California Dreamin'

I'm back, not happy about being back but back none the less! :) We had an amazing weekend - couldn't have asked for a better time or better weather. Just sad that it's already over with. At least we have another trip to look forward to on Memorial Day weekend - going up to Pennsylvania to meet my family and show Austin where my parents grew up, and I spent many summers. We leave in 7 weeks and two days, not that I'm counting or anything! Haha! Here's the weekend recap:

Friday:
Friday morning, I got up and packed (I'm a packing procrastinator, but I do SO MUCH better when I wait until the last minute because it forces me to decide on what to bring quickly rather than thinking about it forever and overpacking). We took the dog to the pet hotel, dropped the car off at the Parking Spot, and were on our way. We decided to get some coffee in the airport to wake up, and we found a yummy spot that used Ghiardelli's syrups! Of course, we are sitting there about 10 minutes before we are to board our plane, and I have a random hand spasm and spill what's left of my coffee all over my lap. Luckily I also had a magazine in my lap so that took the brunt of the spill, but I had nice BROWN (I had gotten a mocha) stains on both of my legs. Lovely. I ran to the bathroom and scrubbed them the best I could (I was wearing khakis of course), and of course there were only paper towels, no air dryers. The one time I could actually use an air dryer!!!! So I walked back out to join Austin with two wet spots now on the front of my pants - nice and embarrassing. I held the magazines in front of me and boarded the plane and luckily during the first flight, my pants dried and I had gotten out most of the stains so you couldn't even tell - hurray! We flew from Dallas to Salt Lake City and then from Salt Lake City into Orange County airport. It took a long time but considering we used frequent flier miles and paid $10 for both of our roundtrip flights, I can't really complain. We got to Orange County around 2 pm their time, grabbed our rental car (a burnt orange Pontiac Sunfire - such an ugly color but a decent car for the price), and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway. We saw Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, and finally got to Manhattan Beach. We checked into our hotel which was really pretty, and we had a beautiful balcony and view of the golf course at the hotel. We then went to expore downtown Manhattan Beach was a quaint little coastal town. Very well-to-do of course! The houses were amazing and in the three million dollar range+ but it was really cool to see the beach and everything. We grabbed some dinner in a local sports bar/restaurant because we were tired and didn't feel like waiting anywhere else for a table. It was yummy! We headed back and went to sleep!

Saturday:
We woke up at 5 am California time. Yes that's right!!! Austin and I never really sleep in much on the weekends because we both get up relatively early during the week so that was normal for us (7 am our time). We lounged around the hotel room for a bit, and then decided to try to find a good place for breakfast. We drove and walked around on the pier and took some pictures first. We found a cute little place in Manhattan Beach and had great omelets and pancakes! Then we headed up to Venice Beach. We walked around there FOREVER! I saw some of the weirdest people I've ever seen in my life, but it was also really cool to see Muscle Beach and the basketball courts where they play pick-up games on the weekends. Lots of interesting things to look at, and we got A LOT of exercise walking up and down the beach. Then we went into Hollywood. We met my friend, Sean, for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, overlooking the Hollywood sign and at the edge of the Kodak Theater. Took some pictures, saw the Groman's Chinese Theater, took pictures of the foot/handprints in the sidewalk and the stars in the sidewalk. Jumped in the car and drove around a bit more in Hollywood, but it was pretty crowded and so touristy. But I just had to see it! We headed into Beverly Hills, walked down Rodeo Drive, and looked around. Jumped back in the car and headed back to the hotel where we went down the pool briefly and then headed to our dinner reservations. We made reservations at this place called Cafe Pierre. It was a California restaurant with French influences and it was SO GOOD. Since it was our anniversary (6 months married!), we went all out and enjoyed great food and had a great time. We headed back to the hotel that night and relaxed.

Sunday:
Slept in a little bit longer (also helped that we lost an hour because of Daylight Savings) and headed to the bagel shop for a quick breakfast. We walked down Manhattan Beach for awhile, thought we saw Austin's cousin but turned out it wasn't him, and then headed up the coast. We went to Santa Monica, walked around the famous pier, walked down the shopping area called the Third Street Promenade, and then headed up to Malibu. Drove around Malibu a lot but found no celebrities! ;) We headed up Sunset and saw all the cool comedy clubs and music clubs where bands play and start out. We had In N' Out Burger for lunch (yum!), and then drove into Beverly Hills again because I wanted to see the pink hotel (Beverly Hills Hotel) and see if I could find Brad Pitt. Haha! I drove into the hotel area to take some pictures and zoomed past the lobby part, drove up Rodeo one last time, and then headed back to the hotel. We went back to the pool for a bit, but it was cooler on Sunday so we couldn't take much. Got ready and went to this really cute cafe in Manhattan Beach and watched the sunset and ate outside. It was really nice. The funny thing is that we were bummed that we saw no celebrities the whole time (we saw some lady walking her babies in Beverly Hills and she had to have been a celebrity of some sort but we didn't know who - guess we'll see her picture in US Weekly next week and find out!). Well, we are sitting out at this cafe eating and this guy and his family walk up to the edge and it was J.D. Roth. I know him from watching the Endurance Challenge on Discovery Kids on NBC on Saturday mornings. He also is an executive producer for The Biggest Loser and For Love or Money, so that's kind of fun. They ate in the restaurant and as we were leaving, his kid kept banging on the window at me. It was funny! We watched TV in the room that night and got some sleep.

Monday:
We had to wake up at 5:45 am California time in order to get everything ready, and get to the airport in time for our first flight. We went by the bagel store again for one last look at the water, and then down the 405. There was a lot of traffic once we got close to the airport, but we hopped in the carpool lane and made it in perfect time. Dropped off the rental car, checked in and off we went. We didn't get in until 4:45 pm Dallas time (yuck!) and by the time we got our bags, got the truck, went to pick up the dog in traffic, grabbed some Chili's to go and got home it was like 6:30. Watched some TV and headed to sleep and that brings me to present time. :)

Pretty busy finally at work so I really should go, but I wanted to update those of you that care with my fun weekend. It was a blast!!!! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful and loving husband. He also surprised me with tickets to Kelly Clarkson in May (yes I'm a dork), so I was really excited because I secretly wanted to go! Yippee! So have to work 3.5 more days and then the weekend again and it will be fun because it's Austin's birthday next Monday so we will be doing fun stuff this weekend to celebrate! Talk to you all soon! :)