California Tourists!

For our "big" trip this year we decided to go on a 10-day Pacific adventure - first to California, then to Kauai. What made this trip more exciting for us was that we were bringing our good friends Mike and Lisa, who had never been to either place. Well, Mike had once been to Riverside on a business trip, but we'd been telling him for 2 years that Riverside is really not an accurate representation of southern California. So, for all intents and purposes, we said that he he had not really been to California. :-) We wanted to show them some of the traditional "touristy" parts but also some of our favorite, more scenic parts. And so, our adventure begins....

Driving down Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu

Venice Beach

We were there during one of the season's

worst fires. This huge cloud of smoke was

visible from miles away. I suppose of all

the possible natural disasters typical of

California that we could have introduced to

Mike and Lisa, this was probably better

than earthquakes, floods, or landslides.

It's funny how you can live somewhere your whole

life and never do many of the "touristy" things.

I was actually thrilled when Neal found a map

of star homes that we could tour. We passed

by a number of houses where he quickly read off the

owner's names, but the only house we stopped at

long enough for me to get a photo was none other

than Hugh Hefner's . Next time I think the girls

have to be in charge of that tour!

Shopping on Rodeo Drive

Hollywood Walk of Fame

View of the Hollywood sign from

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

After walking all over Venice Beach, Santa

Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood, we

came back to mom and dad's for a nice

evening under the stars in the hot tub. Of

course, we had to have a little Bailey's Irish

Cream to make the night complete. :-)

When Neal and I ordered our wedding cake

3 years ago, one of the things we liked about

our vendor was that they agreed to make us

a free top layer of our wedding cake within

the year after our wedding, if we brought them

a picture of our finished wedding cake. While we

had beautiful pictures of the cake, we could

never claim our free top layer since we moved

the day after we got married. Finally, 3 years later,

we picked up our white cake with fresh strawberry

filling, and it was as good as it tasted on our wedding

day. And, we got to share this one with family and

friends as well, so it was the perfect time to have it.

On Sunday we headed north to Ventura and

Santa Barbara, which we all agreed was much

more our pace than the L.A. scene. Above is a

view of Surfer's Point in Ventura.

For years I dreamt of living in these apartments

on the beach, though I could never afford them

since the rent is as much as a mortgage.

State Street, Santa Barbara

Mike & Neal driving our 4-person beach buggy

Shoreline Park, where we had our engagement

photos taken. We were shocked to see that since

the last time we'd been here, a whole chunk of

the cliff had just fallen off! In this photo you can

see where the sidewalks used to connect.

Stairs down to the beach below

Shoreline Park

After we got home, my parents had a fun

gathering of their friends and ours. It was so

great to see everybody and to introduce our

new friends to some of our old friends. What a

perfect way to end the weekend!