LA weekend with the Girls!

This is another post long over due! Oops! I've just been so busy on the weekends trying to make the most of them while I have so few left. This a post from May 14-17th. Enjoy reading! I'm excited to be back in good o' Minnesota in two weeks! Woohoo!

Laura and Emily come to visit!

Wednesday: As soon as I finished work I hoped into my friend, Ange’s car to get to the airport in time to pick up the girls. There they were waiting for me! It was so exciting to see them both! When I picked them up it was pretty dark out so they didn’t really get to see all the gorgeous views around every corner. Plus it was surprisingly smoggy. As we were driving along the highway both of the girls were shocked to be able to see the mountains all around us. Emily was the first one to say, “is that a mountain?” And Laura and I both said, yes Emily those are mountains. :) Oh, if only Minnesota could have mountains instead of hills which we like to think are mountains.

Once we got up to Nawakwa I introduced them to my roommates and then helped them settle in. Laura basically crashed as soon as her head hit the pillow. Emily stayed up and we chatted while I packed for the weekend. They were both tired though from a full day of traveling and having to adjust to the time difference. I knew they would need a good night sleep for the hike the next day and to also ward off any altitude sickness. Thankfully we didn’t have any problems there.

Thursday: Wakey wakey! It’s time to go to work! Emily and Laura came to work with me which was SO much fun! Everyone was so happy to meet them and they helped us out so much! We ate breakfast and then I taught them the process of how we make all of the kid sandwiches (we usually crank out about 250 at least every morning.) I put them to work by either jamming the jelly or spreading the peanut butter. They caught on pretty quick.

Then it was time for switch over. If I haven’t explained before, switch over is when the students go from being with their cabin instructor to their field instructor. Emily, Laura, and I were standing by my field tree waiting for the kiddos. As they came over I introduced my guests and they all thought they were sisters. In fact, some of my friends thought that too. :)

I had three classes to teach, Plant Detectives, Water Wonders, and Environmental Awareness. I decided to take the class to Jenks Lake so that Emily and Laura could see a typical hike that we usually go on. Here are a few shots Emily took during the hike. They are great and you can get to see what the trails now look like in the spring time. I love that the snow is finally going away!

Good Morning! Welcome to my cabin in the woods! :)

This is me and my group starting out on our hike. Emily and Laura (the photographers) were bringing up the rear. Say Hi!

My new goal is to “teach while I hike” and Emily caught me in a moment. I was teaching the students about the different evergreen needles. Spinning spruce and flat fur, right Dad? :)

This is Laura posing along the hike with all the beautiful trees!

This is me leading one of the activities for the students.

I had to help the students across the creek because now that the snow is melting the water is really starting to flow down the mountain.

This is Jenks Lake in the spring. So pretty!

Emily and me. I made the girls their own tree cookies to wear for the day. Emily has hers on in this picture. They’re part of the High Trails family now. :)

We had lunch at the lake and then took the short walk around it while Emily and Laura took a short nap. :)

Cook Out is something we started doing after spring break. It’s really fun for the kids who have never cooked over open flame before. We just have hot dogs (which are actually pre-cooked so it doesn’t really matter how well they roast them) chips, watermelon, and smores for desert. We have to go over a lot of safety precautions for the students and remind them that fire is HOT! The field instructors help distribute the food and it’s a little awkward when the students come up to saying, “Can I please have a weenie?” And then you have to slide it on their stick. All the instructors just chuckle to ourselves to avoid the innuendos.

Emily and Laura helped supervise the fire pit.

After dinner I had to help put things away and also have a staff meeting. I told the girls they could head back to the cabin if they wanted since it was going to be awhile. They seemed a little nervous that they might get lost but they did just fine. They both took showers and we basically went straight to bed. All the fresh air and hiking made them pretty tuckered out.

Friday: We woke up fairly early and went up to the dinning hall to grab some breakfast before we headed out. Then we packed our stuff in the car and then of course I was a doup and locked the keys in the trunk. (nice way to start the trip huh? :) ) Then I had to run back to upper camp and find Ange to ask if she had another set of keys. Thankfully she did and then we could get on our merry way.

We didn’t have a set plan of what we wanted to see or do in LA. We just had a GPS and a goal to see as much as we could. Our first stop was Hollywood.

Hollywood or BUST!

This is Laura and I with the Hollywood sign in the background. It was hard to get a good picture of it but it was neat to say that we’ve now seen it.

Time to hit the streets ladies just like the stars! Maybe we’ll see some?

Well we didn’t see any real stars but we had fun looking at all of these stars on the side walks. This is Emily with Tom Hanks.

This is me with my more famous self, Sharon Stone.

This is Laura leaving her mark where Julie Andrews once was.

This is me posing as Richard Gere. He has big feet!

