"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides"

WHEW! It has been a BUSY two weeks! It's great having friends only an hour or two away, and also to have friends come visit from 2600 miles away! 

I spent last weekend in LA with Jeff and Hillary, who were as hospitable as always, allowing me to stay with them in their loft and showing me a good time in Hollywood! We took another urban hike up Griffith Park, this time passing by the Observatory and heading up to the top of the hill. You can see the Observatory in the (high up) photo of the city, in the middle left. And that orangish layer atop the city is smog, not sunshine. Mmm, mmm, pollution. 

After our exhaustingly refreshing hike, some food, and showers, we drove out to Santa Monica. The pier marks the end of Route 66, which was pretty cool to see, since I've driven across quite of bit of it now! Santa Monica was a pretty (expensive) area and gifted us with a gorgeous sunset. We ended the night on Saturday with a UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade) comedy show... hilarious and fun.

Sunday, we obviously were SUPER PUMPED for the Super Bowl!!! There is a Ravens fan group in LA called the West Wing, so we joined them at the Parlor, which was 
basically a bar full of people from Maryland who all now live in LA. IT WAS AWESOME! Lots of purple, lots of excitement, and I felt like I was back home watching the game downtown! Someone in the group even bought two cakes from Charm City Cakes, and the bar served a special "Maryland menu" of old bay'ed everything. Yummo!

I went to see Thomas Rhett at the Brandin' Iron on Tuesday, which was in a questionable area (as is everything in San Bernadino county), which was a great show! One of the traveling nurses from work went with me. I'm hoping she'll still be around for Casey James on my birthday!!

This weekend brought me the early Valentine's Day gift of BFFs from Maryland! Liz, Ali, and Brian came to San Diego for the weekend. Thanks again to Beth for her VERY gracious hostessing! We did a little sightseeing in Coronado, took a pit stop for a picture in La Jolla, and spent some time in Old Town San Diego. And of course, I had to introduce everyone to best fish tacos in PB :-) Thanks for coming, guys! Hopefully y'all will take back the chilly weather to Maryland ;-)

This week, I have to give another shout out to the makers of video chatting... Got to see the DWYD crew on FaceTime :-) So thanks, technology! 

A happy Valentine's Day week to all! <3