me & the scrippsie tour

here is my super long overdue post about my scrippsie tour of southern ca...

i flew out to LA and spent the first couple of days with the lovely catherine and the super sweet lucy. we had loads of fun shopping, chatting, eating, movies, yoga-ing and just good ole hanging out. i was out there for miss lucy's first week of school so while catherine and lucy were at school, i got to explore their neighborhood in santa monica. they live in such a great area! i found all kinds of neat shops to stop in and peruse and of course there was a starbucks where i could read my book. i'm quite excellent at entertaining myself. i do it all the time... anyways, one night we met up with sarah for some yoga and another night we saw the social network which i thought was an awesome movie. i walked away with a huge crush on the guy that plays the twins in the movie. yummmmm...


sarah joined us as lucy's personal stylist at anthropologie. omg, lucy looked so darn good in their clothes!


me and the lu.


after a couple of days with catherine, matt and lucy, i moved addresses and joined miss lyman for a quick visit. since it was her birthday weekend, we did a bit of celebrating!


we got our make up done at the bobbi brown counter and then went to dinner at the border grill. who needs a glass when your the bday girl?! not sarah! straight from the pitcher, baby!



catherine and erin joined in for the dinner celebration


as did preston, me (is that me with the dark hair?!?! still not used to seeing me), and liz



aj, preston and me. that is not the same pitcher that belonged to sarah. we got our own at that end of the table.


after dinner, we went to the hotel erwin's rooftop bar, high.


aaaaaaaand here's aj's head! i think the perspective on this pic is so funny.


after visiting santa monica and getting in a quick trip to malibu to visit my aunt ellen and uncle jim, i headed down to San Clemente to visit the Wucetiches. thanks again to sarah for letting me borrow her car so that i could drive alllllll the way out to malibu to visit ellen and jim - they just moved from plano (dallas suburb) to malibu over the summer. their house is beautiful! we had a very nice lovely italian dinner at some restaurant whose name i don't remember.


in the OC, courtney allowed her child to wear a speedo!! hahahahaa... just kidding... she swears it is just a swim diaper. you be the judge :) in any case, sarah drove us down there and we spent that sunday afternoon by the pool, in the hot tub and eating a fabulous dinner outside bbq'd by peter.


while in the OC, we got to play at the beach, take some walks thru the neighborhood, eat fro-yo, snuggle with my lil man harrison (he slept with me every night!), literally run around cars with the lil man alex and go out to dinner.


one night we went to pizza port. alex is an excellent boxer. peter and courtney are excellent boxers and game players as well. i'm told that was a 'mild' night there. omg, if anyone needs some birth control - go to pizza port! haha.


i can now understand how courtney is in such good shape - alex definitely keeps her on her toes all the time! he is endless bundles of energy and beyond adorable. he even made me teary when we said goodbye at the train in san juan capistrano... he gave me a hug, blew me a kiss and i forget what he said exactly, but it was so cute i bout died. after a couple more hugs, we said goodbye and i jumped on the choo choo to glendale!


as my final stop on the scrippsie tour (are you counting? 4 scrippsies graciously hosted me on this trip!) was mrs sarah and the dave's place in glendale. i really liked that giant s on the wall. i'm gunna get me a big k. or maybe h. but i like k i think better. hmmm. anyways, after this picture was taken, we all went to pasadena for a dinner at roy's. YUM.

the next day i went to school with dr mrs sarah macschwendy and had a great day watching her teach her two classes. i kinda really loved being a student again! i didn't even take my phone with me in to the class room so i wouldn't be tempted to check my email if there was group time :) and now i've been convinced to read devil in the white city (omg, i have so many books i want to read right now!) since sarah had been teaching it in her first class. and in her second class, which is her team taught one i was learning so much that since they had passed out a handout, i took one and even took notes (as evidenced above!)! i learned about coleridge and jacques-louis david. i really enjoyed being a student and i can again testify to the fact that sarah is a fabulous professor!!!

in between her two classes, we got to go to the wb studios lot in burbank and meet aj for a quickie lunch. never been on a studio lot before...i'll admit, i felt pretty darn cool!

that evening, sarah made a fabulous lasagna and the three of us ate very well that evening and enjoyed a lovely bottle of wine. and then after a much much too short of a trip, it was time for me to head back home to chicago.

thank you so much to all of my amazing hosts - i love you all! i couldn't have asked for a better trip... unless it was longer... and i'd gotten to see everyone... and well, i guess something has to be left until next time!