Siblings (one pending)

One particularly spectacular weekend in LA with the family (including Cali, our vehicle-friendly family dog), Gannon miraculously was able to join us for, not one, but TWO complete meals!  Sidenote: If you've ever met my family, you'll know they are the kind of people who are fun to share a meal with... and that basically, our family time consists of mealtime, what to do between mealtime, and is it time to start dinner yet?  In any case, we had so much fun with my parents, my bro (who gets credit for getting us all together because the main reason we found ourselves in LA was for his Parent's Weekend at UCLA), my Dr. Big Sis and new broham-in-law, and of course, the 4th year medical extern who probably sent in a body double or bribed someone in order to get some time off to see my family.  

Meal #1 consisted of a steak dinner at the incomparable, Lawry's in Beverly Hills (You know that seasoning salt with the logo that looks like a snail?  Yeah, they have meat.) and Meal #2 the following morning was brunch at the Brentwood Cheesecake Factory.  Of course, we were still full from the slabs of beef the night before, so we just ordered three appetizers before our meals as opposed to seven.  Once that performance of calorie consumption concluded, we rolled ourselves out the door a la violet Violet, Willy Wonka's naughty blueberry girl.  (Clearly, we completely missed the point of that tale of anti-indulgence.)

After the magnificent munch fest, my parents road tripped back home with the car and Cali, and I decided to stick around for some beach vball at the Santa Monica Pier with Gannon and the siblings.  Because we are just so fun and totally not competitive like that.  Between volleys, our best man, Jon, was kind enough to snap a photo.  Gannon was kind enough to wet willie my 20-year-old brother.

Gannon's parents lent me their guest room for the evening so I could take advantage of some continued fiancee QT, and, uh, shamelessly corner Gannon for some registry work.  The next day, since Gannon was off to USC at 4:30am, his pops was kind enough to take me to the good ol' Fullerton train station for an hour and a half I always love - the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner.  At least half of this train trek is abandoned school bus yards and industrial landfills waiting to happen, once you reach San Clemente, all you get is this.  

Thank you to Sunset magazine for their outstanding article on gardening, farming, and urban homesteading.  Gannon probably doesn't know this, but I'm hoping to be the crazy garden lady of East Saint Dakota, or wherever we end up after match.  Tendrils and chile peppers and everything.   Have I told you about my wall of herbs?!??  I will be that wife of the doctor who is the wacky herb lady!