Surprises and burns

This weekend was pretty low key. Tried to run some errands on Saturday, but the city was having an Armed Forces parade which kept traffic at the ridiculous level. It took 3 hours to accomplish two tasks on my list, so I gave that up and took a nap in the afternoon before we headed up to the surprise birthday party for a friend at a restaurant on Larchmont in LA called Cafe Du Village.

We walked through the kitchen to eat out on the back patio and to surprise our friend for her 30th birthday. One of the tasks in the morning was to get her an awesome gift, but unfortunately that did not happen as traversing around the parade route was ridiculous, we ended up getting her a small gift and hopefully we can take them out to dinner sometime soon. That is not me with the headband on in the pic, it is actually a friend named Leslie.
We ate and talked and like any good French restaurant, we stayed for a good four hours.
After dinner we took a ride out to see our friend's new condo that they purchased in the Highland Park area and to see their vacation photos from Ecuador and the Galapagos. It looked like an amazing trip, but it was late and we left after we looked through the photos.
I slept in on Sunday, met with friends at the Wildflower cafe and then played beach volleyball. The sky was completely overcast, no need for sunglasses...yet I ended up getting pink arms anyway. I must remember to always wear the high powered sunscreen or hire someone to follow me around with an umbrella. My friend Karen and I are indestructible at Volleyball. We were unbeaten yesterday! :)

Swamped

So, we had our HUGE work event (golf tournament) on Monday of this week, so I worked last weekend before the event and worked this week to wrap things up. The one day I took off to relax was Sunday, so we spent some time down by the beach. We took the bikes down, because the crowds were crazy. This pic is a little bit of the flowering plants that were along the path...they are taking over!
Due to the event, the house has become a disaster. Laundry everywhere, dishes to do, newspapers piling up and basically the place becoming a pit.
So, that will be on the plan for this weekend.
I also need to remember to get thank you cards for some at the office as well. They thanked me for my hard work with gift certificates for a massage and dinner and my supervisor even got me a bottle of chambord...because I told her how much I like a little bit of it in Fresca...yum.
I wish I could think of something to get them because they are so generous.
I am hoping this weekend is as nice as the last because I will be free free free from thinking of golf. :)
Hope to catch up with everyone soon...

Finally found the time

I have not updated in a while. This past week and weekend was busy. On Saturday, we took flat Stan (school project) to the Hollywood sign and Mann's Chinese. We ate at Johnny Rockets and the rest of the afternoon I felt like I had grown an extra stomach. We then gathered enough strength to go meet up with friends at Hennessey's Tavern for some catching up.


On Sunday, I went on a hike with the Sierra club in the morning. The hike was in the Santa Monica mountains and was an easy hike up to the Nike missle tower that they have now made into a little park with tables and bathrooms and a great view. This was the first time that I had hiked with the club and there were quite a few people who were new. Everyone was really cool and I got to try out my new Merrell hiking shoes which are ULTRA comfortable.

The weekend was nice break from the business in the office. The entire last week during the day I was confined to this one area, my prison cube:Well, that was when I was not fighting with my nemesis:

The cool thing about last week is that I got a chance to wear the necklace that my sister got me for my birthday. I really love it:

Birthday Week Celebration :)

So, since our weekend volleyball outing at the beach we have been celebrating my birthday, which was officially yesterday. My co-workers treated me to lunch and got me a delicious and beautiful bundt cake for lunch. YUM!
For dinner we went to Kincaid's on the pier so that I could get my favorite meal there...the filet mignon. I definitely crave their filet every so often and the prices mean it has to be a special occasion. The restaurant had about five other tables with birthdays as we could see by the balloons and candles on desserts. My candled dessert was the creme brulee:The waiter told us that there was one evening where every table he waited on was a birthday table. I never thought about Kincaid's being the chucky cheese of adult birthdays, but maybe it is closer than we would like to think.
The unfortunate part of the evening was that the Fun Factory was not open for me to play the skee ball....NOOOOO, why are you closed on Tuesdays....noooooo!I took a ton of photos because one of my gifts from Jon was a tiny digital camera that I will be able to carry around with me everywhere. :) More pictures for you to see! The other was a membership to the public radio station KCRW.
Plus, they sent an awesome CD along with the membership. Very cool!
Today, I came into work to find that I received some more flowers as a late birthday gift from a co-worker and the mail in the evening yielded gifts from my family! :) What a great week!
More pictures to follow soon!