So' Cal' & Hollywood
Trip Start
Sep 16, 2008
1
20
21
Trip End
Sep 15, 2009
Temecula, California
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
A few days later, two friends from Cardiff were getting married in California. It worked out so perfectly. I received a message from Amber in January to say that she & Steve had gotten engaged & the wedding was to be on June 13th in Corona, California. My flight was due in on the 9th & I was staying in Temecula, just 40 minutes down the highway :D it couldn't have worked out better! Natalie was doing the bridesmaids hair, so we drove down to the house early where she got to work on the hair & I killed time painting the flower girls & junior bridesmaids toe nails! :o)
The wedding itself was really beautiful & it was so great catching up with friends who had come over from Cardiff for the wedding & others who lived in the States, who I hadn't seen since Steve's sister, Ruth, got married over there 2 years ago. Amber looked stunning in her dress, the flower girls were adorable, taking tip-toe steps down the aisle - I'm gushing, sorry, but it really was a lovely day! Congrats guys!
The reception was held at a nearby golf club & Steve's brother, Jonathan, entertained us with an excellent 'best man's' speech. Although, I'm not sure his dry, British sense of humour was fully appreciated by the mostly American audience... Steve's family & the U.K. crowd however were in pieces, it was hilarious!
The day after the wedding was my friend Heather's baby shower, so I went along to that with Nat & her Mum, Laurie. Heather & her family used to live in Swansea & I hadn't seen them since before I'd left to go travelling, so it was really great catching up with them & finding out what they'd been up to since they'd moved back to the States.
As Natalie had just started a new shift job, her hours were all over the place & she was working most days, which meant I had a lot of time to just relax & catch up on t.v. - now a luxury for me! Jonathan, Nat's younger brother, couldn't understand how I hadn't seen any of the Star Wars movies, so he sat me down & educated me on all of them, pausing the movies every once in a while to explain who different characters were etc. I'm really not a sci-fi fan but I can kinda understand why the movies are so popular. I think Yoda's pretty awesome & I loved the banter between R2D2 & C3PO in the old movies - yes, I even know their names now :P
While in California, I also visited L.A. for the day with Natalie. This was my third time to Cali & I'd never visited Hollywood Boulevard, so we did the touristy thing up there & went to Mann's Chinese Theatre, the Kodak theatre, Hollywood Walk of Fame. The traffic was really bad on the way up there, Friday at 3pm clearly wasn't a wise time to leave Temecula, but once we were up there we had a good time & Des, Nat's cousin, came & joined us up there too. We stopped at Hooters for a drink, simply because I've heard so much about it & never been (very over-rated, don't bother)! Then we headed out to Thaitown for some food before driving home.
Joanna, Natalie's older sister, came over to the house a few days before I was due to leave, with her two young children, Nathaniel & Naomi. While Joanna took her Dad out for Father's Day, I stayed behind with Laurie to watch the kids & take them to the park for a few hours. I've never met such cute kids! They're both such characters - Nathaniel is just always smiling, smiling, smiling, nothing concerns him or upsets him & he's just always making you laugh. Naomi pulls the most hilarious facial expressions & looks so concerned, as if she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. When it was time for them to leave, we packed them all into the car before Nathaniel shouted "Bye! Peace out!" - what a cutie!
The following day, Nat & I went to Knotts Berry Farm for the evening which is a theme park on the way to Los Angeles. We spent a few hours there, going on different rides before grabbing a bite to eat in Chili's restaurant & driving to her auntie's house in L.A. to stay there for the night. I was due to leave for Vancouver the next day & it made more sense to stay up in L.A. rather than drive back down to Temecula & up again the next day. I'd said goodbye to Nat's family earlier on that day, Laurie almost made me cry with one of her enduring, everlasting hugs! (Reggie & Laurie - Thanks again for letting me stay with you & hopefully it won't be so long until I see you all again next time)!
Nat drove me to the airport the next morning, where we said our goodbyes, or I should say "see you soon's" as Nat is forever back & fore from Cardiff to L.A! :D Then after locating the mysterious "terminal 8" (which is really "terminal 7" in case you find yourself at LAX airport in the same situation), I boarded my flight to Vancouver.
