Our trip..

My sister and I had a great time on our road trip and I'm so glad we got the opportunity. My Sister has never been to L.A. and just went to Phoenix for the first time a few weeks ago, so it was really neat to her to see all the things we saw.

We left Wednesday night and pretty much drove straight through, only stopping a few times to take a short nap. We got to our hotel in Monrovia at about 5:30 Thursday afternoon. I like staying in Monrovia because I have stayed there before when I have went to races at Irwindale Speedway. It's about 20 miles out of L.A. but I feel safe there and that was my main concern. We went to Universal City on Thursday night and walked around. It was really neat and sort of like Vegas with lights and music everywhere. We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and went to a few souvenir shops and got a little treat at Ben & Jerry's.



Friday our day was spent hitting up a few Cupcake shops, walking around Beverly Hills, and then shopping at the Fashion District where we got sunglasses and purses. We headed over to Venice Beach after that and sat on the beach for awhile. It was a bit breezy but a beautiful site. We ended up having dinner at The Olive Garden, I know, big shock :)



Saturday we got up and headed to Beverly Hills where we walked around Robertson Blvd. where there are some pretty fancy shops. We went into Kitson, Kitson Kids, Lisa Kline Kids and Surly Girl. I got some really cute sunglasses at Surly, and then we headed over to The Newsroom Cafe for lunch. It was an interesting menu but we found a couple things we liked.

After lunch we headed over to Santa Monica where we stopped at the Vanilla Bakeshop, another Cupcake Shop that was featured on Martha Stewart during Cupcake week. It was a darling little place with a nice selection of Cupcakes, Macaroon's, and homemade suckers. I will be writing more about the Cupcake shops we visited in another post. From there, we went to The Santa Monica Pier, one of my favorite places. It was the perfect sunny and warm day and the Pier was packed with people. Kids eating cotton candy and getting their faces painted, musicians playing and families fishing off the pier. Just a fun atmosphere! We had dinner at Marisol's, a Mexican restaurant at the end of the pier that I have visited before and loved. We enjoyed a great dinner and the beautiful ocean.





The rest of our evening was spent at Irwindale Speedway where we watched a great late model race. Big field of cars and they were pretty competitive too. My sister isn't the biggest race fan, but even she was impressed by the facility. I have been there several times and always love going there, just a nice track and good racing.

Sunday we got up and got ready to head to Phoenix. It was about a 6 hour drive which wasn't bad after a 19 hour trip before that. When we left L.A. it was about 75 degrees and when I stopped in Palm Springs for gas, it was 97. That was quite the change! It just kept getting hotter and by the time we got to Phoenix at 6pm it was 103! We found our way to Grandpa's house and he was pretty excited to see us. We relaxed and chatted with him for a bit, toured the house and then went to dinner. It was almost 9:30 pm and still 90 degrees! We sat outside for dinner and it was so hot out still.

Monday we went to Ikea to get some things for the house and to Target for some furnishings. It was so hot during the day, that it was hard to do things outside so we pretty much stayed inside. We got lots of things done for the new house and it looks so good. We got couches and beds, blinds, a TV, nicknack's..all sorts of fun things. It's so fun to buy things for a new house.

Tuesday morning, my sister and I got up and headed to Scottsdale to visit the brand new Sprinkles Cupcake shop that just opened down there and it was quite the adventure. We had our Tom Tom, but I didn't put the whole address in, so we were lost for a bit. Luckily I was just down there in February so the area was familiar to me and we finally found it.

We headed back to the house with a stop at In N Out for lunch and then I packed up my things and Grandpa took me to the airport. When I left Phoenix it was 104, when I got to Seattle it was 54 and raining! A whole 50 degrees cooler, but that was fine with me after the hot weather down in Phoenix.

All in all, we had a great time. I still prefer a road trip over flying any day. The scenery we saw was beautiful as usual and I can't wait for my next road trip :)