weekend of excitement

Its been a while! Last weekend my brother came to stay for a few days. He flew in on a Thursday night but on our way to the airport the four of us stopped by a circus. My cousin and I actually "won" "free" tickets at the library! Just a couple days before, my uncle had turned down 4 free tickets at work with hopes of avoiding the circus, sorry Randy. The irony of the situation was that when we showed up to go to will call to get our tickets, the line was hundreds of people long! Within about 15 minutes of our probably several hour wait, the circus for tonight was sold out. Sydney was bummed but my uncle worked his magic and we ended up sitting 9th row center without paying a cent.




Needless to say, the circus was awesome.

Adventures with Nate began Friday morning with a sweet hike. We ended up going 8ish miles through the Santa Monica Mountian Range. I absolutely LOVE hiking and it offers ample time to catch up with friends/family :)



yup, thats the ocean in the background :)

Back at the house we freshened up, I applied for a job, and we headed off to the Getty museum. Of course the 16 mile trip couldn't take 15 minutes, it had to take 45 but its all part of the LA experience! The Getty is a really neat aritecherated (this isn't a real word) building but it has no famous pieces of art to offer. Neither Nate or I recognized any artist names.

Of course no trip to LA would be complete without a picture with the Hollywood sign and visiting the Walk of the Stars. Both were a lot of fun. MJ's star was still crowded with people crying and bringing flowers to show their respects. Finally, around 8:30 we headed to the Hollywood Bowl for an Ultimate Mancini concert. I was greatly mistaken thinking I would get to see this Ultimate Mancini, apparently he has passed away. Oops. Honest mistake. The concert was AWESOME!!

Saturday we went on another incredible hike, then headed to the Santa Monica beach to fry up some Nate. It worked! I haven't seen someone so burnt in quite some time. I managed to squeeze in a long run and by the end of the day Nate and I were quite the awkward walking pair - him with his sun burns and me with my run burns. After a dinner and quick stroll through the promenade we headed south to Carlsbad, just north of San Diego. Earlier that day we had booked us a 2-star hotel :)

Early Sunday morning I babysat for some kids while their parents did a triathlon. The kids were awesome and Carlbad is incredible - they serve coffee on Main Street at 6AM - can't beat that! Of course we had to make a dash for the airport just after the triathlon and didn't get a chance to do much sightseeing but it completed the weekend in the perfect way. It was SO nice to hang-out with my brother. He got to see a lot while he was here and I had a blast showing him around!