Lilie's Adventure in Cali: Qu'est-ce-qu'on se marre

Well, it's been a while... but it's getting busy at work and budgets and such. Now, for the not-so-boring stuff...

Mom came over for Pioneer Day weekend and we had a blast! So fun to have company, and my mom's always a treat to have around. We can suddenly burst out laughing till we cry... like that one time at the post office, remember mom? (j'etais dans le bus et j'ai vu une femme sortir.... ENORME... et puis le conductuer du bus avait un pif..... ENORME). Qu'est-ce-qu'on s'est marrés!

So it all started when I picked her up at LAX late Friday morning, and we went straight to Santa Monica. We had lunch at Mr. Marcel, and had fun stroll on 3rd Street Promenade, bought goodies at L'occitane, got myself a leopard print bikini top and blue dress shirt at H&M (not planning to wear them together), and had fun on the roller coaster on the pier, watching the ocean from a few dozen feet in the air with a few thrills. We went for a walk on the shore - it was packed, by the way! I then introduced her to the gigantic Whole Foods in El Segundo... and this is where we both had the time of our lives. So many goodies! Sushi bar, handmade pizza bar, mozzarella balls bar, little lemon raspberry tarts bakery... we grabbed some things and had dinner while watching "It Could Happen To You", with Nicholas Cage. I had never seen it but got the DVD one Christmas from the in-laws to be. It was kind of cute!

Saturday morning we walked on the beach for an hour and a half, then had brunch at "Yellow Vase", a cute French style café that's very yellow and sell awesome gourmet chocolates as well as flowers! Their roasted vegetable garden salad and my green chile omelet was to die for. We then got ready and I decided to show my mom Orange County and bring her to my favorite Beach, Salt Creek Beach at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel. "Why don't I take the 55 South and we'll get out at Newport Beach and just take PCH down to Dana Point? PCH is cute down that way. And although it was cuter than I remember, it took us 2.5 hours from my place to our final destination... that's just nuts, it was only 60 miles away! But once we arrived at the Beach and the waves were awesomer than I could imagine... the water wasn't too cold... we went in and the waves took us away... so strong that I even had a slight unintentional wardrobe malfunction in the left torso area I'm embarrassed to say... but we totally had a blast. Isn't it funny how you get really hungry after being exhausted from the being in the water?? Luckily coming home only took a little over an hour (Thanks, Interstate 5) and we watched "27 dresses" while eating leftovers and went to sleep.

Sunday was more of a chillax day, we walked on the beach for an hour, did squats for the last 5 minutes in the sand to get buns of steel, and Mom helped install a bunch of stuff in my apartment! The clock in the dining room, the filtered showerhead in the bathtub, we went to BBB to get a space saver above the loo, and some cute decorations above the dining room table. We then went to Beach V-ball, played for a few hours (A big thumbs-up to Mom who played very well for not having played in 30 years!!!), we then went to a fabulous place on the Riviera that I wanted to try called "Turquoise", a delicious organic place of Mediterranean tapas, surprisingly delightful blends of flavors, and an exquisite experience - with a really handsome & charming waiter to top it off. I'll be back! For the food, not the waiter... :)

So that's about it! Hope you all had a fabulous weekend... I'm excited because I get to see Babe soon, hopefully early next week.... it's been 6 weeks already and it's just too darn long!!!

Today I'm grateful for great friends, a great mom, a great man by my side and just life in general. Have a great night!! Here are some pictures...

Salt Creek Beach