A Winter Getaway

So yesterday I left you with a list of the whirlwind that was my December. Today, I'd like to start with recapping the first thing on the list: our vacation to Manila.

When we left St. Louis it was snowing, and I was smiling from ear to ear. So long, suckaaaas! I was headed to the beach. 

I'll at least show you the before we got on the plane photo...

So first of all, in order to pay for part of the trip with airline miles, we had to stay overnight in Los Angeles. Sean had never been before so I introduced him to a few of the touristy necessities.

In N Out Burger. There's no shame when you're on vacation, so I insisted that he try the Double Double with fries and a chocolate shake. I'm pretty sure it's more calories than either of us would ever need for at least two days, if not three, but it was delicious anyway. We enjoyed our meal in the comfort of our rental car in a Whole Foods parking garage, looking over our shoulders for fear the scary security guard  would yell at us the whole time. I mean how else would you enjoy In N Out Burger?

 We tried to meet up with a friend who lives in LA, but she was in the midst of finishing up finals and couldn't make it. So instead we did the touristy thing again and got some food on Hollywood Blvd. We stopped to take a photo by Lawrence Welk's star, which was conveniently right outside of the restaurant we went to.

Why Lawrence Welk, you ask? Well. Here's why.  There's a number of other videos there as well, so please enjoy.

Finally, that evening we put our trust in our little GPS and headed up into the Hollywood Hills for an adventure. By the time we got there it was dark so the pics didn't turn out so great on my camera, but it was really cool to see just how massive LA really is from up there.

At the end of the day, we made the journey back to our friends' apartment (conveniently, the bride and groom who we were going to visit in the Philippines live in LA and left before us!) and rested up for our long flight the next day.

Up next: our arrival/first experiences in Manila.