Kelsey!

Our cousin Kelsey came to visit us from Utah for a full week! It was so great spending time with her and it was fun for me to get to know her better. She is basically another sister-in-law for me-she's pretty close to the Haskell's. She's the only child in her family and I asked her one day if she ever wished she had siblings. She answered without hesitation, "No, I had the Haskell's."

I had a slow week at work (shocking, I know) so we were able to do lots. Kyle took Monday off and we did the whole Hollywood and Beverly Hills thing. That was fun because this time we bought a map of movie stars' homes and used our GPS to find some. Not all of them were accurate....I was hoping to take a picture of Sandra Bullock's home for my father-in-law (she is his favorite) but instead I'm pretty sure it took us to Snow White's cottage. However, we did see the homes (or rather, the tall bushes hiding them) of Courtney Cox, Jennifer Anniston, Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes, and Tim McGraw/Faith Hill! It was fun, and as usual, Kyle was a good sport. I wish I had a recording of the way he said each person's name as we pulled onto their street. You'll just have to imagine it-he would say, "Ohhhh Sandra?" As in, come out come out wherever you are! He also had fun trying to persuade us that random people were them. For example, after we failed to find Meg Ryan's home (she is one of my favorites so I was really excited about it) he suggested that some Mexican gardner in front of a nice house down the road was actually her in disguise. Kelsey and I know better than to believe anything that comes from Kyle, but we did manage to convince ourselves of a few things. After pulling away from Faith Hill's house (bushes) Kelsey and I were sure she was driving the car behind us. Kelsey even managed to snap a picture but we're pretty sure now that it wasn't her. And....we may or may not have jumped out of the car thinking that we saw Eric Dane (AKA McSteamy) outside of a sandwich shop near Rodeo Drive. We drove about a block before we got out, and we were very calm and collected as we walked by...only to realize it wasn't him. But on the bright side, we never had to figure out a subtle way to suddenly turn and walk back in the direction we came from.

We drove to the "tourist" place to view the sign and

we were a little disappointed in how far away it was.

Even the Rite Aid in Beverly Hills was fancy

This is the gate leading to Jennifer Anniston's house.

Exciting I know.

The palm trees lining Courtney Cox's home.

Courtney Cox's home...doesn't look like much from

this view, especially with that truck in front, but I stole

this picture below from the internet that shows the rest





We wanted to see the Fresh Prince of Belair House before we left, but traffic was crazy so we decided to put it on our agenda next time. We went to Santa Monica and spent the evening there instead of heading back during rush hour. We went to the Santa Monica Pier which has a lot of fun things to do and supposedly is in a lot of movies. I know Forrest Gump is one, but not sure what others. Kelsey and I rode the ferris wheel which had a great view. Kyle spent that time strategizing his moves for a game that he played. The object is to make it to the top of the ladder without flipping over and is of course much harder than it seems. Lets just say, if I hadn't snapped this picture the second he got on, there would be no picture. Our plan was to watch the sunrise on the beach but it was actually pretty chilly so we did a little shopping instead. It has been in the 90's and 100's all month, and of course the week Kelsey was here it was only 70 along the coast. Near the water that's always pretty chilly.

On the ferris wheel

View from the ferris wheel

On Tuesday Kelsey and I went to the Yucaipa Regional Park which is a huge, open park that has a campground and lake, and also a man-made lake that's basically a pool with two big slides. We had a blast. I would go there every day if it didn't cost money, but it will be a fun place to take our nieces and nephews when they visit. Wednesday we went to Newport Beach and on the way home we stopped at Corona Del Mar and took some pictures. I have heard great things about that beach but didn't realize how close it was to Newport. It was really pretty. Thursday we went shopping. There are lots of cool malls around here, and we went to one that I always hear about but had never been. (One of the best things about having company is getting to explore new things.) And Friday, since I had no appointments for the weekend, we decided to go camping. Some friends from church were camping in Carpenteria, which is near Ventura and is 2.5 hours away and they invited us to come along. We don't have camping gear but we brought blankets and decided we would rough it for the night. The campsite was RIGHT next to the beach, (hence the reason we drove 3 hours to go camping) and it was awesome. One of the family's had an extra tent so we slept in there. I kind of wanted to try sleeping on the beach, but we figured it probably wasn't allowed so instead Kyle set his alarm for 5am and we went to the beach to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately it was really cloudy so there wasn't much of a sight to see. We fell back asleep and woke up a couple hours later when a beach patrol guy drove up next to us.

Him: "Are you camping here?"

Us: "Yes, just right there" (Pointed to our site which was just yards away)

Him: "Well, you're not allowed to sleep on the beach"

Us: "Okay, well we didn't. We just came out to see the sunrise a couple hours ago."

Him: "Oh, ok. Well we had some complaints that you've been out here since really early this morning."

Us: "Nope, just a couple hours."

Him: "Okay then" (Got back in his car and drove away)

Seriously, who has nothing better to do than call the beach patrol and tell on two innocent people watching a sunrise? Lame.

I remembered how much I love camping and I'm hoping to do it some more, especially while it is just us. The other families had kids and it looked like so much work. Mom, what are those things called you have that we use to cook pizzas in over the fire? Nobody here has every heard of them, and I dont understand how people camp without them! I put the pizzas on foil instead and they were good, but they're definitely better with those. I'll post the camping pictures later because this post is getting LONG.

It was great having another girl around and I miss Kelsey already! I didn't know how much we have in common. I figured I would get some good chick flick watching in, but I had no idea she loved all my favorite shows-One Tree Hill, Friends, The O.C., Gilmore Girls. etc. I'm so glad she came! I'm going to need her to come back real soon. :)