a belated recounting of my trip to L.A.

It's been over a month now and I still haven't blogged about it! I can't believe it! Now that's it getting below freezing at night, I figure I'd conjure up my memories of the California sunshine.

My trip to Los Angeles:

Who: Just me visiting Marissa, Sarah, and Janina
What: a vacation from momminess
Where: Los Angeles, Palmdale, Santa Monica, Westwood
When: Sept 18-22
Why: because when my husband said he wanted to buy a fancy new bicycle I said, "Fine, but you can fly me to LA to go visit my friends!" and he said, "Okay" and because Brian had a bunch of time off in Sept so he could watch Elliott, and flights were cheap, and we didn't know at the time we'd be about to move, and because I'll probably never go on a vacation by myself again, at least for the next 18 years

Phase 1:
Reuniting with my roommate from my 2nd year of college-Marissa! We hadn't seen each other in over 4 years but have kept in good contact the whole time and she recently returned from a mission! We had awesome adventures exploring LA and it was great to meet her family after all these years. One of the funniest things that happened was that we ended up, quite by accident, at the international headquarters of the Scientology religion. We took a tour of their visitors' center with one of their representatives and left with a complimentary dvd! Fascinating! Marissa and I always manage to find adventures like that. And yes, the representative did encourage me to have a silent birth to help my child have a smooth transition to life outside the womb.

Can't go wrong with 95 kinds of omelettes!

"Wait I think I can get my leg up higher!" outside of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown. Such an amazing work of architecture!

Phase 2:
Reuniting with my friend Sarah and her precious twins who we met in Chicago and they now live in sunny Santa Monica! We had great ice cream sandwiches, pictured here at Diddy Riese, great Mexican food at El Cholo, and a relaxing afternoon at the beach, my first time dipping my toes in the Pacific Ocean. I'm so glad I've now been to a beach in California! It sure beats the Gulf of Mexico. It has a distinct smell and a distinct sound I've never experienced anywhere else.
Phase 3:
Reuniting with my good friend Janina, who I knew at the BYU school of music. I hadn't seen her in 3 years! Janina and I can always pick up wherever we've left off! We started out the day by devouring delicious crepes made by a real French woman! Yes the crepe with the giant mound of cinnamon apples and ice cream is for the pregnant woman, thank you very much! Then we hung out on the Santa Monica pier before exploring the UCLA botanical gardens, and having a fantastic lunch. I'm so lucky, could there be anything better than having lunch with an old friend? And I got to do it with 3 friends, 5 days in a row!

Janina lives down the street, literally, from the Los Angeles temple. I thought it'd be tucked away somewhere like the Manhattan temple but it's quite the eye catcher on a big hill. Gorgeous!

And we're both pregnant!

Both our bellies didn't fit in one picture.

When we were getting to airport we were stopped by a security type man whose job it was to look in the cars for suspicious things. Janina rolled down her window, he looked in the car, probably didn't notice anything but our huge tummies and said, "Both of ya'll?!" You had to be there I guess but it was hilarious!

It was a fabulous 5 days! No diapers, no cooking, no cleaning, and filled with lots of good conversations and memories. I felt like the luckiest wife in the world to take a trip like that. Thanks girls for hosting me, feeding me, chauferring, and tour guiding! You're the best!

Los Angeles is great (minus the traffic)! I hope to make it back with the rest of my family and go to Disneyland someday!