Jon's L.A. Weekend
My brother Jon came to visit me for a weekend (June 28 - July 1) from Minnesota. They are staying there for a few months on home assignment from Ireland. Since I don't get very much time with him it was extra special to spend a whole weekend together and just be able to hang out. We drove all over LA so it was a very fun weekend to do some favorite things, but also to enjoy seeing new things as well.
On Thursday, I drove right from work to go pick Jon up from LAX. Oh, I found out why it's called LAX... back in the day it used to be called the LA airport, but when they went into having a three digit code for airports, they decided just to add an "X" to fill in the extra letter needed. So, the X doesn't stand for anything, it's just filler. :) Did you know that O'Hare is ORD because it used to be called "Orchard Airport" but then was later changed to be named after someone. I know, I'm full of useless knowledge. Just thought I'd share some of it with you! Aren't you glad you know that now???
So, back to the story... I picked up Jon from LAX and we drove south to Manhattan Beach. We drove through town a little bit and by the ocean in time to see the sunset. That was a cool way to start his California weekend! I took him to try fish tacos at Rubios. He was a skeptic because, let's face it, fish tacos sound gross unless you've had a really great one! I wasn't too keen on the idea until I had my first one back in November and now I'm hooked. They are so good! Anyway, a guy he works with in Ireland had a shirt that Jon used to mock because it said fish tacos on it (he's from Southern California). Well, turns out that Jon likes fish tacos too so now he'll have to eat his words when he sees his friend again.
On Friday, we drove to the beach again. This time we went to Santa Monica and walked around the pier, the beach, and the Third Street Promenade for a few hours. We had lunch at Wolfgang Puck Express. It was great food. Gormet fast food... you gotta love it! :) The first two pictures are of Jon in Santa Monica.
After leaving Santa Monica, we drove north up the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu and then drove inland to see a canyon and state park area. It was a nice drive through some scenic areas. There were some ranches with horses and some large homes. We found Mulholland Drive and drove along that scenic drive for a while too. There are lots of scenic places where you can stop to look around. It's a very winding road on top of the mountains so it's hard to keep focused on driving because you want to look at all the huge homes and beautiful views. (The picture of Jon pointing is to show Stacey where he's going to build their retirement home!!!) Good luck with that. The next picture is of Burbank where a lot of studios are located. The picture after that has the Hollywood sign in the background. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you might just be able to see the sign above Jon's shoulder.
After driving around for a while, we drove right into Hollywood so I took Jon to go see the sights there. The next seven pictures are of the Kodak Theater and Grauman's Chinese Theater (where the stars handprints are).
On Saturday, we drove down to Orange County to see Laguna Beach. We drove south along the PCH to see some of the beaches along the way. It was amazing to see the wealth and the amount of people who live near the coast. Laguna Beach is known for it's great art museum, beaches, and shops. We walked around the town for a little while, had lunch at a little chinese hole in the wall place, and went over to the beach to walk around.
After walking around Laguna, we drove north up to Downtown Disney. It's next to the park and a fun place to walk around without having to pay entrance into the park. They have tons of shops, entertainment, and restaurants to enjoy. Jon and I went to a movie there (Shrek 3) and also went to the Lego shop. We thought the boys would enjoy seeing the huge lego giraffe and the life size lego statue of Darth Vader. All the restaurants were pretty busy with a long wait, so we drove back to Arcadia and I took Jon to Claim Jumper for dinner.
On Sunday, we went to church in Pasadena, then I drove him around the area to show him where I work and some of the places I like to go there. We had lunch with a couple from Mosiac who are students at Fuller and want to be missionaries in Ireland. It was an interesting connection so I don't know if it will come of anything, but maybe God arranged it just so that Jon could be an encouragement to them and help answer some questions they might have about life in Ireland!
After lunch, we drove to the Getty to see the gardens and artwork at the museum. It's such a gorgeous place! I love going there. We enjoyed walking around the grounds to see the gardens and the architecture as well as the artwork inside the various buildings. I've been there with Tammy and went another time with Scott, but the exhibits are always changing so it's fun to go back and see it again at different times. It's too big to see all of it in one day anyway, so each time I go I see another part of it that I haven't seen before. I know that Jon doesn't like art as much as I do, but I think he still enjoyed it too.
All in all, it was a very fun filled weekend! Thanks for visiting me Jon!!! :) I'm looking forward to spending more time with my family in a week. We are having a family reunion in Wisconsin on July 22-29 so I'll be posting more pictures of family after that.
