After almost 2 weeks of spending time with my parents, they flew back home today. 🙁 I’m pretty sad but that’s to be expected. It’s sad to see such a good visit end. Here’s a summary of what we did:
May 20: parents flew in at noon, picked them up and brought stuff back to our apartment, then walked to lunch at Baja Fresh, that night went and visited Nicky and family for a couple of hours, then ordered Thai for dinner
May 21: we went to the California Science Center which is an interactive way to learn about science and has different exhibits that are specific to the area including several earthquake simulations, we probably only saw half of the exhibits because we didn’t arrive until late in the day, then we went behind the museum to a rose garden owned by the city with hundreds of thousands of roses of different varieties. It was really pretty but we’ve already seen roses before so didn’t spend much time there, then our way back to the car we passed the Olympic Stadium from the 1984 games (closed to the public). Traffic was a mess on the way home, didn’t think about the Friday rush hour or being game 2 of the NBA Playoffs (which the Lakers won!).
May 22: we planned on going to the San Antonio Winery in downtown L.A. but since we had plans to cook dinner at Nicky’s, settled on In-N-Out instead, drove by the water, and gave my parents their introduction to the Third Street Promenade, Casey’s chicken parm was great (as always) and Along Came Polly was almot as funny the second time around.
May 23: went to see Shrek 2 at the Century City mall, it was pretty cute, don’t remember if I liked it better than the first one but there were definitley some funny parts (ex. the giant gingerbread taking the cup of coffee off of the Starbucks and the people running out of it and into another Starbucks RIGHT across the street from it and Justin Timberlake as a prince). We went into Bloomingdale’s aka Bloomy’s (my first time!) and I gawked at all the stuff I wanted and Casey promptly ushered me out. For dinner we went to an authentic Mexican restaurant – El Robozo, it was OK but I’d like my food a little more Americanized than I got. What’s wrong with a Mexican restaurant that can’t even make a REAL margarita it was premade mix with a splash that you couldn’t taste of tequila. Ick.
May 24: Casey had to work today so my parents and I went shopping. Jim wanted to look for some new sunglasses at the base and got a shock at what the BX here looks like – it’s a converted airplane hanger, then went to 2 different malls just looking around – the first mall sucked but the second wasn’t bad and I came home with a new Nine West purse and a cute top from Nordstrom’s.
May 25: More shopping. Nicky and family met my parents and I at Third Street Promenade for more shopping, we were hoping the excitement and exercise would get that baby out.
May 26: I guess the exercise worked because Nicky’s water broke at 3:30 AM and we got the call to go to the hospital around 7:30. After being in labor for over 18 hours, Nicky gave birth via C-section to a beautiful baby girl, Emily Morgan, weighing in at 8 pounds and 5 ounces, and 21 inches long. I told Nicky that she insists on being the center of attention because Casey and I had dinner plans with my parents to celebrate our third anniversary at Lawry’s. 😉 But that’s ok, we see each other all the time anyway.
May 27: we went to see a recovering Nicky and baby Emily until too many people showed up at once and we decided to break for dinner at the Elephant Bar (good) before heading back to visit for awhile longer.
May 28: what could a trip to Socal be without visiting Hollywood. We had lunch at Hamburger Hamlet (not too impressed) and then looked at Mann’s Chinese Theater, the hand and footprints outfront, the Kodak Theater, and the Walk of Fame. For dinner, Casey made some yummy shrimp scampi, red potatoes, salad and a little too much champagne.
May 29: Happy Anniversary to Grandma & Grandpa, just spent the day lounging around the apartment.
May 30: went to see The Day After Tomorrow (good, although a political mouthpiece and unrealistic in places but as good as it could get), took pictures of the ocean at sunset, and had dinner (late anniversary) at a Greek restaurant on Third Street. Mom and Jim were introduced to the coffee (bad) and teas (good) of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf due to Starbucks being closed. While Casey and Jim were playing some new computer game, my mom and I watched Love Actually which was actually really good. I wasn’t expecting it to be but they did a good job of bringing closure to all the realtionships, even if they didn’t end well. And Billy Bob Thorton as president couldn’t have been a bigger jab at Bush.
May 31: went to In-N-Out for lunch and then on to Nicky’s to visit everyone for awhile since my parents were leaving the next day. My mom dyed my hair because the chick at Vidal Sassoon didn’t know what she was doing and my mom does a better job. The rest of the night we just spent relaxing in preparation for their travel day.
Today I cleaned the apartment, read some more of my book (The Bergdorf Blondes, just finished The Second Assistant), and looked for some jobs. I think tomorrow I’m going to go and sign up with extras agencies and hope they’ll find me some work.