Scenes from the weekend!

Good morning all!!

What a wonderful weekend, I just love when I get the opportunity to say that instead of trudging in to work on Monday morning and when asked what I did over the weekend, I blank, my mind is in a thought fog. Anyways the reason for my wonderful weekend, my cousin came in for a visit. She lives a few hours away from me and I long for every opportunity we get to see each other. As cousins, I consider us extremely close. She was my maid of honor at my wedding, and growing up we were asked a lot if we were fraternal twins. We are only 1.5 years and 4 days apart but the fraternal twin thing part, that is because our mothers are identical twins which creates a close and unique bond on my mother's side of the family. As we have gotten older, we resemble fraternal twins less and less but regardless she is definitely one of the closest people to me in my life. 

She came into town on Friday afternoon and a HUGE thanks to my husband who graciously went to pick her up from the airport. When I got off work, I raced home to hang out, we ate dinner and then went with some friends of ours this cool jazz club called the Hip Kitty that serves fondue. What makes the work week melt away like nothing else, a pot of chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, pineapple, marshmallows, rice crispies and snickers bars to dip in! That was our fun-filled Friday evening.

Saturday we headed over to the Santa Monica farmers market, which has been a dream of mine now fulfilled. I don't know why it is a dream, but I have always heard about the this farmers market and always wished I could go. If you want all organic products, beef that is hormone free and eggs from chickens that are cage free this farmers market has it all. Enjoy the following photos of the farmers market. If we weren't going to out all day, I could have bought a bouquet of the gorgeous flowers being sold for my kitchen table, sigh... if only. 

Berries, we bought a box of blueberries, raspberries and golden raspberries which was our delicious breakfast

yum! mushrooms

How beautiful

Who wouldn't want to buy a bouquet of these lovelies!

Just gorgeous!

Following our jaunt through the farmers market we drove down to Venice Beach, you know the infamous Muscle Beach with the outdoor iron pumping gym. No joke! maybe it is a shame I have lived in the southern California area for almost 10 years(wow, and when am I gonna get out) but I have never visited Venice Beach, it definitely was an experience. All the street performers, the vendors, and the street food. No visit to Venice Beach is complete however without a stop at the actual beach. 

There was tons of activity for sure at Venice Beach, roller skaters, yes people are still roller skating and actually they were skate dancers. Bikers, skate boarders and break dancers, there was tons happening. I found this sign!

Walking along the beach front properties with a lot of very nice homes, you can tell they hired an architecture with modern design taste, I saw this in front of one of the homes. What do you think?

After Venice Beach, we went to a street called Abbott Kinney which is filled with tons of design and antique shops and if you have an extra $1000 to burn on designer pieces for your house, you must check out Abbott Kinney. And another surprise of visiting Venice Beach was the actual canals built on a block away from the ocean which was a complete and pleasant surprise after all the hussle and bussle of the crowded and noisy Venice Beach. The homes on the canals were either very quaint or modern. Some of the homes had rowboats tighted up to a small dock. One home had a full length gondola!

The rest of the day was a quick trip back to Santa Monica to visit an art festival then over to Pasadena for some delicious Indian food and a quick trip into Forever 21 and then home. It was such a wonderful day and my idea of an perfect Saturday being out doing things and discovering new and interesting areas, love it!

Sunday morning started out with a hike with Kip. He had a great time like he always does and if you want an energetic dog to get you out of bed int he morning for a morning run or make sure you make it to the top of a mountain hike, Kip is your dog! Just a few photos from our hike.

If you have a dog or cat that yellow tag is a lifesaver because it means your pet has a microchip. Get it!

Kip doesn't like me taking his picture :-)

Wow sorry for the bad photo of us

After the hike, we got a pedicure and relaxed the rest of the day and checked out downtown Orange and had a small cupcake snack. The shop was featured on Food Network's Cupcake Wars and actually won. After our little trip there we had a delicious taco dinner with homemade peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. I must say we are great cooks! That is it, my wonderful weekend with my cousin. She is such a joy in my life and I am so blessed to have such a close relationship with my cousin!