With the current rainy day, I decided to finalize my post about SoCal that’s been sitting in my drafts for several weeks now. A little over a month ago, we were invited to go to Disneyland to celebrate our good friends’ 5 year anniversary. Betty and I decided to take the time to visit some family, do some sight-seeing in LA and hang out w/our friends. We made a mini-vacation out of it… and it was fantastic!

While Betty and I normally aren’t huge fans of Southern California, we decided to give it a go with some planning and research, we did a few things we’ve been meaning to. First things first, we drove straight to my brother’s house to visit with him, Jaime and the two nephews for half a day. Over the course of the next few days, we planned some time to hang out by ourselves and visit friends who have moved back to SoCal.

We decided to give the LACMA lights a shot. Cool little spot… I also enjoyed the La Brea Tar Pits, not really tar but black water that smells :P. We then met up with a few friends at The MILK shop to have some ice cream and ice cream sandwiches.

The next day, we decided to get up early and hike to the Hollywood sign from the Griffith Observatory. There were some amazing views along the way.

About 1 mile into the hike.

We hiked a solid 3.5mi before realizing the path that connects the Griffith Observatory to the Hollywood sign would take us to some less traveled road and decided to head back. 4.5mi, still not too bad!

We went over to Santa Monica after having lunch with my cousin. We started in Venice (at the Google Office) and then rented bikes to get over to Santa Monica. The views and weather was amazing.

Keep your eye on the road Betty!

After some riding and touristy stuff, we got ready and played a little Chess on top of Google. Sorry Betty, I won! 

That evening after dinner at Son of a Gun restaurant, we met up with some other friends from college at Lock and Key. Had a few drinks before we called it quits, but it was nice to see some old faces from college.

Betty really wanted to see the Stahl house.. I didn’t know what it was, but decided to tag along. It was very interesting to learn about Case Study houses and the history behind this specific house. The views weren’t bad as well.

#selfie

Our last day was spent at Disneyland and California Adventure park. It was our first time there, but I really enjoyed some of the rides… Especially California Screaming.

#lightning McQueen

Finally, the event we were there for! My buddy threw together an amazing after-hours Disneyland adventure for him and his wife’s 5 year anniversary which included a private train ride, a private ride on small world and a reception in front of the Disney castle with Mickey and Minnie!

Tough to say I didn’t have fun. Good friends and good experiences make any trip fun. Maybe we’ll have to do this more often!