Temescal Canyon

Over the weekend one of my BFFs Allie came to visit, and we set out on a gorgeous Saturday to Temescal Canyon. During the climb up and up and up, I was wondering how I had ever happily made it through a 12 day backpacking trip back in high school...

I actually haven't done any hiking since moving to LA, and I think Temescal was a great place to start.

Views of Malibu...



Views of the Santa Monica...



And of course, the hike always goes a little easier when you know you have something sweet in the future.



*Princess Cake from Sweet Lady Jane on Melrose...YUM*

What are your favorite trails?

Wedding Whirlwind

I’m back from a whirlwind of a wedding weekend in Wisconsin (say that ten times fast). The wedding was beautiful, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect, and the bride and groom had permanent smiles all day.





It was such a nice weekend of catching up with best friends, and I’m so glad I was able to celebrate such a special day with Gretchen and Tom.



It’s back to reality for me…but only for a few days. I’m off to another wedding in Wilmington, North Carolina on Friday!

Exhausted.

Hello Friends! I warned that July would be a crazy one, and I was right. It FLEW by. I just finished up the month with two more visitors, and first-timers to La-La-land, Erin and Emily.



Thanks for coming, girlies! We did a lot of the same stuff I took Nicole and Gretchen to a few weeks back so they could also see the sights. Emily was here for a week longer, so I got to do a few new things as well, like pay our respects to the celebs resting at the Pierce Bros. Memorial Park,



eating the cookie/ice cream sandwiches at Diddy Riese (I chose mint chocolate chip ice cream in between chocolate chip cookies – who would believe they sell them for only $1.50?),


visited the Venice Canals,

and thanks to Ellen, we visited the FABULOUS Garden of Oz (no pics allowed – sorry!).

I plan to rest up and get back to my knitting this week. It has been too long…

Playing Tourist

This past weekend my friends Gretchen and Nicole came to visit.


*Griffith Park Observatory - it was a little too hot this weekend to stay for long*

Sometimes I get caught up in missing home/friends that I forget to appreciate all the things there are to do in LA. It’s nice to have visitors to show the city too, and to see it through new eyes again.

* Marilyn Monroe - I read an article the next day that this is one of the top ten germiest tourist attraction *


*cupcakes for breakfast*

We played the tourist role well, accompanied with continuous gabbing the whole weekend!

*we worked out way through the huge crowd for this pic*

Thanks for coming girlies! See ya in September!

Emily arrives on Friday – there's more showing off the city in my future!

Fourth of July

I hope you all had a great 4th of July! Some highlights from my long weekend:

• As mentioned in the last post, my girlie Allie was here visiting for the weekend!
• We all took in the Marina Del Rey fireworks, from Captain Jeff’s sailboat. Unfortunately it was a little too windy to take it out during the day, but that meant we could all relax and focus on grilling, eating, and watching the fireworks. Boyfriend and I calculated that we have been in different cities/countries over the fourth of July for the past seven years, so it was nice to watch fireworks together for once!
  
• Last night we went to the Hollywood Bowl to see Deathcab for Cutie.
  It was a phenomenal concert. The Hollywood Bowl has to be one of the best places to see a show! Sitting under the stars (we actually got to see some of the real ones, and not just the ones on Hollywood Blvd!), enjoying our picnic, and a fancy schmancy bottle of wine. The band was accompanied by the full LA Philharmonic, and we had a fireworks-filled finale to complete the evening. Boyfriend and I had been looking forward to this concert for quite awhile, and it definitely exceeded our expectations!
• 

**Boyfriend got our fancy-schmancy concert wine as a thank you gift from a client at work. Question of the evening – can we taste the difference between this and something that costs much less? We don’t have the most sophisticated palettes for wine-tasting, and while it was quite good, an equivalent bottle could be found for probably $15-20, but it was a step up from some $4.00 Trader Joe’s finds! In conclusion, I won’t be dishing out the moo-la for this $100 price tag any time soon, but if boyfriend’s clients want to pass along any more thank you bottles, I won’t object (oh and by the way, you can all cringe, as we did drink our fancy schmancy wine out of fancy schmancy plastic Solo cups - we had to make do with what we had!)**

A Crazy July

This weekend marks the beginning of a crazy fun month of visitors! Arriving today is Miss Allie, who was here back in March to celebrate our b-days which are one day apart. Happy to have you back, AP!

Happy 4th of July to all! I will hopefully pick back up on the bloggin' soon!

A Trip Home

I had such a nice trip home in Wisconsin. I got to take in all the irises in my parent’s new (ish) yard…








We scooted on down to Madison, to see Mister Miles, who will make a great dinosaur someday I think (if he decides he can keep this on his head long enough to get it buttoned!):


And went to the bridal shower for my lovely friend Gretchen – who is now the owner of the afghan I made back in the winter, when I could stand to have that much wool on my lap.


Seeing my family and catching up with friends was much needed. The weekend flew by, but I had a great time. There’s a lot of friend visits/more trips to look forward to this summer!

(and really, where else will you find a bar table that is a cribbage board?? I won, by the way. :))

WISCONSIN!!

I'm heading out tonight to the tropical lands of Wisconsin for the next few days to celebrate this lovely lady's bridal shower!



Love you Gretchy Poo, and I can't wait to see everybody!!