After three days of exploring LA's museums, we spent the next few days focusing on family and spending time at the beach. On Sunday morning, we got together with one of Gene's cousins and his family for breakfast in Santa Monica. It was lovely!
They had a Polaroid camera and snapped this photo of our family of four.
And then we spent more time at the beach!
Beach read
Sandcastles!
That afternoon was the rehearsal dinner -- I have no photos but it Gene's cousins are a hoot and we had a blast.
The wedding wasn't until 5pm on Monday, so we had most of the day on our own. We spent the morning exploring the Venice canals since they were literally one block from our rental apartment. Fun fact: over 100 years ago, developer Abbot Kinney decided to recreate the Venice canals in California. He pictured an idyllic community with shops, boats, and gondoliers imported from Italy. His idea failed and most of the canals were paved over to make streets, but a few canals still remain, and they are charming.
There were lots of ducks. And we saw a small park dedicated solely to ducks -- no humans allowed!
What a beautiful place for a morning stroll!
Can you guess what we did next? We went back to the beach, of course!
Click on the panorama to enlarge.
Gene's sand art
After the beach and some downtime, we decided to explore the Venice boardwalk area, which was insane and not our scene at all. We did find an lovely bookshop and ice cream for the boys, and then returned to our quiet little residential area to get ready for the wedding.
While we were getting ready, Gene accidentally brushed his teeth with our sunscreen (on the right) instead of the toothpaste (on the left). He said it was horrible because it coated his teeth, but I honestly can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. Moral of the story: read your labels!
Handsome Henry before the wedding
(Will declined to be in a photo)
The wedding was so lovely! At one point, they asked all the married couples to come dance, and then called out years and the couples who hadn't made it to milestone years left eh dance floor. Gene and Nancy were the fourth to last couple to leave the dance floor!
And I'll leave you with our goofy photos from the wedding photo booth. (Note the pizza hat I'm wearing!)
We were so happy to have made the trip to LA to celebrate Debbie and Zack and spend time with family that we don't get to see very often!
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