We stopped in bunch of souvenir shops because Laura was on a hunt for a Christmas tree ornament. We didn’t exactly find one but Emily and I found these awesome sunglasses. Very fitting, don’t you think?

Then we had to put our normal sunglasses back on. Sad times. :)

Emily wanted to check out the Kodak Theater. Which is where they host the Oscars. We are standing on the stairs where they role out the red carpet.

Once we were done with Hollywood Blvd. we kept driving to hit up some other famous Boulevards. Our first stop was Rodeo Drive. We basically window shopped because all the shops were places like Dulce and Cabaña. But we stopped in Coach for Catherine. The cheapest wallet I found was something like $95. Ouch!

Laura loves this street can you tell?

This is Laura and Emily posing with their Coach items, Emily’s sunglasses and Laura’s purs. I was taking the photo because my things are from the Village (not quite as high end). :)

Laura and I a posing outside of Tiffany’s as if we have huge jewelry.

Then we got back in our car to drive to our final destination for the day, Santa Monica. This is where the famous hwy 66 ends. I honestly didn’t know it was famous until we got there. Apparently people used to drive this hwy all the time and come to the Santa Monica pier just to reach the end of it.

This was our motel that we pulled into. It was a little sketchy especially when we checked in and they handed us the remote control. Oops I guess they don’t trust people with the remotes at this place. The room wasn’t all that great especially compared to the price we paid for it.

Once we check in and settled in we hit the beach. This is a view of the pier. They had a whole carnival on the pier. The view wasn’t the best this night because the smog was so bad. Bummer, dumb pollution.

Santa Monica is known as the muscle beach and this picture shows why. There were work out stations all along the sidewalks. It looked like an outdoor gymnastics play area with hanging rings and everything.

On the pier was a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I told the girls that when I first got out here I thought that this was such a cute local coffee shop but then I soon realized that they are everywhere. They are about as common as Caribou Coffee in Minnesota. They thought it was really funny so they kept pointing them out everywhere we went.

The thing I liked best about the pier was the restaurant we went to. It was called Mariasol. We had an excellent view of the ocean and a great waiter. Plus the food and drinks was great as you can see!

We treated ourselves to fancy margaritas. Yummy!

After dinner we tried to chase the sunset, but didn’t quite make it. We still had fun and got a great picture.

This was a pretty sunset but the colors are due to the smog. Yuk!

Once the sun had set we went off and played in the waves. Run Laura! Oops Emily got wet. :)

Right as we took this picture a huge wave came and our pants all got soaked!

We drove back to our motel and got dolled up to have a night out with the girls in Santa Monica. It was fun since I hadn’t done that forever! While we waited for the night life to come out we did some browsing in some shops. This one was fun and of course met we had to take a picture of our silliness.

We eventually went out to a Pool Bar and a British Pub but neither place really suited us and so we just went back to our motel. We bought a 12 pack of beer and just stayed up late catching up with the girls. It was so much fun! See sometimes it doesn’t matter were you are to have a great time just so long as you are with good friends. :)

Saturday: We woke up the next morning excited for our beach day. We grabbed some breakfast on the pier and then laid out so soak up the rays. The rays were warm but the weather was not. We still had a nice time people watching, reading and talking. I of course burnt my back (no surprise huh?) but since I had my shorts on my legs were spared. :) The water was way too cold to actually go in but Laura and I waded for a while and our pants soaked. There were lots of laughs and screams.

Aww a relaxing day at the beach!

For lunch we went to Paneria which was great because we got to eat outside. It was also funny because the woman who took our order asked if we had been to the beach because we looked like it. Beach bums all the way!

While we were at the beach some birds pooped on the car so here Laura and I are imitating the birds. :)

After the beach we hopped back in the car and went for a scenic drive down the coast. We had to weave a little bit to try to stay by the coast but it was worth it. We got to pass through Hermosa beach (which is were Kevin’s aunt and uncle live so it was fun to be back there), Venice Beach, and Redondo Beach. There were others but these were the ones I remember. We stopped to see the coast and the true beauty of what I call California. I was so happy to show them the image I have of California. It was so pretty! Here are a couple pictures Emily took. They turned out great!

After a packed afternoon of weaving through traffic and cars we decided we just didn’t want to be in a car anymore. We called the hotel we were staying in to see if they had a hot tub and sure enough they did so that’s where we went.

We made one stop for dinner at In-N-Out. No trip out west is complete without an In-N-Out burger.

Once we got to the hotel we got ready for the hot tub and just relaxed there for the evening. We had to go to bed fairly early because they had to fly out at 5:00 am. We conked out pretty quickly.

Sunday: We got up early and I dropped the girls off at the airport in Ontario. Thankfully the airport was close so we didn’t have to go far. The poor girls had a long day of traveling ahead of them.

I was so happy they came out and we had a wonderful weekend! I can’t wait to see them again in just a matter of weeks! I’m starting to count down the days!