LA Girls!

Wow, these summer days fly by! I'm just finishing a post I started weeks ago....

It was the First Annual Wiebmer Sisters Vacation! Rob took a day off of work and had a great time with Madeline (what a guy!) while I spent a long weekend in Los Angeles with Mollie, who flew in from Denver, and Andi, who is a nursing extern at UCLA Hospital, living two blocks away from Beverly Hills.

Within an hour of landing, we were sipping wine (from a Napa vineyard, no less!) on Andi's rooftop pool deck with her boyfriend Kyle on his last night in town. Andi was a lovely hostess and put so much planning into making our stay fun and comfortable.

The next morning, we walked all over the beautiful UCLA campus -- it reminded me of a tropical University of Illinois with giant fountains. We even walked by the sorority houses; I couldn't resist snapping a photo in front of the DG house. Then Andi treated us to a sushi lunch (can you believe her?) and we jumped on the bus to Santa Monica Beach, where we napped, played in the ocean, and spent hours poking our heads in all the stores (including Sephora, where we were bandits, smearing top shelf wrinkle erasing creams and lip plumping formulas all over our faces). A few margaritas and a little dinner later, and we walked five minutes from Andi's apartment to the swanky W hotel for the best people-watching in LA. On our way out of the club, we saw Ricki Lake valet her car and walk through the velvet rope without a word. She looked like she'd just come straight from a farmer's market. No offense, Ricki.

The next day we hit Hollywood Boulveard to visit the Chinese Theather and see all the A-list movie stars' hand and footprints. We had lunch at an In-and-Out Burger and then went the oh-so-exlusive Beverly Hills Hotel to wander the gardens and try to see a celebrity or two. I'll tell you, most of the clientele doesn't walk into the lobby from the bus station (they valet their porches). I don't think we had them fooled....

Then Rodeo Drive! All three blocks of it! Prada, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Juicy Couture. The window displays alone were fabulous. My Reef flipflops were a little out of place, but at least I wasn't wearing pleated demin shorts with a camera around my neck. That night, we had a mexican feast at a fun restaurant and decided to wander to see what we could find for entertainment. Sure enough, we rounded a corner, and found hundreds of people watching the LA Film Festival's outdoor showing of Planet of the Apes. So we ordered a glass of wine and sat on the patio of a hole-in-the-wall dim sum restaurant and watched too, soaking in our LA experience. Until we got crazy bored, finished our wine and went shopping in the boutiques that were open late for the movie crowd!

The next morning, we had breakfast at an outdoor cafe and talked about taking all our kids one day to the North Woods together. I wish words could capture the amount of laughing we did in such a short time -- being around my sister will always remind of me of exactly who I am.

An hour later, I was on the bus headed back to the airport, eager to see Rob and my little girl!

Here's what Rob said about their special time together: We went on long walks with Maple through Bradley Park each morning and evening. We also played tennis (actually, I hit balls and Maple and Madeline ran around trying to catch them), visited the Botanical Gardens, got ice cream at Emo's, and went to my work picnic, where Madeline had her first experience in a "bounce house" (she was timid at first, but squealing in delight within moments). All told the three of us (Rob, Madeline and Maple) had a great time!