Family Weekend

July 27th - 28th

After getting back from LA, Jed has jumped head first into football season. But we made time to head down to Charlotte to spend some time with 3 of our nieces. One even came all the way from New York.

We had a great time seeing everyone and it was not nearly enough time.

The City of Angels - The Mini Series (Part 9)

July 13th - July 23rd

Sunday - Tuesday (July 20th - July 23rd)

Jed & I got the next few days to just hang out with friends and family in LA. We got up Sunday morning and had a big family breakfast. It was so great to have some time with Emlie, Zoe, Jac and Ava.

Before we knew it, it was time to head out and go meet friends from the Starbucks that Jed use to work at. It was so great to catch up with everyone and see & hear what they are doing now. We met at Tacos Por Favor and it was FANTASTIC! I will definitely be going back there!

Jed, Tim, Attosa, Erica, Michael, Ali

After lunch, we headed to Burbank. Amy had just gotten back from Comic Com and we were excited to have some time for the 4 of us to just hang out. We had a great time catching up, being silly and just laughing a lot. We really miss those guys. We headed off to dinner at Portos before meeting up with Eric & Audrey.

We spent the evening just hanging out. It felt like old times and it was great.

On Monday, everyone headed off to work and Jed & I headed out to wonder. We ran errors to finish up all the loose ends from the week before, grabbed some hot donuts and Krispy Kreme and walked around the West Hollywood area. It was a fun and relaxing time of just enjoying the city. We met a friend, Kim for lunch at The Abbey. This place was fantastic. We had a great time, restaurant by day, night club at night. Next time we will have to come it the evening!

It was great to catch up with Kim and hear and see how great he was doing in LA. We definitely miss him back in the 'Burg.

We headed west side for our next stop at Mother's Beach in Marina Del Ray. We met up with Tim, Wendy, Annie and her 3 kids. It was so nice to catch up with everyone, enjoy the weather and get our feet wet.

When it was time for the kids to head home, Tim, Wendy, Jed & I headed over to one of our favorite Italian places just down the street in Venice, C&O Trattoria. Jed & I were getting ready to meet friends for dinner but we didn't care, we were excited for C&O and to get more time with Tim & Wendy.

After our last second lunch/early first dinner, Jed & I went to go visit some friends that we haven't seen in 8 years! I had gone to high school with Mel and her and her husband, Scott have lived in LA for a while. We were hang out when we lived there and haven't been able to catch up with them face to face in forever. It was so great to see them and if felt like no time had passed since the last time we had seen them. They live is a really cool area of Inglewood and we were able to walk to a local Cajun place, Bayou Grille, for dinner.

We could have stayed at their place for hours just hanging out but it was getting late so we headed back to Palos Verdes for our last night in LA.

Tuesday morning, Emlie dropped Zoe off at summer school and we got Jac & Ava out of bed so we could all go to breakfast before Emlie drove to work. After trying 2 other places that ended up being closed, we settled on, Rex's Cafe.

We had a great time hanging out over breakfast but before long, Emlie had to run off to work and the girls had to get ready for ballet. We spent the rest of the morning with Jac & Ava before dropping them off at ballet camp and heading over to PV High to pick up Zoe from summer school. The three of us headed down to Redondo Beach for a late lunch at Casa Playa. This place was great and we had such a good time getting so time to hang out with Zoe.

After lunch we dropped Zoe off at home to get her homework done, made a quick stop in Carson City to get some pan de sal and headed to Beverly Hills for Sprinkles Cupcake ATM! I was so excited to check this thing out. It was really cool and fun and as always the cupcake was delicious.

We had the chance to go back to the Melrose area to walk around and jump in a few shops before meeting Eric, Audrey, Dave & Amy one last time before we headed to the airport. We decided on Daphne's California Greek in memory of our trip to Greece a few years ago. I am so glad we got to see them one last time before we left.

The trip to LA was absolutely amazing. I am so very thankful that we had the chance to go. It is definitely crazy that after all the planning the trip has come and gone. Hey Joe & Lisa, looks like we need to plan something else...

Can't wait for the next adventure...

The City of Angels - The Mini Series (Part 8)

July 13th - July 23rd

Saturday (July 20th)

Today was the teams last day in LA. We have had a great time and today was going to be no different. As we spent the morning cleaning up and packing up, Jed and I made a quick trip to the dollar store for little LA Lakers note pads and the local donut shop (Sam's Donut Factory) and headed back for our last group time. We spent some time just reflecting about our week and sharing what stood out to us the most. It was a great time together.

After our time together, we all hopped in the big van and the smaller SUV for separate excursions. Jed & I took Scott, Katie, Aaron, Alice, & Terri for an adventure around LA. Our first stop was a lego exhibit called The Art of the Brick where Dave and Shalom meet up with us. The exhibit was in Glendale at the top of a mountain overlooking the city in a place called Forest Lawn.

The exhibit was really cool and we had a great time checking it all out but in typical museum fashion, no pictures allowed. But I was able to find these online!

The craziest part about the exhibit was the location. Forest Lawn is not your typical place to go to visit art exhibits, it is a cemetery. The entire experience was pretty crazy! There were tons of places to explore at this cemetery that had other art exhibits. We had hear that they had a replica of the Last Supper that we were all excited to go see. (I mean, really, we are already hanging out in a cemetery, might as well see all that they have...) As we were going to find The Last Supper Window, we ended up finding a replica of David. At first we just jumped out of the car to take a quick picture of him but then we ended up exploring the area a little more and found The Mystery of Life statue. It was just amazing all the art that was all around us here!

The crazy part about the Last Supper replica was that it was in a the Great Mausoleum on the grounds. But we all decided, "Why not." and off we went. The Great Mausoleum was pretty wild to see. There were tons of sculptures all around and different areas throughout that were designated for families only. As we turned a corner there was The Last Supper Window and it was beautiful. They had chairs for people to set and just hang out so all walked in and just sat, sat and thank, reflected, sat in almost total quiet. It was really neat experience and something completely unexpected when we started off today.

I am pretty sure we could have spent most of the day there looking at the view, other art exhibits, sculptures and many other things but it was time to check out some more of the city. So we picked up Eric & Audrey and headed downtown for lunch to a famous place called Philippe. It was a really fun dive that we all enjoyed. We all sat and ate, shared pie, stories of the week and just had a fantastic time.

We were right downtown with Chinatown just a few blocks away, a craft fair (we learned later) and a ton of food trucks but we just didn't have enough time to do everything so after saying good bye to Shalom, we all hopped in our cars and continued heading south and west to Manhattan Beach.

This week we have spent almost all of our time on the east side of the city and only a few hours at a beach, so we decided to go check out a beach area. We walked around the shopping area, headed down the pier, found a very little aquarium, walked along the boardwalk checking out the ridiculously huge homes.

We didn't get must time before we stopped in for out last Jamba Juice, said good bye to Dave, Eric and Audrey and headed back to Hope to pick up our stuff, the rest of the group and head for the airport.

Greg, Michelle & Elisabeth Larson and Dave all surprised us and were at the church to say one last good bye to everyone. It was a mad dash of packing up vehicles, last minute cleaning and quick goodbyes. We made one last stop on the way to the airport, Zankou Chicken.

It was sad to see everyone go. We dropped everyone and all the stuff off at the door and we headed to turn in the large rental SUV and pick up something much smaller for the two of us to drive around in for the next few days.

After saying good bye to everyone, Jed & I headed out to his sister's place for the night. We spent the evening hanging out with our nieces and just catching up with them and all the things they are doing.