I had the amazing experience of driving the 2014 Kia Optima for a week as a press loan and I enjoyed every minute with it. The car was dropped off at my house on Mark's birthday which was an added bonus.

When Mark got home from work we headed downtown for his birthday. We went to dinner at ViVa Bar + Kitchen, stopped by Lucky Bastards for a game of pool and then headed to the San Diego Rep theater to watch Detroit. We both felt really blessed to be able to go out and enjoy such a nice evening away in luxury.

2014 Kia Optima

The optima has this super fun thing called Turbo - I don't know exactly what that means technically (Mark could tell you all about it) but I do know that it makes the car go FAST. Let's just say we were not late for our dinner reservations.

Not only was this Mark's birthday week, but it was also the week where I had 2 conferences and I had to drive to LA twice in one week. I couldn't have received this car at a better time. It was so nice to drive around a fuel efficient vehicle. My car (2001 explorer) is a total gas hog. I only used a tank and a half of gas in the Optima the week I drove it. That included 2 trips to LA, 2 trips to USD, 2 trips to Poway, 1 trip to downtown and all my in neighborhood errands.

So Saturday, I hopped in the Optima and headed to Anaheim to go to the Natural Products Expo West. I really want to work more with awesome brands so I thought Expo West would be a great place to meet people - it was. I could not believe it. I met a bunch of awesome people and made amazing connections. I can't wait to tell you more about it later.

It was really nice to get familiar with the car all on my own. I pulled over on the way home to get a photo of the sunset and take a little breather.

The Kia Optima has so many awesome features. I loved the navigation system. I typically use my phone to navigate and never realized how much easier it was to have it on a big screen. I could easily glance at the screen and didn't have to fumble with my phone. The car was loaded with Sirius XM radio and an Infinity speaker system. Much needed for my road trips to LA.

The other feature that I absolutely loved was the side mirror warning light. Whenever I would put my blinker on and there was a car in my blind spot the little warning lights in the side mirrors would flash and a ding noise would interrupt the music. This was amazing! I wish every car had this feature. The warnings were really helpful when trying to navigate in a place I wasn't familiar with.

Tuesday I headed back to LA in the Optima for a video shoot. Did I just say video shoot? Ok I was a little caught off guard when I was asked to go to the Lunchbox studio to record a video. I have been blind testing out a few hair care products and they wanted to film my reaction when I found out what the products were. This was such a nerve-wracking but incredibly fun opportunity. After my nerves settled, I headed back home and sat in some lovely LA traffic.

It's a good thing the Optima is a comfortable ride. It took about 3 hours to get home on a Tuesday evening. I didn't even realize there were 2 skylights in the Optima till Mark pointed them out on our first ride. I had to open up the top for part of my drive home.

Wednesday and Thursday went back to my regular schedule of watching my kiddo and working at home. My mother-in-law came over to help out for a few days so I could go to the San Diego AIGA Y-Conference on Friday and Saturday. The conference was held at the beautiful USD campus.

The Y-Conference is all about graphic design. I heard from speakers from all around. The best part is hearing how other people in the industry work. It is really nice to get a peak into peoples lives to see how they make everything work.

Then Sunday fun day came around and my girl and I headed to Poway to visit with family. I also took a break away to go check out the new CoreBody Pilates Plus grand opening.

I didn't think I would end up putting the car seat in the Optima because I had so many things going on this week without my kiddo. When I went to LA I ended up dropping her off at my parents house on the way up. She loved it.

She said "let's go in the fast car" when we would run an errand. The carseat fit really well with the latches built into the car and was easy to put in and remove.

I don't have a car charger for my phone so when I saw the USB outlet right in the dash I about freaked out. I don't know why that was so exciting but it really was. It was so nice to be able to charge my phone in the car. When I was on a break at the conference and driving home from LA I plugged my regular phone charger right into the car to charge. No special cords needed! I also loved that the car just starts and stops with a button. It felt so futuristic like I was starting a spaceship or something awesome.

Obviously, I really enjoyed driving the 2014 Kia Optima around for a week. I had such an awesome week as it was with all of the fun things going on, but jumping into the Optima everyday to go home made it that much sweeter.

Have you drove the 2014 Kia Optima? What did you think?

I received the Kia Optima as a press loan for one week as editorial consideration. All opinions are my own.