Other Stuff I Did in June

I had to go back to Phoenix for some work meetings at the end of June.  It's pretty great to arrive in Phoenix, go straight to a book club/eating party (I had actually read the book they'd planned to read, while only one person there had read the whole thing), and see a ton of ladies that I love who have really good homemade food waiting for me.  I love them.

Megs, I'm sorry if you hate this photo, but I think you look adorable. 

It was hot, but this courtyard at was lovely. 

And what great sky!

We kept of the tradition of a cheesy girls night at Meg's; yes, The Notebook craving strikes again. And Meghan recently moved to a new place and found some old books from college, and I was strangely fascinated with this whole concept of taking classes about marriage and family (so.weird.).  I'm a non-BYU goer, and I had to pour over those pages and see if there's anything I missed out on.  Eh...yeah, some of that book was hard to read.

We had a nice work dinner that week at Tanzy, where I'd never been.  They had brussels sprouts on the menu, and I had to order them. 

They do this cool thing with tableside mozzarella.  Basically, a guy pulls up with a huge cart, and you watch him place cheese curds into really hot, but not boiling, water, and it forms into beautiful mozzarella ball, then flattens and slices.  Then you choose how to season it with 2-3 different types of salt, like Hawaiian red or black salt, truffle salt, some African salts, etc.  And then you eat it with all this stuff below.

Someone ate pretty good scallops. 

I went with the short rib with fig balsamic glaze (if I see the word fig, I order it ), goat cheese gnocchi, and garlic spinach.  Not bad at all. 

Aftwards, you know I went to Bahama Bucks.  That place is even more awesome when it's 110 outside.  I deviated from the normal sour raspberry order and got some weird berry blast.  I got concerned when I saw how they made it, but it tasted pretty amazing. 

On this very short trip, I also had to get in a Postino/Churn visit, since I had a free ice cream scoop card to Churn.  Here's a view from my favorite parking spot at Postino Central. 

And glorious bruschetta.  I love that mascarpone, fig and prosciutto. 

Seventy two hours in Phoenix, and I was done.  Gotta get outta that heat!  I won't go back until September unless I absolutely have to. 

I had an outing to 800 degrees.  Ran into a million people I know. 

The Spiderman premiere had just happened in Westwood. 

I almost stepped on a snail on my walk home.  Instead, I turned him into a model .

I saw Kimbra, but I think I already said that once.  You should go see her too.

Here's the lobby of Warner Bros records. 

I went to Mormon Night at the Dodgers.  Terrible baseball.  I maybe saw 20% of the game.  But I did see President Uchtdorf throw the first pitch!

The section where I sat didn't have access to the main part of the stadium, which meant I was cut off from the GOOD food.  The basic hot dog wasn't going to cut it, I needed the Doyer dog. Little known fact, if you ask the security guys if you can leave, walk to the main stadium, get the good food and come back, they'll do a really complicated thing to allow permission.  It was a hassle, but it was worth it!

We got to go on the field after the game for a fireworks show.  To celebrate their tremendous loss, I guess. 

The featured music of the fireworks show - Linkin Park.  Blech. 

Next day was Jami's birthday celebration in Griffith Park.  We all met at the stables in Burbank to ride some horses.  I think this must be Brigitte Nielsen's new career. 

We all looked kinda happy and excited at first.

But those horses did whatever they wanted.  If one ran, they all ran.  It was dusty.  And crowded on some narrow parts of the trail.  Kiersten's horse tried to get in front of the other horses as we entered a tunnel, by running up the hill to get around.  He lost his footing in the dirt, Kiersten almost came off, and there was a leg injury when her foot got stuck in the stirrup.  Not fun.  I couldn't wait til we were done.

We had a donut break after, cause I brought a box from Primo's to share.  Supposedly they're the best in LA!

Most of the birthday gang went on a night hike around the Observatory in the park, but Kiersten and I hung back since her leg was starting to hurt.  Totally fine by me - I don't love a hike. 

I've been at a lot of airports lately.  It's time to quit. 

You know, I just went to see them again this week.