4th of July

This was our first 4th of July in California. (We went home to Texas last 4th of July.) We ended up having a mini-stay-cation and a very fun, relaxing weekend.

Thursday

Matt took the Thursday before the 4th off from work. We ran some small errands in the morning, and spent the afternoon exploring new areas in LA. We had been wanting to go to the Griffith Observatory since we moved to the LA area, and so we went. On the way, we drove through this cute little area called Los Feliz. It was so cute, we decided to stop for lunch at a Mediterranean cafe, The Sidewalk Grill. The food was super good, and we got to sit outside on the patio, enjoy the weather and engage in some people watching. Then we were back on our way to the Griffith Observatory.

The Griffith Observatory was pretty cool. It is free to get in for the main exhibits; it is kind of like a mini science museum. We enjoyed walking around and looking at all of the exhibits. However, the great part of the observatory (during the day, anyways) are the views. They are great! Even on the day we went, there was a definite smog layer over the city, but the views were still good. We want to go back at night sometime when we could look through the Zeiss Telescope.

Walking up to the observatory

The Hollywood sign

Matt contemplating... important stuff, I'm sure

Zeiss Telescope

Mountain view

The Pharrs :)

Friday, the 4th

On the 4th, we woke up, went for a run, then enjoyed the holiday. Our apartment had several food trucks come to the marina for the day - we chose the BBQ truck for lunch, and it was pretty darn good. Then we spent some hours laying by the pool and relaxing before going down to the pier to watch the marina fire works. A very warm, sunny and relaxing 4th of July :)

Waiting for the fireworks and playing with the cool night time feature on my camera phone

Fireworks collage :)

The rest of our weekend was just the usual stuff - got up on Saturday for a bike ride with breakfast on the beach, went to church on Sunday then hung out in Santa Monica for a while afterwards. All in all, it was a nice low-key, re-charging kind of weekend :)