Monday, June 8, 2009

exhausted from the weekend!

My longtime friend from childhood, Rachael, came to visit this weekend! Yay for Allegiant airlines & their cheap ass, nonstop flights from Des Moines to LAX! She landed on Thursday night at around 10:30ish (after baggage claim...) and we headed back to Burbank to begin the festivities. First stop, my apartment to pick up Brett. We walked over to a complete dive, karaoke bar that I'm a big fan of... DIMPLES. Home to the 'Real Johnny Blaze.' Don't even ask! It's just a hilarious bar, I'll post some photos later when I steal them from Rachael's facebook.
Friday we were supposed to get up early and hike at Griffith Park, but when we woke up it was raining. What the hell? I know she brought it with her from Iowa, since when does it rain in LA? Ugh... so we headed to the grocery store to pick up some breakfast foods. After breakfast the rain had stopped but it was still pretty cloudy. I suggested we go to Santa Monica because who doesn't want to see the beach? It was actually NICER at the beach than in the valley, weird. It was sunny & warm! We walked down the pier, rode the Ferris wheel and then rented a couple of bikes. We took off towards Venice Beach because she was told she would be killed if she didn't go. She, like me, finds it a bit odd. Freak show, indeed. We saw an old wrinkled boobie, some really big boobies, homeless & a man standing outside of the 'doctor's office' yelling, "Medical Marijuana!" because that needs advertising! Duh!
Back to Santa Monica where we had a quick drink and discovered my amazing tan lines that Rach was convinced was dirt! (Again, pictures to follow...) We had to head back to the valley to pick up Brett. He had a callback Friday afternoon so while he did that we drove around Hollywood (not knowing how long it would take him). An hour later we picked him up & headed to PF Changs for some dinner. Then we walked around Hollywood for awhile, down the Walk of Fame and did some sightseeing. 
That night we headed to our friends place, Jay & Sonia to visit them and their adorable baby Derek. We only stayed for a short time and then went to have cocktails with some friends at a house party. I think we finally called it a night around 1:30am. 
The next morning we were up bright and early again because we had to go to Six Flags for a friend's going away party. It was a lot of standing in lines, but the roller coasters were so fun! I think the Flash Pass is probably a good investment though. I felt really bad for Brett the whole time, I think he pushed himself a little too far. He rode the first ride with us, Goliath (one of his favs) and seriously blacked out for a few seconds and then came to. From then on he became Grandpa Brett and just held our jackets & purses while everyone else rode the rides.  It does say on every ride, DO NOT RIDE IF YOU'VE HAD A RECENT SURGERY. DO NOT RIDE IF YOU HAVE ANY NECK/BACK DISKS THAT AREN'T ALIGNED. oops! So he had a lot of alone time, but did amazingly well with his anxiety/hate for crowds. I don't know if it was the massive amounts of trees around the park causing his allergies to go haywire or if he is coming down with a cold, but the poor guys sneezed about 400 times.
We decided to call it quits and headed back to Burbank, grabbed some Chipotle to go and headed home. We were exhausted! I'm pretty sure we all could have gone to bed at that point but instead we decided to go see the Hangover. It was, of course, sold out. So we walked across the street to another theater and bought tickets an hour & a half in advance. While we waited we got a drink or two and then saw the funniest movie of all times. If you haven't seen the hangover, I highly recommend it. Wear a diaper! Seriously.
Sunday morning I woke Rachael up & gave her three options: (1) continue to sleep (2) go to the beach & lay out (3) go hike in Griffith. We decided to go for a hike. It's so amazingly quiet up there, you almost forget you're in LA until you look down! We hiked for about an hour. I made cinnamon rolls while she showered and packed. Then it was off to the airport!
A very quick, adventure packed, exhausting weekend! But very fun, nonetheless! Can't wait for the next visit. 
I think next on the list is Brett's mom, then mine, then his dad, brother, sister & her boyfriend, and then my friend Erica. And then I go home for my cousin's wedding (which I'm really hoping Brett can go to). I'm tired just thinking about it! Oh and at some point I'd like to move again, I think we have a little more space than we need....

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