Girls' Weekend in La La Land and Newport

Two of my best friends came out for a girls' weekend at the end of February. We used to live within a few blocks of each other in Salt Lake City and now we live in three different states. We stayed at our house but spent two full days on the go sans kids.

Our first day was in LA which was exciting for me because after living in Southern California for three years, I still hadn't done a true trip to La La Land. We started the day with brunch and a hike to the Hollywood sign.

We could see downtown LA and the ocean off in the distance.

Then we made our way to Hollywood Boulevard and checked out the Chinese Theater.

We battled some good LA traffic to make it to the Venice Canals before sunset.

We capped off the night at a newfound favorite restaurant called Greenleaf in Venice Beach and followed with the famous Salt & Straw ice cream.

We stayed up way too late chatting and then headed to Newport Beach for lunch on the pier the next day.

We took a boat tour around the Newport Harbor and learned about celebrity homes.

The sea lions were relaxing in the bay as usual.

We took the ferry over to Balboa Island and walked along the harbor. I loved the tribute to the Olympics.

There are about 20 more places I could have taken them. SoCal is never a bad idea for a girls' weekend!

Clobsters

We met my friend Kristen and her family at Newport Beach over President's Day weekend. Crew and Finn put claw shovels on their hands and crawled around on their hands and knees all day. They called themselves "clobsters," which I guess is a combination of a crab and a lobster.

Kristen's little boy, Boston, copied everything they did.

We did the usual Newport drill; ferry over to Balboa Island and Balboa Bars. It's our go to whenever we have company in town and it never gets old. We love having a reason to spend a day in Newport.

Newport at Christmas

We didn't get to do most of our Christmas Break plans because we had too many sickies but we finally made it out of the house a few days after Christmas to do our traditional Newport Beach day.

It felt so good to be out in the fresh air away from the house. We ate lunch on the pier and met up with family from Long Beach.

So much to look at on the colorful pier.

We took the ferry over to Balboa Island as per usual.

Nash's aunt Bree bought him the new release of a book in one of his favorite series at the quaint island bookstore. She was definitely the favorite person of the day.

Even after I bought him a Balboa Bar.

I have so many photos of the boys lined up eating their Balboa Bars on this bench and yet I still can't stop snapping.

Back to the book.

We topped off the early sunset at the ocean where the water was cold but the air was warm. There's no place the boys love more.

I think I still have a little Michigan winter PTSD from my 20+ years there, but it still blows my mind that we spent December 28th at the beach.