California

The first week in November we spent with some friends out in California... a second honeymoon some might say to make up for the first!  We really had a fabulous time, our hosts Ben and Anne (Ben and Matt were roommates in college) were awesome and they did a great job of showing us around.  They live in Pasadena which is right outside of downtown LA.  We did a lot of small day trips to surrounding towns including but not limited to Santa Monica, Malibu, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Westwood, and Pasadena of course.  We also did a longer day trips to Santa Barbara and Orange County/Hunington Beach.  Another cool thing, Ben and Anne had gotten tickets to be in the audience of The Late Show with Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel Live!  Both were a lot of fun :)  its cool to see how things work from the other end.  Here are some pictures for you to enjoy of our lovely stay.  Hopefully we will be out there again sometime soon!

This was on Rodeo Drive just after we landed in California

Also on Rodeo Drive... we found a nice fountain

The Beach at Santa Monica our first view of the Pacific Ocean

Matt was trying to get a picture of him kissing the plant but was rudely surprised at its pointy leaves!

We went to visit Pepperdine University's Campus in Malibu, this tree was absolutely gorgeous

These pictures were also taken at Pepperdine, they had a huge lawn that overlooked the ocean!

This was at the Hunington Gardens, it was a huge estate that had many different types of gardens in it.  So beautiful

 

There was this hummingbird in one of the trees that keep coming back a posing for me, I seriously was maybe a foot away from it in this picture!

These are our hosts Ben and Anne.  This picture is a little blurry but its the only shot I have of them, sad I know...

 

This is Ben and Anne in front of us walking to the Japanese Garden I believe

This was at Hunington Beach in Orange County we got to play some beach volleyball then hung out at the water for a little.  It was freezing cold though so not much more than wading happened.

We had some fun taking jumping pictures :)

all four of us!

I have more of the pictures uploaded on facebook if you want to take a look at some more :)