California Livin'!

The total love of my life and I on the pier!

I have to say that our trip was an amazing one. I got to see the hundreds of wonderful reasons why people love living life in sunny Southern Cali! The beautiful mountains and beaches, the spectacular climate, the FASHION, the flowers and trees. Well, just about everything California.

Saturday was when we were left to ourselves to kind of drive around and see everything. We ended up taking I-5 up past LA to Hollywood and coasted up and down Hollywood Blvd, Sunset Blvd and even driving down the famous Rodeo Drive where all the celebs shop. As I stated below Sunset and Hollywood Blvd's were nothing spectacular by any means. But Rodeo Dr was beautiful. It was also the place that the GAYDAR was roaring out of control. Brandon was driving and said that it seemed like there were a bunch of gay men couples walking around. I said that just because two men are seen walking together doesn't mean they are gay. Then I took a closer look, and YUP there were couples everywhere of both sexes. All I could think was that's not something you often see in Utah! I wasn't very bothered by it, because I don't judge people like that, but it was just something I wasn't used to seeing. Then we passed a store just outside of the shops that was called "Love Connection" with yet another FREE HIV TESTING neon sign and couldn't help but think of the Hillcrest part of San Diego, or the Montrose part of Houston!

We just had a fantastic time and I am thankful to have had the chance to go. We came back refreshed and ready to tackle anything!

HAHAHA oops! We came out on the other side from underneath the pier only to find this sign! (for those of you that REALLY know me, this SO should not surprise you!)
Walking under the pier was a little creepy, but also very cool to hear the water crash between all the wood posts! Oh and there was a million oysters that had super-glued themselves in little colonies on all of the posts!
This was taken REALLY closed to the pier and I just thought it was a little funny.
Funny thing that this incredibly good looking guy came up to me and asked me to take a picture of him! ;) The Santa Monica Pier!

This is the Santa Monica beach! It was an absolutely spectacular day!


This was a neat fountain on the temple grounds! One thing that is for sure is that the Church doesn't hold back in honoring the Lord with such incredible but simple beauty!

I really liked this picture!
More pretty flowers!
It's not every day either that you come upon a freakin' Rolls Royce in a temple parking lot!
I loved these flowers so much I had to take a picture!
We took a turn down Santa Monica Boulevard and without even trying to look for it, we came up on the LA temple! It was huge! I loved it and the grounds surrounding it!

I thought it was cool that we came across the classic Beverly Hills sign! Needless to say the area was absolutely beautiful! I loved the trees and what few homes we actually saw! Oh and every other car was seriously a BMW, Mercedes, Range Rover, Lexus, VW, Hummer, etc.
We came across this store and just HAD to take a picture of it. I thought the name was hilarious but then took a second look at the "FREE HIV TESTING" neon sign. It's DEFINITELY not everyday you see that. All I could think was "welcome to California".


I have to say that compared to all the glitz and glamour that is portrayed as Hollywood Blvd, the real thing is really nothing special. There were many of the regular everyday stores that you see in any other state. But it was kind of cool to see the Kodak Theatre.
I think this is Hollywood Boulevard. There were tons of people. We realized that there was a long line of people camped out on one of the sidewalks waiting to buy New Kids tickets!
I saw this building (notice the all too classic California graffiti beneath) and had to take a picture! Too weird!
Coasting along the Interstate 5 we saw this so I had to act quick to take a picture!
One of our first glimpses of downtown LA. It had some really cool buildings! And we were lucky to never get stuck in what is the infamous traffic!

At the Huntington Beach Pier! It was VERY cold and windy! We couldn't believe there were people surfing and swimming! Luckily the days after this one were much warmer!

Right before we got to the HB pier, there was this artist that could do some of the coolest spray paint art I had ever seen. He did different things in just a matter of minutes. It was awesome!
The giant advertisements in Cali were not something that we were used to seeing!
This is one of the first pictures we took while in Huntington Beach, CA. It was so funny! "brandon coming out of the closet".