LA Adventures

Aaron and I spent the long weekend in LA visiting our friends Andrew and Shawna. We skipped work on Friday (slackers) and beat the weekend traffic out of the valley. We got there early Friday evening and went to Venice beach to gawk at the hippies. There was a beautiful sunset over the ocean of which we got zero pictures because we forgot the camera.

Saturday we had a lovely day of shopping, wherein I discovered and fell in love with a magical place called The Paper Source. As I blissfully wandered the store I was asking myself WHY have I been so unaware of this store before?? I had heard of it through various design blogs but had never stepped inside one. I came home determined to make The Paper Source my second home, only to discover that the reason I had never been inside one before is because there isn't one in AZ (or Utah for that matter). Shameful. Fortunately, they have a website. I highly recommend going and spending ridiculous amounts of money here.

Saturday night we surprised my uncle's roommate James (they became friends in college roughly 300 years ago, so he's practically one of the family) at the restaurant where he works, the Acapulco. It was excellent food and the service was, of course, fabulous. He was really surprised and so excited to see us. If you're in the LA area and hankering for some good Mexican food and a really amazing waiter, go visit him at the one on La Cienega (they have valet service for like $3, which means parking isn't an issue. In LA, that alone makes going to eat there worth it). I recommend the guacamole.

Sunday we skipped church (again, slackers!) and drove a couple hours north to visit Andrew's parents and grandparents. I've met some really neat people in my life, but this family is now pretty high on my list of people I would like to adopt me. They were some of the most genuinely nice people I've ever met and we spent the time stuffing ourselves silly with the best Spanish rice and chile verde ever and playing yahtzee and catch phrase. When the basketball game came on at Andrew's grandparents house, his grandma provided all of us girls with a People magazine so we wouldn't have to bore ourselves with the game (a woman after my own heart).

Sunday night after we got back to Andrew and Shawna's apartment, we stayed up late telling all the funny college stories we could think of (Shawna and I married some crazy men, let me tell you). Also, Aaron has used some of the corniest lines ever while trying to pick up on women. "So uh, I forgot my chapstick. How 'bout you come and moisten my lips for me?" Oh ya. He went there.

This morning we had a quick breakfast at Denny's before saying goodbye. They walked us to our car where we found out that our battery was dead. Lovely. After a jump start from AAA and then a replacement battery from PepBoys, we were on our way. We made it home in time to chaperone my brother's 16th birthday hangout (true to his nature, he didn't plan a party. He started calling and texting his friends today to come over tonight to hang out in celebration). Happy 16th Jared!

Thanks to Andrew and Shawna for a fabulous weekend and letting us crash in your lovely little apartment! We had such a good time and you should probably prepare yourselves for the royal bugging you will get as we try to convince you to make the trip to come visit us.