Long Weekend Report

I spent the long weekend with some of my most favorite people in the entire world. My mom, grandma, two aunts, and cousin all came in from Chicago to visit.

The weather was perfect (if not a little hot) and we spent pretty much every waking moment eating, drinking, laughing, and doing.

Their first day was a little hectic; the valet guys left my car running at lunch and then it died and from there thing just went haywire. We needed to catch a break and Milo and Olive delivered. Their food is always phenomenal - but we our order this time around was spot on, and everyone was in Heaven.  The atmosphere is casual and fun and it's a nice change of pace from your average restaurant.

If you are ever in LA, it's one of my all time favorites.

 

The next morning, our group hit the ground running. My grandma and Aunt Betty were staying with my cousin Cole who had his firstborn in October, so it was just the four of us.  Our first stop of the morning was the Santa Monica Pier.

 

We got to the pier around 9 which was nice because it wasn't overly crowded yet.

   

  

We hit some shops on 3rd St. in Santa Monica and then headed home to hose a lunch for more  more family come up from Orange County. My mom's cousins live in OC, so they made a day trip to come up to visit with everyone which was was so nice.

 

That night we ordered in pizza and babysat Nolan while his parents took advantage of all of the eager babysitters. 

After a Valentine's-themed breakfast, my mom, Gia, Joel and I went to Westridge to hike off all of those amazing donuts.

 

After the hike we freshened up and then went to M Street in Santa Monica for brunch. The weather was too perfect not to walk the beach to Venice so we left our car in Santa Monica and walked the mile to Venice Beach and Abbot Kinney.

 

Sometimes it really does take having visitors in to truly see how gorgeous LA really is. And Venice through a 15 year old's eyes is pretty hilarious. 

We went straight from Venice to Cole and Brianna's to visit with everyone, have dinner and play games. More of my cousins drove up from San Diego so we all had a blast catching up and telling stories. After dinner we played a competitive game of Heads Up, per my Grandma's request, which was as hilarious as you may suspect.

 

 

On our last day, we decided to take a drive up to Santa Barbara. Gia wanted to visit UCSB and the views on the way  never disappoint, so we took a little Sunday drive. 

 

We had a great brunch at Blush on State Street, then shopped around before turning around to head home. 

Joel had stayed home and cooked us all an amazing dinner of fresh ceivche, fish tacos, and corn salad. We watched the SNL awards and before I knew it, I was dropping them all back off at LAX.

These trips always go too fast and it never gets easier to say goodbye. I'm heading home in about 4 weeks which helps, but my house already feels lonely without them all.