Saturday Stroll

What do you do on your average Saturday in SoCal when you got nothing to do? Explore! Today, we decided to take a little ride up the PCH (That's Pacific Coast Hwy, for those of you not in the know).
We drove up the coast to Malibu and beyond to see if we couldn't find ourselves a place to get some lunchtime grub. Well... we found a little place on the side of the road called Neptune's Nest; With a pretty cool view of the Pacific and some great seafood to boot.

Oh, and it just so happened that the sun was setting as we made our way back down the coast...

Enough is Enough!

Ok folks. I know that you are looking at my blog because you have told me that you enjoyed it. Well.....why no comments? Don't be scared, share your feelings; if I can share, you can too (my mom and my sister made me say 1 "I feel" statement a day to help me open up).

1. Just click "Comment"
2. Type your comment
3. Select "Anonymous" from the identity list
4. Type the secret word
5. Click "Login and Publish"

It is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo easy!

Love you all!!!

Cracking The Price Is Right

We made our first attempt. We arrived at the studio at 6:45am and didn't get in! We got stand-by seats, but decided that wasn't good enough. The process is crazy and I cannot believe the effort that needs to go into this.
We plan on trying again next week....wish us luck!

What the heck!

Why doesn't anyone hold the door for you here? At first I was getting really annoyed and thought I had just picked the wrong people to follow out. But you know what? It keeps happening, and all the time. Nobody holds the door for you! In fact - you know when you slide through a door that is closing so you don't have to touch it with your clean hands (but only when someone isn't behind you), well that is what everyone seems to do out here - even when you're right behind them. Maybe CA is full of germaphobes? Or, maybe the weather is always nice so they aren't used to having the doors closed and don't know this common courtesy? I don't know. I will get to the bottom of this and let you know. So, if you come and visit be sure not to let the door hit you smack in the face. Just kidding. I of course will continue to hold the door - I just risk being there all day.

Did I Mention that it was 80 Today?

The weather is amazing here. Supposedly this is not "normal" weather for January, but whatever. I can't get enough! We have been in our new place for a week now. No more boxes or suitcases. We spent the past week getting some furniture, exploring our new neighborhood and just enjoying the weather. Has gotten as high as 85... it's January people!!!

So we were a little shocked when we first walked into our apartment (after that grueling 9 hour drive from Vegas) - it is a lot smaller than we are used to. And, it can get a little noisy since we are on the ground level. But we can not give up the 3 blocks to the beach and 2 blocks to the main strip of Manhattan Beach. The location is perfect! What a great introduction to our new town.

Manhattan Beach is adorable! The main strip has a number of great restaurants and cute boutiques. The best part is The Strand that runs along the beach. So condusive to biking, jogging and rollerblading (What's the worst part about rollerblading? Telling your parents your gay).

Well....What can I say. A week into it and I feel better than I have in a long time! Please come and visit!!! You may just move here :)

Check Out this Deal!

We realized today that we are in NEED of a dresser. We have great closet space, but when it gets down to it you need a place to put your underwear. So... I found this monster on Craig's List...
Just $100. So we drove up to Santa Monica to pick her up. Yeah - doesn't fit in my car. So, we rent a truck and bring it home. Not bad.....$140 all said and done. Gotta love Craig's List!

National Lampoon's: Gomez Vacation

The drive was amazing, I had no idea our country's landscape was so diverse and beautiful. We left on Dec 27th. The first few days were a little rough - we were not big fans of "middle America". Milton's worst fears were realized. We did stop at the Arch in St. Louis - cool, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it.
Maybe we were just excited to get to New Mexico so didn't appreciate the beauty??

We met up with our friend Mike Mapes (amazing driver of Milton's car) and his friend, Austin, in Santa Fe, NM on Dec 30th. Santa Fe was great. The town was so cute. Architecture was interesting and different, adobe style - all sand colors, sprawling and nothing higher than 3 levels. The four of us went out to a great dinner with a waitress that referred to us as "sweetie", "honey", "love" and "darling", but all seemed so right. The next morning we headed for Flagstaff, AZ.

Milton and I stopped by Sandia Peak just outside Albequerque, NM on the way . It is 10,378 feet above sea level. It was breath-taking at the top. Literally, 20% less oxygen than at sea level. I think that is the highest I have ever been outside of an airplane. I felt like you could see the entire mid-west up there. They say you can see 3 miles if you are at sea level when the land is flat... How many miles can you see if the land is flat except for the 10,000 foot mountain you are standing on. I don't know the answer, but I encourage you to experience it.

We headed west toward Flagstaff for the big New Years Eve bash. Before we arrived at Flagstaff, we pulled off the highway and drove 6 miles south to see the famous "Meteor Crater." Well, turns out we arrived 12 minutes after closing so could not see the mile wide, 500 ft deep crater in the earth caused by a meteor thousands of years ago... Milton almost pulled a Clark W. Griswald on the security guard.

We reached Flagstaff with a sour taste in our mouth form the crater experience. But lucky for us, we had the Pine Cone Drop to look forward to. In case you didn't know, Flagstaff has a big Pine Cone drop at midnight to ring in the new year (kinda like the ball in Times Square, but it's a pine cone, and it's only from about 2 1/2 stories up) - it is off the hook! (not really, but we had a good time! And yes, that is the pine cone in the background.)

Off to the Grand Canyon on new year's day. There really isn't a lot to say. It is a Natural Wonder of the world for a good reason. We stopped at a few of the look out points. We are now really anxious to plan a trip there later this year, to camp and hike. We welcome you to join us. We did see a really huge elk too.

After a little bit of debate, we headed to Vegas for the last night of our trip. Is there a better introduction to the left side of the country? I was surprisingly mesmerized by Vegas! I loved it! We stayed at the Mirage, walked the strip, gambled enough to pay for our room and doubled down! VEGAS BABY, VEGAS!

We left Vegas just before noon with the hopes of walking into our new apartment in the day light. Always best to see a new apartment (that you have already signed a lease for, but have never actually seen) in the light of day. But...Holiday weekend in Vegas = crazy traffic back to CA. One road in and one road out. 9 hours later (should've been a 4 hour drive) we arrived in Manhattan Beach, CA. The silver lining while sitting in traffic in the Mojave Desert was that we found a Williams & Sonoma Outlet. What are the chances? Slim! There are only 6 in the country... and one is in the middle of the desert. A small spending spree later on dishes, glasses and other stuff we didn't bring with us, energized me for the rest of the drive :) Not to mention the amazing sunset over the desert. The west coast had just experienced torrential rains over the previous 3 days and had major flood damage. The sky opened up a couple of hours into California and gave us an amazing show. I must have said WOW! 400 times in 1 hour.

I was nervous as hell, and honestly I started to freak out a little about 3 hours outside of CA. "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M. came on the radio - I had myself a good cry and then charged forward into the unknown. We arrived to our new apartment around 10pm... about 6 hours after we had planned. Damned traffic!!! We emptied out our car, blew up our air mattress and settled into our new apartment for the night. Anxious to see where we will be living... in the daylight!