spent an entire rainy Saturday there once. She read half a Rick Riordan book. I read all of a Colleen Hoover. We split a bag of kettle corn from the shop next door. It cost $4.50. It was the best date I've had in years.

The Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona del Mar charges $5 admission and most people don't even know it exists. It's a botanical garden the size of a city block, with a tea room that serves scones and clotted cream like we're in the English countryside instead of Southern California. I go there when I need to feel calm. Which is more often than I'd like to admit.

If you drive up Laguna Canyon Road toward the 73 tollway, there's a trailhead on the left side about two miles in. No sign. No parking lot. Just a dirt pulloff. The trail goes up a hill and at the top you can see the ocean on one side and the canyon on the other. It's a 25-minute hike and I've never seen more than three other people there. It's my secret spot. Well, it was. Sorry.

The Reality of Living in "The OC"

It's not all sunsets and farmers' markets. The cost of living here is genuinely painful. Gas is over $5.50 a gallon. A decent two-bedroom apartment starts around $2,800 a month. Buying a house? Don't look at the numbers unless you're sitting down and emotionally prepared.

The traffic is real. The 405 freeway at 5pm on a weekday is where hope goes to die. I once sat in traffic so long that I finished an entire podcast, called my mother, applied hand cream, reorganized my purse, and ate a granola bar. I moved approximately 3 miles in that time.

And the social pressure is real too. There's an unspoken competition in certain OC circles about who has the nicest car, the biggest house, the most exotic vacation. I got caught up in it for a while. The show amplified it. Took me a few years to realize that the happiest people I know here are the ones who stopped playing that game. The ones eating fish tacos at Taco Mesa in flip-flops instead of $200 dinners in heels.

But despite all of that — the cost, the traffic, the pressure — I wouldn't live anywhere else. Because every evening, right around 6pm, that temperature drops and the jasmine kicks in and the sky turns colors that don't have names. And I think, yeah. Missouri was lovely. But this is home.

For more about my daily routines and what I'm wearing while I run around OC, check out the Fashion section. And if you want to know the person behind the sunsets and the taco recommendations, there's an About page that tells the whole story.

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