Well, now’s as good a time as any to post about my trip to Los Angeles. It was tons o’ fun, and my mom told me today that we spoiled Ellie mercilessly – apparently she doesn’t sleep too well anymore, not without Aunt Pam and Aunt Jenny and Granny to spoil her rotten and rock her to sleep and carry her around. Ooops!

So here’s how it went:

Friday: Flew in. Went to Evan and Jennifer’s house, got to see Ellie. My mom was holding her when we got there (Jenny, Rob and I) and she handed her to Jenny. All was peaceful. Jenny hands her off to me and she starts wailing. Waah! So I hand her to Granny and all is well again. Pooh. We eat birthday cake for Rob – it’s his birthday. Obviously.

Saturday: Go to E + J’s house in preparation for the christening. I ride with E + J + E to the church. Evan dresses his daughter but puts her bonnet on backwards. Men! Christening goes smoothly, Ellie is undisputably the cutest baby there. (Okay, I will allow the other parents to think their babies are cuter, but they are brainwashed by their own children.) Lucas, Jennifer’s nephew, does cute little kid things.

After the christening, we head to Pasadena for lunch. Mmmm. Lunch. Jennifer’s family was there, we ate yummy food, ate cake. Afterwards we went to a few shops in the area. Fun.

Saturday night, I went to West Hollywood with J + R to see Rob’s cousin Karen. She is ubercool animator for the Simpsons. Her fiance is comic book artist and draws Spiderman and stuff. Cool. We went to some dive-ish bar that really just felt like the Bayou or some other grotty LSU bar we used to go to. Didn’t see a single famous person. Dang.

Sunday, we met for breakfast. Then Rob dragged me and Jenny and Mom to the Gamble House. It was cool, though. It’s the Arts & Crafts home of the Gamble family, as in Proctor and Gamble. After that, Rob dropped us off to meet Jennifer for tea. Love tea. We ate cute little sandwiches and scones and drank, well, tea.

Later on, Mom, Evan, Rob and Jenny went to a Dodgers game. I stayed home with Jennifer and Ellie. Ellie fell asleep on me, the cuteness was overwhelming, but I managed to stay in one piece. The Dodgers lost.

Monday was the fourth of July. Jenny and Rob and I hopped in the convertible and drove to Venice Beach. Though it was chilly, I got a terrible sunburn. I felt like such an amateur. Even now my shoulders and nose are peeling. Charming. But it was neat to walk along the beach. We saw Muscle Beach, walked down the boardwalk and saw multi-zillion dollar houses, walked down a pier and saw a plane draw an ad for the Fantastic Four movie in the sky, and then drove to Santa Monica. Went into some shops, got ice cream, burned a little more.

Went back to E + J’s house, barbecued. Evan and Rob played croquet. Ellie peed on me. E + J’s friends came over with their 5 month old baby, Josie. She was very smiley and happy, and she’s about the age Ellie will be when they come here for the wedding. Can’t wait.

On Tuesday, we had breakfast with Jenny and Rob before they left. Then Mom, Jennifer, Ellie and I went to the Huntington Gardens. It’s very beautiful, but my sunburn was hurting. We ate lunch there, then they dropped me off to meet a friend. We went to Sephora and Paper Source. Are there any two better stores in the world? I don’t think so. When I got back to E + J’s house, we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

And then on Wednesday, Mom and I went home. And we missed all of Tropical Storm Cindy’s excitement. Thank goodness. The end!