I just spent the weekend in Los Angeles and had the most wonderful time.  It was a short trip, far too short, but I had a lot of fun.  Saturday morning Andy drove me to the airport for my flight – the first flight I’ve taken without him since we got married (he’s currently skiing in Colorado with his dad)!  I made it to Los Angeles without incident despite an excessive amount of turbulence.  Usually on the Nashville to LA flight you see a lot of mountains, the Grand Canyon, rivers, and the plains.  On this flight, all I saw were clouds covering us in a dense, white carpet.  Chris and Dylan picked me up from the airport and we drove through Pacific Coast Highway traffic to Gladstone’s for Fish, a very popular restaurant on the beach, situated between Malibu and Santa Monica.  It was great to see the beach and experience a little bit of California sunshine, even if it was still a bit overcast. 

After a leisurely lunch with good food and a lot of time with a very smiley baby, Chris dropped me off at the Tudor House, an English tea house where I was meeting two of my closest friends from high school.  We talked, sipped on tea, and reminisced for close to three and a half hours.  We completely lost track of time and it was just like old times.  Once it looked like our waitress wanted us to leave, I went back to Chris and Allison’s apartment and spent some time with them before heading to the grocery store with Chris so I could start dinner.  I don’t know the last time I cooked for Chris, if I ever really have, so I decided to make steak with a Cabernet shallot reduction sauce, polenta, carrots and asparagus for them.  The polenta didn’t behave the way it’s supposed to, but we managed to salvage it and it was edible, but not exactly up to my standards.  Nevertheless, the rest of the food came out well, so I was happy about that.  We sat around the table for hours talking, sharing stories, and just hanging out before it was finally bed time. 

The next morning I spent a lot of time with Dylan while Chris and Allison got ready for the day.  He’s learning to stand right now so we worked on that a lot.  He’s smiling all the time now so I was spending most of my time just trying to get him to laugh.  We all had a leisurely brunch at this French-style place in Beverly Hills, followed by some picture-taking in some of the gardens that line the streets nearby.  We had no decent pictures of Dylan and me in the same shot, so we had to remedy that situation. 

After returning home, Allison gave me a wonderful massage as a birthday present and we spent more time hanging out.  Before long, it was time to go back to the airport to end my brief Southern California holiday.  After an hour and a half of delays at LAX, I flew to Las Vegas to spend the next few days at my parents’ house.  This is probably my least exciting Vegas trip, since I’m working all week, as is my dad, so there will be no trips to the Strip or any exciting restaurants.  Nevertheless, it’s good to finally spend some time with my family after a long absence. 

Here are a few of my pictures from my trip to LA!  There will be more to come once I am back at home with my own laptop and software!