Life's a Beach

We spent a wonderful week at Laguna Beach. My folks had two weeks reserved at their Laguna Beach house but had to leave early because my father’s life-long friend Jex Capener passed away. They went to the funeral and we went to Laguna.

We drove to Salt Lake and stayed with Nancy’s parents then flew to Las Vegas on Monday morning. My parents met us at the airport on their way to St. Louis and loaned us their Cadillac. We drove to California with a stop in Baker for a great lunch (and obscene photos of the naked statues) at the Mad Greek restaurant. We arrived at the beach house mid-afternoon and went straight to the beach.

Except for Wednesday, we spent the entire week beach combing, playing in the tide pools, and window shopping in Laguna. On Wednesday we drove to the LA Airport and picked up Nancy’s sister Laura and her husband Doug who were escaping the Minnesota winter and their five kids.
We drove to LA and went to the temple—no signs of protesters or vandalism, leaving me to believe the news reports were a little exaggerated.

We drove through LA, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and went to Farmer’s Market for dinner and more window shopping. We saw Kevin Costner and his wife and child there. We decided not to be obnoxious tourists and left them alone. While we were there Laura did a funky dance audition for the Abercrombie & Fitch models but they weren’t impressed.

Early on Sunday we had to tear ourselves away. We drove the Oldhams back to the airport and then we drove back to Las Vegas for a too brief visit with my parents and then we flew to Salt Lake and drove up to Idaho and winter again. Long day—19 hours and ~900 miles by car and plane.

Four days later we drove back to Salt Lake and had a very pleasant Thanksgiving dinner and visit with my brother Doug and his family, Stacey’s (Adams) family, and my parents. That evening we drove back to Idaho so I could get an early start on remodeling our guest bathroom. More on that later.