On Friday, June 21st, Ella, Dave and I boarded a flight for Chicago. At 4 1/2 months, it was Ella's first flight! Many months ago, one of my best friends from High School called and told me he was getting married in California this summer. With 4 very young children including a nursing baby, I had no idea how I was going to make it to the wedding, but both Dave and I were determined to try and make it happen. So.... we made it a quick weekend (leaving on Friday and returning on Monday) and left Lacey, Tanner and Riley in Maryland with Dave's sister and parents and brought Ella with us as far as Chicago. We purposely got a flight to LA with a layover in Chicago so that my parents could watch Ella for the weekend. The drop off went smoothly. But unfortunately, the 2 hour layover turned into a 6+ hour layover and we didn't land in LA until 9:00 (midnight our time). So, by the time we got our rental car and got to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Laguna Hills, it was 10:35pm. We were supposed to land at 4:15pm and we had planned on spending the evening in Huntington Beach, my old stomping grounds, but unfortunately, we had to take that stop off the itinerary :(
The next morning, we headed to Laguna Beach to have breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants, Las Brisas.
Why is it our favorite breakfast spot? Because it has food like this.....
And views like this.
After walking around Laguna Beach for a while, we headed to one of our favorite spots in Laguna Beach.... Thousand Steps Beach. For the most part, this place is untouched by tourists and only frequented by locals. Here we are on our way down.....
Gorgeous cliff-side homes are on one side
And a beautiful beach is on the other
But you have to earn it! Here is the view of the path in front of us to head back up. You can see where the beach gets its name!
After Thousand Steps, we headed out to Big Bear for the wedding. Big Bear is a 2+ hour drive from Orange County. On the way, we drove right by Western Medical Center Santa Ana, where I worked for 2 1/2 years (October 2002 - March 2005) before I moved out here to be with Dave. If we would have had more time, I absolutely would have stopped. It actually kind of killed me to drive right by and not go in for a quick nostalgic visit
Arriving at the wedding
My friend Dave and his bride, Audi are both "in the business" (Dave is a writer for Family Guy and Audi is a singer/actress and stunt double for stars like Eva Longoria and "Hailey" on Modern Family). So, they incorporated that into their wedding in a fun way. Instead of the tables being numbered, each table was named after a famous movie.
Their colors were blue and yellow, so they had this yummy blue and yellow candy table.
And here is the happy couple!
One of the best parts of the wedding is that Maret was also invited and came down from San Francisco for the event. It's been almost a year since I've seen her, so it was good to see her again!
I spent two summers lifeguarding at Saybrook Pool. The best pre-degree job I've ever had. But Dave is the only one I've kept in touch with. Dave, however, has kept in touch with the whole crew and there were 6 of us at the wedding! First time we've all been together in almost 20 years.
The next day, we headed back to LA. Our first stop was Hollywood Boulevard where we went to Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Maret and I had to get a picture with our Dad's favorite actress.
The Dolby Theatre where the Academy Awards take place every year.
Steps leading up to the theatre with the winning movies listed on each side of the stair case.
The iconic sign
Dave's pointing to the sign behind us
Next stop: Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills
Next stop: Westwood. Why Westwood? Because of this place! Diddy Riese is known for their DELICIOUS ice cream sandwiches (you pick your flavor of ice cream and fresh-baked cookies) for $1.75.
Yum!
After that, we headed to Santa Monica
When dinner time hit, we headed to Venice Beach, so that we could eat at one of our favorite restaurants: C & O Trattoria, home of these to-die-for garlic rolls.
We ended the evening at Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park to view the Supermoon.
What better place to see it? It was absolutely amazing! Unfortunately, these pictures don't do it justice, but it was a great way to end the day!
I wanted to include a picture of Maret and her beau. Maret has been seriously dating Peter for the past couple of months and it was so fun to meet him and see them together.
On Monday morning, Dave and I headed to Malibu. We spent the morning walking along Carbon Beach (aka Billionaire Beach). There are only two "blink and you miss it" entrances on to this beach as the owners of these incredible homes want to keep the beach private. But, it's still a public beach. So, we found the entrance and enjoyed our walk on this incredible "private" beach. This is the former home of Courtney Cox and David Arquette and the current home of the owner of the LA Dodgers.
I think the owners of these homes are getting the privacy they desire -- we were there on a beautiful day in the middle of June. And this is what it looked like. The entire time we were there, we only saw 2 other people.
From Malibu, we headed to the airport and flew home. As a side note, I just have to document how hard I worked to be able to keep nursing Ella. I have never left a nursing baby for longer than 24 hours - and I only ever did that once. But I was determined to not let this trip affect my milk supply. So, I brought my pump along with me and pumped on the floors of public bathrooms, in my car in public parking lots, etc, etc. I was committed. It KILLED me to do all that and then dump my milk! KILLED me! So.... after a couple of "dumps", I ended up finding creative ways to keep it cold and attempted to keep it and fly home with it. Mission accomplished. So, I am happy to say that little miss Ella turned 5 months yesterday and I'm still nursing. My milk supply has always pooped out on me right around this time and I've stopped nursing my other three between 5 1/2 - 7 months. Hoping I can keep going for a while. I know..... TMI :)
