Girl's Week 2010 - Part II

SATURDAY:
Sleep in
Breakfast - Cinnamon rolls and eggs
Beach Walk
Margaritas
Surprise Craft
Beach Time
Dinner - Chilies
Shopping
Dessert - Strawberry Shortcake

After a yummy breakfast, we took a nice morning walk down the beach. Nothing like getting your exercise with the sand between your toes. We enjoyed sailboat watching, starfish gazing, brisk-walk racing, and tar-on-your-shoes/feet collecting before heading back to the beach house. Alli, then, treated us with an adorable gift: slippers to wear around the house and body lotion.

Next on the list was the surprise craft. Alli had the cute idea of making hair clips, so she had brought a whole box of hot glue guns, ribbon, buttons... you name it she had it. We had a blast getting creative and making cute clips, not only for their daughters, but for us too! I've never really been one to wear hair clips, but we couldn't help ourselves from making "one more clip". It really became addicting; we spent hours gluing ribbon and drinking yummy margaritas.

Sporting our newly-made clips

My first clip!

We took a break from hair clips and continued the party outside for some fun beach time. We enjoyed a very WINDY game of frisbee (wind + our lack of aiming skills = not a very good combination). Good skills or not, we still had a great time passing the frisbee and chasing after it into the bird nesting zone. 

After cleaning up, we went to Chilies for dinner and enjoyed some fun shopping. Yet another eventful day!

SUNDAY:

8:45 - Leave for Church

Lunch - Hendry's

Drive to Santa Barbara

Visit Graves

Arrive back at Beach House

Dinner - Order Pizza

Surprise Activity (Facials)

Dessert - Strawberry Shortcake

After attending Sacrament Meeting at a local ward, we headed for Santa Barbara. First stop, Hendry's for lunch (significance - a restaurant Nancy visited many times throughout her life):

 Waiting to be seated

With it being Memorial Day weekend, it was a perfect opportunity to see and learn about some of the Gruber family history. We got to see a lot of the old houses and significant buildings, as well as graves of beloved family members.

After a very pleasant afternoon, we headed back to Oxnard for the next activity of the day. Earlier that weekend, Alli had given us our "official" Los Angeles shirts....which, of course, is another great photo-opp:

...which, of course, leads to more "Award Winning" pictures...

(you would be crazy not to take advantage of that awesome sand cliff!)

 Me

 Alli

 April

 Nancy

 Amy

After we finally got our sand-jumping out of our systems, we settled down for a nice delivered pizza and salad:

We ended the night with some relaxing and cleansing facials:

Oh, the things women do for "beauty"...

Still to come...Monday, the day that ended Girl's Week 2010

Girl's Week 2010 - Part I

It was finally that time again for our annual Gruber Girl's Week! This year, it was Alli's turn. Nancy, April, and I left for Los Angeles Thursday morning on May 27th. Sean was at the airport to pick us up and take us to Studio City, where Amy was already there from Colorado. While Alli was still away finishing her day at work, we girls decided to take a walk down the street to a fun shopping area.We had a blast trying on hats, looking at clothes, and visiting classic toy stores.

Getting off the plane

Trying on hats...

...before being asked not to take pictures in the store...

Once Alli got home, we were off to dinner at a cute Indian restaurant. The food was great and the service was wonderful. This is where Alli whipped out the itinerary for the weekend and surprised us with what it had in store. Rather than spending the weekend in L.A. like we assumed, Alli had made arrangements for us to stay at the Cordays's beach house in Oxnard!! (The Cordays are the family that Alli nannies for...very VERY wealthy!) I was completely shocked, given I had no idea they even had a beach house. To say the least, we were all thrilled! 

After going over the itinerary and eating our dinner, we made our way over to Yogurt Land. If you are any kind of frozen yogurt fan, you would love this place! So good!

Eating some Indian cuisine...

I couldn't remember the name of the restaurant, but based on the menus in this picture, 

it looks like it was called Bollywood Cafe

Yogurt Land!

The rest of the night was spent chatting in anticipation for the days to come and preparing for bed, which involved a lot of air mattresses in small places:

FRIDAY

8:00 - Breakfast

9:00 - Photobooth pictures

9:30 - Leave for L.A.Temple (Initiatories)

Lunch - Jack in the Box

Drive to the Beach House

Dinner - Hot Dogs on fire pit

Relax and bed

Thanks to Sean's HD Photobooth business, we enjoyed our own Photobooth photo shoot:

The filter that he uses makes your skin look AMAZING!

Nancy, April, Alli, me, Amy

And the award winners are:

 Amy

 Nancy

 Alli

 Me

April

Other funny Honorable Mentions:

Too many to choose from.

Los Angeles Temple

Stocking up on fruit for the beach house

Once we finally made it to the beach house, I was just in awe at how big and beautiful the place was. It had four levels to it and it was literally right on the beach. You walk off the back porch, onto the sand, and onto the beach! To give you an idea of how awesome this place was, take a look at this kitchen area:

The patio facing the beach, April and I didn't waste any time...

Due to the heavy winds in Oxnard, however, the sand had been blown into a huge mound right outside our door...creating a kind of cliff of sand. So it kind of took away from the view from our sliding door, but provided a wind barrier and, later, entertainment. 

Here's a look at the crazy sand mound:

Cookin' the hot dogs

Always room for S'mores!

A perfect way to end a perfect day

Girl's Week 2010 to be continued...