LA and other things...

Well I had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend!! After begging Whitney and me to come to LA for months now, we finally decided to pay Ashley a visit!! She is moving home in 3 weeks so we knew that if we were ever going to go see her, the time was now! Grif took me to the airport Thursday morning and I flew into Houston so that I could fly out there with Whitney. We got there around 12:30 or so and did not stop until we left Sunday morning! Because Whitney and I had been to LA on Spring Break two years before, we were able to skip out on the extremely tourist sitings such as the Kodak Theatre, etc. We did, however, hit up all the hotspots that you always read about in magazines and see on The Hills. Here is a breakdown of the trip:

Thursday:
* Ate at Cafe Primo - had the most amazing panini of my life
* Went to Beverly Hills - the houses are ridiculously gorgeous. i was super jealous.
* Went to Westwood - this is where UCLA is located and Whit and I loved this area. It was more relaxed and there was a huge college population, which brought us back to the ol' Baylor days!
* Went to the Farmer's Market - Ashley seriously lives in one of the best apartment complexes in LA... right across the street is The Grove (where TomKat takes Suri and where many other celebrities go). At the grove is The Farmer's Market, which is basically a ton of outdoor vendors who sell amazing food with an equally amazing price tag. I had delicious sushi rolls for $7.50, no joke.
* Went to Guys and Dolls - the it club in LA right now. Because Ashley's friend new the bouncer, we were able to get on the list, by-pass a massive line, and feel like major VIPs getting in sooo quickly. While we were there, we were able to sit at a table where we got free drinks. Our celebrity sitings included... drumroll please... ROD STEWART!!! We sat at the table rights next to Rod Stewart and his kids. It was his son's birthday, so we of course sang happy birthday to him!! Also, two tables down were Khloe and Rob Kardashian. On a side note, Khloe is always made out to be the fat one when, in reality, she is gorgeous. Oh, and Rob is super cute in person!

Friday:
* Ate breakfast at some place that I cannot remember the name of... but it was really good!!
* Went to Melrose - did TONS of shopping!! I got 2 cute jackets at a vintage store... one a brown leather, the other a peacoat of sorts. I also got 2 or 3 new dresses and a cute top!
* Went to Santa Monica - cute beachy feel and tons of shopping!!
* Ate lunch at 80 degrees, this really good burger place. I had a burger with mozarella and tomato on it and it was too-die-for! The fries were good too :)
* Went to Pinkberry - good but a tad bit overrated I must admit. While it was fresh and light, I could have gone for a little more sweetness :)
* Ate dinner at Tender Greens - because we didn't get home until 8:00 on Friday night from shopping, we didn't get out to dinner until 10:00! Tender Greens is in the gay area of LA and their food was amazing! I had a really great salad!

Saturday:
* Went to Runyon Canyon and hiked - this was sooo fun and extremely tiring. Not only do I rarely hike up mountains, but the altitude was pretty fierce as well! But we did run into a girl from Texas who was wearing Nike running shorts like us. Everyone else had on spandex. Yikes.
* Went to The Ivy - great food, but the prices were expensive because of the atmosphere! We had great enchiladas and guacamole!!
* Went to Robertson, which is basically a muted version of Rodeo Drive. It has tons of designer stores and a few not so pricey stores like Kitson. We shopped around there for quite a bit. Celebrity Siting numero dos... Angela Simmons from Daddy's Girls and Run's House... we saw her in Chanel and she is absolutely gorgeous in person, even more beautiful than on TV!
* Went to the The Abbey, which is basically the largest gay bar in LA!! Two of Ashley's neighbors wanted to take us out so we went there! There were tons of people there and it was seriously a blast! Plus, the bar had a bakery in the back, which we thought was pretty cool!
* We ended the night by going to the Roxy where Benji Madden was Djing! Although the crowd was a bit sleezy... he was super good and we had a blast! It was a great way to end our trip!

Overall, we had an amazing trip and went 90 to nothing the whole time we were there. We left Sunday morning super early and made it home by 5:00 to go to Granbury for the night! We spent Labor Day with family had a wonderful day!

In other news, we bought another car yesterday...i know... another CAR!!! It feels like we have bought and sold more cars in the past 2 months than we ever have in our lives!! Here is a rundown of the car situation:
1) We sold Griffin's truck in order to save money and bought him an old jeep that he could fix up and drive to a from work (5 miles) until he gets another car in a year or so.
2) When we saw how much Griffin got for his truck, we decided we should sell my car too in order to get a less expensive/equally nice SUV.
3) We sold my car and got a steal on a Grand Jeep Cherokee
4) Griffin put a lift and new tires on his old Jeep
5) Griffin realizes his new pimped out Jeep does not fit in the parking garage at work
6) We decide we need to get another car so that he does not have to ride to work with Hastings everyday
7) We buy a Jetta!! After some negotiating, we were able to get a super sweet deal on a Jetta that only had 32k miles on it! Plus it had leather and a sunroof, 2 of my loves. We got the car because of the incredible gas mileage (over 32 mpg), but ended up loving it! Plus it is big enough for when we have our first kid, which isn't for a while but I intend on keeping this car for quite some time.

So we had 2 cars and ended up with 3 entirely different cars.
Our neighbors probably think we are sooooo weird.

On another note, today is my first day of substitute teaching. In fact, I am sitting in class right now on conference period. I am booked out basically for the next month so it should be interesting!!

Hope everyone else is doing great and had a happy Labor Day!