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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

October Visits!

About 2 weeks after I got back from my mom's birthday weekend, I welcomed Bethany and Ryan back to the beautiful city of LA! Bethany is a good friend from my Greenville days. I love having her around and so it was great to see her, even if only for half a day! Ryan is a budding filmmaker and had a film showing at the LA Children's Film Festival. (His film was terrific - it was a documentary about a program at the Tacoma Museum of Glass called: Kids Design Glass) I am hoping that Ryan and Bethany end up here in LA for Film School - because it would be great for Ryan and because it would mean that I would get to have Bethany in my life more often!

After watching a few short films, we headed down the street to get some dinner together.

Before they dropped me off we shared a Diddy Reise experience!

The week after Bethany and Ryan were in town, my parents came over for a long anticipated visit. Because my dad is in school this year, it is difficult to find times for them to come over to LA - and because I'm in school its difficult for me to get there very often. This means that although I had just seen my mom a few weeks earlier, I had not seen my dad since before his semester started in August. We had been looking forward to this visit, even though we knew that it was going to be short - as in 24 hours. My parents arrived Saturday around noon (having left early that morning from Phoenix) and we had a fantastic time together until they left on Sunday mid-day.

Once a month there is a "Public Star Party" at the Griffith Observatory. It's this really cool thing where the LA Astronomical Society comes out to the observatory lawn and puts up all their telescopes and anyone gets to look through them. It just so happened that the weekend my parents were in town coincided with the star party. It also happens that my dad loves astronomy and space (as do my mom and I... but my dad especially).

So when my parents arrived, we got them checked into their hotel and then headed off to the Olive Garden for a late lunch. I had requested a meal at OG, because I never get to go there and we had a GREAT time. Good food, good wine, and a really nice time to get caught up. Afterward we headed up to the observatory. It was so crazy and busy up there! But we got settled and then mom relaxed in the chairs we had brought, reading and watching the sunset, while dad and I explored the observatory. It was really terrific. The observatory is incredible, the view is beautiful and the sunset was spectacular. We went to the Planetarium show, which was entertaining and really well-done (and only $5). Then afterward came out and looked in some telescopes! I got to see Jupiter and 4 of its moons. That was pretty sweet. We had breakfast the next morning at Denny's (which is just down the block, about 40 yards, from their hotel) and then said goodbye as I headed to church. They ended up going to the beach for a couple hours before heading out of town.

It was a great visit. Too short, but we all needed a little time together get us through to Thanksgiving, so I was really grateful that they drove all the way out to LA for a one day visit with moi.

Dad outside the observatory. I think this should be his facebook profile pic if he decides to set up a FB account. :) I love the sunset light on his face and the observatory in the twilight.
The observatory at twilight with the moon on the rise behind it.

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