While in Santa Monica, we had to stop at a photobooth (I’m a sucker for those). And hey, a picture of me too!

After our full day of shopping on Friday, we decided to…shop again. This time we went to Abbott Kinney, and I don’t know why I delude myself that I will ever be able to afford something along there. But we had a great lunch at lemonade, and Anna found a couple of cute finds. We weren’t going to do anything too outdoorsy and adventurous since we would be heading south to visit family and have dinner that evening.

This is one of the like, two or three pictures Whitney and I have together in LA. We don’t have many opportunities to have someone snap a photo of the both of us, so I made sure to have Anna grab just one. I was also really excited about finally getting to wear my owl pants!

That Sunday I finally got to make a trip to the Rose Bowl Flea Market with my sister and cousin. Luckily it fell on the Sunday Anna was visiting, so I waited to venture out there until she came. It is a huge flea market that can be extremely overwhelming, but it was fun! And I welcomed the gloriously warm weather that day with open arms. I came home with this wonderful Alice plaque that has a page of the book (original illustrations) plastered on it (I’ll have to take a picture of it) and…wait for it…a leather jacket! I have been on the search for a leather jacket for months and was so glad to have finally found one that I loved. Usually the jacket is too expensive, or too short, or doesn’t have pockets, or has a weird zipper on the side instead of the middle. But this one…this one was everything I wanted: style, size, color, everything. I looked all day at the flea market for one and was giving up until on our way to the exit, I saw a rack of jackets and thought I’d try just one more time. And there it was. And only $20. It was fate. I’m wearing it in the instant photos above, but I’ll have to take a better photo of it.

That night we went out for Thai food (I’m now obsessed with Thai teas), and got coffee and dessert in downtown Culver.

On Monday my cousin (Andria), Anna, and I rode bikes down to Marina del Rey. I rode Whitney’s bike, so Anna could ride mine, and let me tell you…it was an experience. The bike is too big for him, so you can only imagine how big it was for me. I didn’t feel unsafe or anything, but I could barely sit on the seat and reach the pedals at the same time, so for the 6 miles to the beach and the 6 miles back home, I had to maneuver this weird, side sitting/standing thing. What a workout. That night we grabbed dinner with an old friend we hadn’t seen in years.

Tuesday we went hiking at Laguna Canyon. It was a much easier hike than I expected, and…it was warm! Coming from Texas, it just doesn’t seem to get warm enough here in California. So I loved it.

We also went to the beach again…this time Laguna Beach. Unlike the day before, it was actually warm enough for us to sit on the beach and relax for hours. I was so excited to finally have a really great beach day. That night we got $1.25 tacos and $3 margaritas for dinner!

Anna left the next day for San Francisco, but I saw her that following Sunday for lunch at The Farmer’s Market and cupcakes at Sprinkles before she had to catch her flight. I was so sad to see her go…we had such a great time. I’m trying to convince her to move out here (or at least to California) when she graduates. We’ll see what happens! I’ll leave you with a couple more Instax photos Anna took on her camera:

Dinner with Thomas at Native Foods.

Our hike at Laguna Canyon.

-wonderland sam