Hannah and Joe Visit LA!

We had the privilege of Hannah and Joe (sis and her boyfriend) visiting us over July 4th. Here was our itinerary, Marley & Me style:

Day 1 (after a late night arrival on Sunday night): We woke up. I had to work for a few hours, so dropped them off in Santa Monica for some sight seeing via a bike ride along the water. I picked them up for lunch and we went to Umami Burger where we sat outside, Cali style. For dinner, Brent returned from adventures in Bridezilla-land and begged us for quality, nicer food. So we went to Waterloo & City, a British gastropub that we love. Great food, great beer.

Day 2: We packed up the car for an overnight trip to San Diego with Ava in tow. Our first stop was Ocean Beach for a quick deli lunch followed by the dog beach. We all had fun playing with Ava and watching the other dogs. Little puppy tried to dig a hole to China! It was so cute. Next we checked in at the hotel. We left shortly after for Old Town San Diego and walked around the shops for awhile. We were all feeling hungry early, so stopped at Old Town Mexican Cafe. It was about 7:30 when we finished, so we were in time to drive to La Jolla and admire the beautiful sunset from the cliffs, play with some sea lions and get some great shots on the cliffs, sea spray and all. We walked around La Jolla, got some Starbucks then jumped in the car again for the Gaslamp District. We didn't have a bar destination in mind, so landed at Quality Social, which I'd heard good things about. We had a fun night trying their cocktails... hangin' in a booth... having some good conversations. :)

Day 3: We wake up in San Diego, eat a not-too-bad continental waffle breakfast and head to Hotel Del Coronado. Hannah channeled Melanie and focused on learning about the hotel's ghost. Next, we head to Pacific Beach, which is usually my favorite BUT a lifeguard ending up kicking us off the beach for having Ava with us. This pissed us off because we read the beach's tourism website before coming. Apparently, the website had it wrong. We got a little beach time in before heading home. I think we cooked a stir fry that night at home and just hung out. We introduced J & H to our favorite board game, Scrutineyes.

Day 4: We headed to Hollywood. First stop was Grauman's Chinese Theater. As it turned out, the theater was blocked off for the premiere of "Horrible Bosses". We decided to own our tourist status and hang around until the premiere... well kinda. We killed a few hours by heading to Arclight to watch "Transformers." Afterwards, the premiere was in full swing. While we had to elbow the crowd and stand on tip toes (except for Joe of course), we saw Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Jamie Fox, all about 10 feet away from us (squeal!).

Jason Sedeikis at the premiere.

Day 5: This was more of a low key day. We hiked to a waterfall in Malibu. For dinner, we went to one of our favorite restaurants for sushi, the original Katsu-Ya.

Day 6: Our friends threw a pool party in Valencia, so we obliged because it was HOT. It was fun... good drinks, great Mexican food and some relaxation at the pool.

Day 7: On the last day, we showed J & H the view from the Griffith Park Observatory. It is quite amazing... I'd kind of forgotten about that factor. For dinner we headed downtown for gourmet hot dogs (i.e. alligator) and great beers at Wurstkuche. I had wanted to take Joe and Hannah to a fun, circus-y bar with live music called Villian's Tavern, but it was a Sunday night and the place was unexpectedly closed. So we took them to Library Bar to complete our LA adventure.

Day 8: Sadly, on the morning of the 4th, Joe and Hannah flew back. We had a lot of fun and can't wait for them to come back. I've promised that we'll head north next time!