California.....knows how to party

So there is no way I'm going to capture all the awesomeness that was this weekend. But here is my attempt at the highlights.

Thursday
Woke up really really early and caught the 7 am flight to LA. It was so early that the sun was just peaking over the flat and dry planes on eastern Colorado by the time we got to the airport. I barely remember finding my seat and sitting down on the plane. I think I was actually asleep before my booty hit the wornout upholstery of the seat. Arriving in LA, found the rental car place and set out. We were going to see the Getty, but instead went out to the valley to see the house where the ear doctor grew up. As we sat in our beautiful gold dodge stratus in front of his house he told me hilarious story after story about him growing up there with the Asian kids down the street. I learned all about the bully up the street and how he and his friends shot pigeons with bb guns. We drove around and saw his grandparents house and his elementary school. It was so cool to see him talk about when he was a little kid.

After the first trip down memory lane, we went to have a hot dog and fries from two quite shady shacks right next to each other. The fries were amazing and from Daglas. The "Cupid's" hot dogs popped when you bit into them. Coupled with an icy diet Pepsi it was the ideal way to start out our food adventures in California.

After lunch we drove up to the Griffith observatory (which was closed) to check out a view of the city. I picked a flower and gave it to the ear doctor up there. Too bad it was the kind he was allergic to. My bad.

Then, we drove down into the hills to see how the other half lived. Man, are those places impressive. We stopped off at the Chinese theater and noticed that Harrison Ford has great taste in footwear. He made his imprints wearing Chuck Taylors, which the ear doctor noticed because he too was wearing them. We were a little puzzled by the presence of Martin Lawrence's hand and footprints there. I didn't really think that his award winning performances in Big Momma's House 1 and 2 deserved that kind of acclaim, but who am I to judge? We drove down Rodeo Dr. (all I can say is wow) and up to the LA temple.

I was exhausted, so the ear doctor let me sleep the whole drive down to Laguna Nigel. We drove up to his high school where he showed me the football field were he earned his glory and honor. I saw the cement flower planter where all of his friends (the jocks) ate their lunches. I saw the spot on the ceiling where is friend spit a lougee that stuck for 6 years. We went to the house he lived in for high school. He took me to an awesome dinner at a restaurant off the San Clemente pier where we sat on a deck eating awesome seafood and watched surfers below ride out some gnarly waves. The "set was totally going off." Exahusted, we finally arrived at the home of some of the ear doctor's parent's friends where we were treated like royalty. I collapsed into my beautiful feather bed.

Friday
I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping and sausage sizzling. Linda, our hostess, had gone to the trouble of making us eggs, sausage and orange rolls in preparation for our big day. I hurriedly got ready for the day and went down to talk with her. She was amazing. One of those women that just open up their hearts and take you in. She is loving and accepting and I was totally impressed. After eating we took off......For.....DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got to the park when it opened and didn't leave until 12:30. The park was practically empty. The longest wait we had for any ride was about 20 minutes. We saw all of disneyland and California Adventure in one day! We ate the following: 2 churros (each), tons of diet coke, chicken strips, butter pecan fudge, apple slices with caramel sauce, enchiladas, and frozen bananas.

Saturday
By now I had become a full fledge adopted daughter into the family we stayed with. Saturday morning we all went out for breakfast at Ted's. As I sat around the big round table and talked with these awesome people I was so amazed by how quickly I'd been induced into their family. Both of the actual daughters met us at Ted's for breakfast and brought their kids so it was messy and loud and hilarious.

After breakfast we started our journey up to Santa Barbara. I tried my very hardest to stay awake during the whole ride, and only dozed off for a second or two. We made it to our hotel in Ventura and the ear doctor collapsed while I got ready for the wedding that night. I woke him up a little too late and we were in a rush to get up to Santa Barbara on time. With only the smallest amount of nerves and worry we made it up to the ceremony just fine. This wedding was one of the most beautiful I've been to. It was at a house on the side of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The flowers were amazing, the bride was beautiful and the groom was beaming. As usually, I got a little teary eyed during the ceremony. Afterward they had an awesome taco bar and I managed to spill an entire bowl of red chile salsa onto my skirt. Luckily, one of the other guests was the daughter of a dry cleaner and rushed over to help me get the stain out. Lifting my skirt into the air for the whole party to see my upper thigh, she dabbed and spotted and did a fairly great job of getting the stain out. It is still there, but hopefully the skirt will be able to be saved. I was SOOOOO embarrassed but later found out that I wasn't the only person who had spilled the salsa. After toasts and cake and sparklers the dancing started. We danced the night away under a clear sky of Californian stars. It was just like a wedding from a movie. As my legs were about to give out, we left the party and stumbled into our beds.

Sunday
I woke up first thinking I would beat the ear doctor to the shower, thereby hastening our check-out at the Comfort Inn. My bleary, eyes spotted a sheet of paper on the floor of our room that had been shoved under the door. It informed us that the water main of the City of Ventura had burst early that morning and no one knew when water would return. Annoyed and dirty, I put on my cloths and woke up the ear doctor to tell him the news. No showers today. Yuck. Just what I want the morning after dancing all night at a wedding. Anyway, we packed up, complained to the front desk and left to explore a little of Santa Barbara before we had to catch our flight home.

We had breakfast at a really cute restaurant on State street and walked up and down it looking for some good shopping finds. I got a pair of pants from Anthropologie (my favorite store of all time) that were way way way on sale. After our little shopping jaunt, we went up to see the Spanish mission and rose garden. The mission was really cool and we met an awesome little dog in one of the crypts.

Realizing how late it was, we bid a fond farewell to Santa Barbara and headed back to the valley for luck and the bear pit. Eating a bbq lamb sandwich on garlic bread at the bear pit is a family tradition of the ear doctor's. It was awesome food! I loved it! There was sawdust on the floor and everything. The ear doctor even got me a t-shirt so I could remember my first time there.

Reluctantly, we headed back to the airport, returned our golden chariot and fell asleep in the chairs at LAX waiting for our flight. The flight attendants on our flight were very rude and I'm thinking about writing a letter to frontier about it, but probably won't.

Anyway, that's our vacation.