Scheduling Fun

Marty used to love to stop and sit in "The Nut"
eachday on our walk.

Because when we get together we tend to sit around and talk and take a long time to get anywhere, I made us an itinerary of things we wanted to do while on our trip.

For me, having a schedule makes it possible to enjoy downtime so I'm not in a panic trying to figure out when we need to leave for appointments, etc. If I've done all the planning ahead of time, on vacation I can relax.

First thing in the morning I got up to lift weights at the hotel gym. Everyone met down at the gym and then we took off to walk the mile to the Santa Monica stairs. Starting off the morning with a bang!

The stairs are right by Carlthorp so that was a fun walk down memory lane and the route to get there was right along Ocean Ave. where I used to walk with Marty when he was a preschooler after I dropped Courtney off at school. The Nut! Such good memories.



There are 189 stairs and we went up and down them 4 times! We are amazing! And after were very, very exhausted.

While catching our breath, we met a trainer, Flex, who struck up a conversation and offered to do training with us the next morning. We thought that sounded like fun, so we agreed to take him up on it. Michelle, the ever practical one, remembered to ask how much and for how long. 

After the stairs, we walked to a cafe for brunch on Montana. I can't say enough how much I loved walking everywhere and not having to rush! Thanks to Rachel for finding our breakfast spots!

We had time to walk back to our hotel and quick shower before we headed to Burke Williams Spa near 3rd Street for facials and massages. We also relaxed in the saunas, spas and steam room. And yes, when I realized I wore my bathing suit under my dress, but had nothing dry to change into after, I went into the jacuzzi commando. They said it was "European-style" and bathing suits were optional. So I just did it! Only thing is my sisters weren't there to cheer me on -- they were still in their appointments. AND I totally forgot to tell them!

Famous person alert!

After the spa we shopped at Anthropologie. Found lots of cute stuff and everyone found lots to try on. Then I made a quick trip to Lenscrafters because I realized I forgot to pack contacts! (Luckily I had one pair in my make-up bag. But that was it.) (Also, did you know contacts are considered a "medical device" so they couldn't give me any until I'd called my SLC store and had them e-mail my prescription? Um... it's not life and death medication, people. No one can overdose on contact lenses. Strange, but true.)

We headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner and the concert. Rachel had made reservations at Shutters for dinner right at sunset. Such a wonderful dinner and setting! (Dennis Leary was sitting right behind us.)

Then... we drove to Beverly Hills for the concert. Shout out to Sheree for chauffeuring us all around the whole time! We had plenty of traffic, even if it didn't get totally stopped and she had to be on her toes to figure out where to go. It was a big job! Thank you!



Air Supply. What can I say? Someone said, "It's like a big sing-a-long!" Back when Dan and I went a couple of years ago, he noticed that all the women in the concert were singing along. But here in LA, all the women AND men were singing along... and LOUD! Such a blast! Everyone was also taken aback that these two old dudes had such strong, perfectly pitched voices! So fun. Such fun.

Singing while we wait for our car!