Hello Los Angeles...!
Well, It has now been several days since I arrived in the greater LA area, so perhaps it is now time for another post...
Jenny, baby Thomas, and I arrived last Saturday morning (almost exactly a week ago) around 1:45AM from Las Vegas at Curtis and Jenny's new place in Canoga Park (although the address is more commonly recognized as being part of Winnetka...no, not the one in Illinois...California!). We were exhausted so we brought in the absolute necessities and went straight to sleep. I was overjoyed at the sight of the aerobed already set up with sheets and everything in a little corner of the front living room. Sleep!!!
Next day, I wrangled baby Thomas mostly while unpacking of various sorts occurred. Playing with Thomas was such fun - babies are endlessly interesting :-)
On Sunday, Jonathan's mom happened to be in the area at Uncle Whit and Aunt Caroline's (Jonathan's father's brother and his wife), so Jenny and Curtis drove me to burbank to meet j-mom and she and I headed over to W & C's over in La Canada/Flintridge. What followed that Sunday afternoon was complete fun, as I was introduced and re-introduced to W & C's numerous children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. (As I happened to be in the area, an invitation to this family gathering was graciously extended to me, YAY!!!)
We all had lots of fun chatting, eating, and laughing. What a fine fun family!
That night I stayed at W & C's with j-mom, and the four of us had an evening of visiting, which was quite enjoyable.
Monday was back to Curtis & Jenny's, where we spent the evening with some great items from Trader Joe's while visiting in the back computer/tv room.
Tuesday morning, Curtis dropped me off at the rental car place, and I picked up my rental car (my very first time ever renting a car on my own, without Jonathan!), which proved to be completely uneventful and easy. Let's hope the drop-off proves to be as easy...
The middle/late part of Tuesday was quite interesting, as I ended up back in Pasadena for lunch with W & C, and j-mom. We had a lovely lunch at the Parkway Grill (I think that's the name) on Arroyo Pkwy in Pasadena. I highly recommend the tuna sashimi nicoise salad :-D Tas-ty! (also, house-made sorbets, yum!)
So that afternoon, I had nothing to do as Rockel was at work and Zifnab & Lanth were still on their way back from FL. So, after convincing myself that my ultimate goal for this trip didn't have to include spending every moment of every single day with people, I decided to catch a movie on my own. I went in to Old Pasadena and caught Rush Hour 3 at the Paseo Colorado. (mostly because it was the only movie showing at 3, and I didn't want to wait a whole hour until 4. Also, I hadn't seen it and wanted to...) It was a pretty good movie, with alot of fun action scenes, for sure. However, I felt that there was really only essence of plot to it. *sigh*
Next, there was still nobody at the apartment, so I walked around the Caltech campus for a couple of hours chatting with an old friend, until my phone promptly died. Of course, at that point everyone decided to call me and I couldn't get to an outlet to plug in my phone. So I sat on Zif and Lanth's front stoop until they pulled up in Funktrousers' swank prius :-)
Wednesday I headed over to Redlands to see my grandma and great-aunt and great-uncle. I stayed with my grandma until today. We had quite a nice time, and we were both in great spirits for the visit! Yesterday morning we shared a lovely visit with my great-aunt and last night we had a fantastic dinner with my uncle Dan who drove up from Huntington beach.
We went out to a Mediterranean restaurant called Caprice Cafe and shared some delicious dishes! First, one of my favorite veggies, beets - we had golden and red beets with goat cheese and micro greens, drizzled with some house made vinaigrette of some sort, also we had a roasted portabello mushroom with cheese and greens, and then a Mediterranean platter with an assortment of olives, dolmas, hummus, mous'saka, and feta cheese. Those were followed up by two small pizzas: wild mushroom, asparagus, fontina cheese and thyme & tomatoes, basil, mozzarella and squash blossoms. Yum! Finally, for a special dessert we had their version of a Napolean (a traditional French pastry) made with layers of phyllo dough layered with grand marnier cream and fresh raspberries with honey :-) mmmmmmm....
Now here I am back in Pasadena, and Zif, Lanth, Rockel, and I went out for some great sushi at Zono Sushi. Tasty!
While there, we discovered that Rockel had never tasted Pocky, nor did he even know what it was...
and that's all for now... I feel like I've written an extremely trying book.
