R&R with D&D

Brett and I have had standing plans with Dave & Dayna for quite a while now. As in, "we need to get together...let's figure out when that can be, and do it.". Well, Friday night, we got in touch with them....and it all came together to where we could actually hang out this weekend.

So, I got up early (before the sprinklers had the chance to wake me at 830am) on Saturday morning, packed up a few things, and headed to get Brett. We took the long, scenic route through Malibu to Santa Monica. We decided to hang out at 3rd Street Promenade for the afternoon. We did a little shopping, and ate some lunch.

Ever since we'd missed the Greek Festival a few weekends ago, I'd been craving a gyro. So, when we saw the Greek place on the strip, that is where we ended up. Turns out that one of the waitresses name there was also Annemarie....I don't really meet too many of those! :) The gyro was worth the wait......yummy!!

We found Brett a few new shirts and a pair of jeans. As we were walking into Anthropologie, I said to Brett "Let's go in here and look at dresses I can't afford.". But when I saw this fun, yellow, dress, it was love at first sight. Brett told me that I had to try it on, even though I'd said there was no way I was buying it.

Well, I put it on, and knew I had to have it. I walked out of the dressing room, and knew that Brett wanted me to have it. So, I justified to myself that I could buy it and wear it to Melissa's wedding later this year. That logic didn't make sense to Brett one bit, and he convinced me to just go ahead and put it on. So, the next store we went into, I changed into it in that store's dressing room. He also put on a new shirt, and we strutted our stuff. :)

Next on our plan was to check out the Getty Center. It was crazy crowded, which usually evidently isn't the case, so we had to go all the way down to the 7th underground level to find a parking spot in the garage. Well, there were spots on the 6th, but Brett got carried away and wanted to go down as low as we could. When we got down there, the landing for that floor was painted yellow!! And it was the 7th floor. I agreed that was where we were meant to park. I even blended in with the wall, so we had a little photo shoot.

I learned, once again, that I am totally awkward on the other side of the camera. TOTALLY. Don't believe me? Ask Brett. It's bad!! But, this one wasn't too bad. I do love me some yellow!!!

The Getty Center is a super neat spot. The whole time I was there, I was thinking that it'd be a great spot for a photo shoot. We took the nice camera with us, and grabbed a few fun shots. We didn't spend as much time going through and looking at the art as we did just walking around the grounds. I would love to go back there one day and have a picnic. Just beautiful, with a great view of the city.

These trees were neat. If you look at them straight on (pic on the left), it looks like there is only one tree...but you walk to the right just a tad (pic on the right), and you can see them all. There were so many neat architectural details in the designs of the museum.

After we'd seen as much of the center as we were going to see....we got excited and headed over to see D&D. Shortly after we got there, we took off to eat at El Cholo. It was really yummy, and we stuffed ourselves. Dave said "I don't eat that often with bloggers", as I said that we had to go to the front of the restaurant to get a group shot.

The boys took a few more takes than Dayna and I to figure out how to act normal....so I thought I'd share the out takes as well.

We had a great night of fellowship and conversation...it's what I love most about D&D. Nothing is off limits, and it's great to have friends like them. We all retired to the couches and talked until we were too tired to do it anymore.

Sunday morning we all went to church, and I was so grateful that we were there. Everything about the service.....the worship, the message, the people...were all wonderful. I was a bit of a mess during church, not sure what it was, but it was great. I met some awesome folks afterwards and look forward to when we can visit with them again. If LA wasn't LA, I'd say that these two were enough of a reason to want to move there.

We were all invited to the Crawford Restaurant (Dayna's parent's house) for lunch afterwards....and we couldn't have made a better decision than to accept the invite. Kent cooked up some of the veggies from his garden, grilled some tri-tip, threw together a really tasty tomato and spinach salad....and we thoroughly enjoyed it all. Fresh fruit and watermelon for dessert too.

The four of us headed back and sat around chatting it up until we had to leave to head home. It was the perfect weekend, and I'm glad that we finally got to spend time with D&D.