Jeff turns 46

Well, I worked on my birthday this year. In the evening, we had a virtual meeting for Veronica's upcoming DC trip, and she had a voice lesson in New Brighton. So, there wasn't time for much else... but R did put this beautiful angel food cake together for me, and I received some cards and gifts!

We continued celebrating over the weekend at Forgotten Star Brewing:

It ended up being a nice birthday. Thanks to everybody for helping make it special!

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Hanging with Grandma Linda

Grandma Linda came down for a visit last weekend, and these photos were taken by her.

They went out to the Como Conservatory:

 

And to the state capitol for a tour:

Not pictured: thrifting and going out for hamburgers.

Thanks, Linda, for spending some time with the kids!

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A weekend in Santa Barbara

We went up to Santa Barbara / Montecito and stayed at our friend Janet's place for a few nights.

We saw some of the usual sights.

Inspiration Point:

This was new for us, a ball game at UCSB:

A stop at Kid's World park:

Old friends:

It was a nice little getaway!

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Beverly Hills & the Santa Monica Pier

Next we drove into the heart of Beverly Hills for a three-course lunch at Avra, a restaurant where one of R's old high school friends works as a server:

Then it was down to the Santa Monica Pier... a bit early for sunset but still vibey.

Checking out the cars:

Below is meant to be a tribute to this shot, in the same location:

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Hollywood & the Griffith Observatory

Yep, we went on another adventure.

We landed at LAX with an appetite. V broke her vegetarianism to try In-N-Out Burger:

 

We spent our first night (only night in LA) on Sunset Blvd. The next morning, we walked around Hollywood.

Then we went back to the hotel for a swim.

Quick stop at David Lynch's house:

 

... as seen in his film Lost Highway:

And then we drove up to the Griffith:

We saw an angel up there:

California dreamin':

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Long weekend in SoCal

Veronica has play rehearsals during the kids' upcoming spring break, so we took off during spring conferences to spend an extended weekend in southern California. We had one night in LA and three nights in Santa Barbara. I didn't take a ton of photos, but I'll share what I have over the next few posts.

Always gotta get one with this dolphin!

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Proof that we had some snow this winter

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Hadestown

Veronica and I saw this play together in Minneapolis (after Veronica and R caught it in NYC last year). It was excellent!

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Paris: video

I think this is all we're going to do from Paris, as I'm falling behind on posting about everything else. This is a rough compilation of some videos I captured. I've been trying to avoid using copyrighted music but gave into the temptation here (it may eventually get pulled).

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Paris: wanderings

I mentioned in my previous post that our apartment had a great location. We could walk out the door and immediately find something interesting. And a lot of walking we did!

Back when we had some sun:

So many amazing shops to photograph:

Same building, different time of day:

Early morning by the Louvre:

Crushed on the metro:

In front of a famous bookstore that was frequented by famous authors and appears in the movie Before Sunset.

Busker on the Seine:

Find the invisible building:

That's V by the fountain:

Palm trees?

Love the nighttime vibes in our neighborhood.

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