It is our 2nd weekend back in LA and things are finally seeming to return to normal after a little over 2 months of traveling off and on for family events and of course our wedding. Unfortunately, we've both had a very hectic return to work after the honeymoon - and last week was exceptionally busy as well. My company hosted our 2nd annual sales conference, bringing over 50 salespeople from around the globe to our LA office and Paul prepared for a large meeting with one of his clients - Boost Mobile. We also seem to have a full calendar through till mid-November, although all fun things - family visiting, friend's birthday's and beer gardens. We have a tough life. :)
This weekend and last weekend we wanted to have time to relax and catch up with our friends, so that is exactly what we did. On Friday night we discovered a new Mexican restaurant walking distance from our house and steps to the beach. We met friends there and spent the night out in Playa del Rey - which consists of lots of hole in the wall dive bars - but that's just what we love.
Saturday morning we took Riley on a long walk down the beach. Our house is up on a big hill, but we are about 10 minutes walking to the beach. We took Riley out for a while, but it got pretty hot - up to 80 degrees, so we went home to relax indoors for a while.
Saturday night we went to a concert with our friends Jason and Luke. We've been waiting for this show for a while, the bands were Passion Pit and Muse at the Staples Center downtown. Everytime I go to Staples Center I am surprised by how much downtown has been built up. There are skyscrapers and apartment buildings with lofts and tons of bars and restaurants. We parked at LA Live a new mall/entertainment complex across the street from Staples Center and were shocked at all there is to do. That is on our to do list for our next date.
Today was another gorgeous day - it finally feels like summer here, it had been unseasonably cool all summer - in the low 70s so it was nice to have a day where it was in the 80s. We took Riley to the Abbott Kinney Festival - it's in Venice, and we try to go every year. They shut down the whole street and it is lined with vendors, street performers, jewlers, artists, food trucks, etc. We walked around for about 2 hours and actually also came across a local dive shop that we're going to check out for our certification. We never knew but there are supposed to be huge kelp forests off the coast of LA - near to Catalina Island. Would be cool someday...
We'll close out the weekend sipping on some white wine and catching the last football games of the day. Tough weekend :) A few photos from the festival are below.
We decided to drive up to Venice to show them the Venice canals and go for a walk. We ended up getting gorgeous weather (after several days of rain) as we walked through all of the canals and showed Omi and Opa the houses.
After a long walk around the Venice canals, we drove to Playa Vista and had a light lunch at Piknic restaurant. We spent the early afternoon looking at wedding photos and hearing all about their recent travels from Germany to Philadelphia and of course how the family is doing back in Rochester and Syracuse. 