Jenny, baby Thomas, and I arrived last Saturday morning (almost exactly a week ago) around 1:45AM from Las Vegas at Curtis and Jenny's new place in Canoga Park (although the address is more commonly recognized as being part of Winnetka...no, not the one in Illinois...California!). We were exhausted so we brought in the absolute necessities and went straight to sleep. I was overjoyed at the sight of the aerobed already set up with sheets and everything in a little corner of the front living room. Sleep!!!
Next day, I wrangled baby Thomas mostly while unpacking of various sorts occurred. Playing with Thomas was such fun - babies are endlessly interesting :-)
On Sunday, Jonathan's mom happened to be in the area at Uncle Whit and Aunt Caroline's (Jonathan's father's brother and his wife), so Jenny and Curtis drove me to burbank to meet j-mom and she and I headed over to W & C's over in La Canada/Flintridge. What followed that Sunday afternoon was complete fun, as I was introduced and re-introduced to W & C's numerous children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. (As I happened to be in the area, an invitation to this family gathering was graciously extended to me, YAY!!!)
We all had lots of fun chatting, eating, and laughing. What a fine fun family!
That night I stayed at W & C's with j-mom, and the four of us had an evening of visiting, which was quite enjoyable.
Monday was back to Curtis & Jenny's, where we spent the evening with some great items from Trader Joe's while visiting in the back computer/tv room.
Tuesday morning, Curtis dropped me off at the rental car place, and I picked up my rental car (my very first time ever renting a car on my own, without Jonathan!), which proved to be completely uneventful and easy. Let's hope the drop-off proves to be as easy...
The middle/late part of Tuesday was quite interesting, as I ended up back in Pasadena for lunch with W & C, and j-mom. We had a lovely lunch at the Parkway Grill (I think that's the name) on Arroyo Pkwy in Pasadena. I highly recommend the tuna sashimi nicoise salad :-D Tas-ty! (also, house-made sorbets, yum!)
So that afternoon, I had nothing to do as Rockel was at work and Zifnab & Lanth were still on their way back from FL. So, after convincing myself that my ultimate goal for this trip didn't have to include spending every moment of every single day with people, I decided to catch a movie on my own. I went in to Old Pasadena and caught Rush Hour 3 at the Paseo Colorado. (mostly because it was the only movie showing at 3, and I didn't want to wait a whole hour until 4. Also, I hadn't seen it and wanted to...) It was a pretty good movie, with alot of fun action scenes, for sure. However, I felt that there was really only essence of plot to it. *sigh*
Next, there was still nobody at the apartment, so I walked around the Caltech campus for a couple of hours chatting with an old friend, until my phone promptly died. Of course, at that point everyone decided to call me and I couldn't get to an outlet to plug in my phone. So I sat on Zif and Lanth's front stoop until they pulled up in Funktrousers' swank prius :-)
Wednesday I headed over to Redlands to see my grandma and great-aunt and great-uncle. I stayed with my grandma until today. We had quite a nice time, and we were both in great spirits for the visit! Yesterday morning we shared a lovely visit with my great-aunt and last night we had a fantastic dinner with my uncle Dan who drove up from Huntington beach.
We went out to a Mediterranean restaurant called Caprice Cafe and shared some delicious dishes! First, one of my favorite veggies, beets - we had golden and red beets with goat cheese and micro greens, drizzled with some house made vinaigrette of some sort, also we had a roasted portabello mushroom with cheese and greens, and then a Mediterranean platter with an assortment of olives, dolmas, hummus, mous'saka, and feta cheese. Those were followed up by two small pizzas: wild mushroom, asparagus, fontina cheese and thyme & tomatoes, basil, mozzarella and squash blossoms. Yum! Finally, for a special dessert we had their version of a Napolean (a traditional French pastry) made with layers of phyllo dough layered with grand marnier cream and fresh raspberries with honey :-) mmmmmmm....
Now here I am back in Pasadena, and Zif, Lanth, Rockel, and I went out for some great sushi at Zono Sushi. Tasty!
While there, we discovered that Rockel had never tasted Pocky, nor did he even know what it was...
and that's all for now... I feel like I've written an extremely trying book.
Labels: California, family, restaurants, travel
posted by willowlaughter at 01:03
2 Comments:
"Trying"? I'm not sure... but informative and interesting, yes!
Wish I was there, too!
Man, I can't believe you get to hang out with my brother out there before I do! Soooo jealous! Love you! :)
Post a Comment
<< Home