Mini Vacay

 

Venice Beach 

 

 Such a vibrantly colorful and exciting place. I am so fortunate to have a cousin who lives right there, on a sailboat in Marina del Rey actually. I spent the past two and half days up there, and had a blast! I experienced so many new things and I loved every single one of them. Here's a run down of my couple-daycation.

I got there on Thursday around noon, and Jessica (my dear cousin) immediately jumped into my car to go to a job of hers for a couple of hours. She's a studio teacher - among other things - and goes on movie sets or things of the like and teaches child actors and enforces child labor laws. So we first went to Sissy Spacek's daughter's film, but since the kids had already been in school, all that was required of Jes was to just watch (and eat lots of delicious food, which I got to partake in because I was "jobshadowing" her - Oh and btw I guess S. Spacek is really famous?) Then we went to Nickelodeon studios and watched a kid record a cartoon show.

Friday morning we woke up early, took the kids to school, and went sailing. Just to let you all know, we are complete NOVICES at sailing. I've only been one other time and she's never been by herself either. But we tacked and gibbed and sailed like the best of them - maybe not as well as the 16 year old who was sailing around the world, but at least we didn't have to be rescued. (30 foot waves notwithstanding) Both of us did almost die, however. I decided to sit in a hammock that was strung on the stern, and as soon as I let go of the boat I started swinging around wildly and was almost impaled by the ladder. While she decided to hang from the bow, but we were laughing so hard that she almost didn't have enough strength to pull herself up. But we made it back safe and sound and are ridiculously proud of ourselves.

After our sailing experience we took the kids, Sage and Kaien, to their respective auditions; ate a surprisingly (to me at least) delicious all natural, vegan restaurant in Westwood, went to Benefit and got threaded, ouch!, and took the kids home so we could go to the spa. Now this isn't any regular ol' spa, we went to a Korean bathhouse, and as I found out, LA's best kept secret in the heart of Korea town/ the ghetto. I will have to go into detail of this amazing spa in a later post. But for now, just know that it was almost heaven on earth. After the spa we went to The Waterfront restaurant right at the Marina where there was live music playing and tons of people partying. An 80's band was there and the lead singer fell in love with my cousin, had her come up on stage and do a handstand because somehow he could tell that she was a gymnast, then proposed to her and sneaked a kiss!  

After the restaurant, we were so deliriously tired that we decided to go sailing at 3 o'clock AM with some people we met at the Waterfront, well not actually sailing, but motoring around the harbor. So we didn't go to bed until at least 4:00 and woke up at eight to go to a boot camp at the Santa Monica pier!

To get to boot camp, we rode a THREE PERSON BICYCLE. Never heard of one? Well that's probably because they don't really exist - at least as far as I know. We rode a tandem bike with one of those special bike hitches that add an extra bicycle to the back. So we had one person on each seat and then Kaien stood on the handlebars. We were quite a spectacle, and after quite a few spills I finally got the steering down and we rode all over Santa Monica, went to the  Farmer's Market and I finally found some tennis shoes I love! At American Eagle of all places, I got a pair of super cute and functional New Balances, and for less than fifty dollars. We rode home, I learned how to play a little handball, and then I had to make the 2 hour drive back to SD to go to work.

All in all, I had an amazing, fantastic vacation with my overly generous and fun cousin. Thank you so much for all the experiences Jessica London!

P.S. Sorry about the uber long post, but there was just so much to tell I couldn't shorten it at all! And isn't that picture great? I guess there really are three person bicycles, and apparently ten person!