4th of July

This last week was a busy one. Before I headed off on another work trip (last one for a little while, thank heavens), I met up with Ryan's mom and sisters for some shopping at The Grove in West Hollywood. The Grove is an outdoor mall, with a cute trolley that runs up and down the street, a farmer's market, a large grass area and water fountain... and of course, lots of restaurants and shopping. We hardly ever make it over there because it's kind of pain to get to, but I was really glad I was able to make it happen and spend time with the ladies. Oh, and one of the biggest events of the day was visiting the American Girl store for our niece Lily. Grandma was so sweet and bought her a new doll. She was ecstatic! Connie also spoiled Westin with some adorable new clothes for Janie and Jack. Thanks Connie!

The girls at lunch at The Farm: Lily, Connie, Camille and Lindsay

So after our fun girls' day, I headed off to St. Louis and Atlanta on Tuesday. I was just on a trip and didn't like how close together these two projects ended up being. I really missed my boys and was so happy to get home Friday morning. I was also eager to get home to hear about Ryan's first day/night alone with Westin went. From Ryan's report, it sounds like things went pretty smoothly... minus the two hour playtime Westin wanted to have in the middle of the night and the massive diaper explosion Ryan had to deal with the next morning. Despite these two bumps in the road, the house was fully intact when I arrived home. The baby was alive and breathing (and actually already down for his nap!!!) and Ryan, while a little disheveled looking, was smiling... and that's all that really matters, right?

Once I got unpacked and Westin woke up, we headed down to the beach to meet up with all of Ryan's family who was in town for the holiday. Unfortunately, it was pretty overcast and didn't start clearing until it was time for us to leave. I so badly needed to lay out and get some sun on these ghostly looking legs, and instead, we were all in sweatshirts and under towels trying to keep warm. However, we still had a great time. And this was actually Westin's first trip to the beach - so that was something to be excited about.

Grandpa and Westin

Lily and Delaney
The whole gang

Boys playing football

Our little W, happy as a clam Miranda and Gemma

Team Rich

After the beach, we all headed to Valencia for the rest of the weekend. That night all the guys saw Transformers 2 (review: "not as good as the first one, but still entertaining, and Megan Fox is hot"). Then on Saturday morning we had a big pancake breakfast and went swimming. Westin wasn't as big of a fan of the pool this time around. I think he got scared from all the noise the big kids were making. So he went down for a nap while Ryan and I played with the kids and other uncles in the pool for a couple hours.

That afternoon we had a BBQ and then some of the group headed down to the Rose Bowl for fireworks. I stayed back with Westin, Lindsay, Gemma, Camille, and Connie. It was a no-brainer that Westin wouldn't be able to handle the noise of the fireworks, so he went to bed and we rented Bride Wars.

I meant to get more pictures of the fourth, but sort of failed at doing that. So here's just one of Westin and me in our red, white and blue (ok, just him, but I was wearing navy - that kind of counts, right?).

It was sad to say goodbye to everyone on Sunday. The weekend went too fast and I felt like we needed another week with everyone.

So now we're on to a new week. Ryan is in Long Beach again and my sister Kenzie is spending a couple days with us before she heads off to New York with my mom, and I'm just looking forward to a lazy week.