And Away We Go

A few weeks ago Jeff asked if I was free the weekend of June 20th-22nd, it was my weekend off (we work every other weekend at the hospital) so I told him "Yes" and then I got forwarded this email:
THE ULTIMATE CATALINA PLAN 2008

Friday, June 20th
8:30am Meet at ferry terminal to pick up tickets
9:15am Depart Marina on ferry to Two Harbors
11:30am Arrive Two Harbors, Catalina Island
2:00pm Begin 7 mile hike to Little Harbor
5:00pm Arrive at Little Harbor, Set up camp, prepare dinner, etc.

Saturday, June 21st
-WHATEVER WE WANT!
-make breakfast, lunch, dinner
-play cards, frisbee, swim, etc.
-explore, play with the bears like in "Grizzly Man"
-try to tip a Bison

Sunday, June 22nd
6:45am Wake up, breakfast, & pack up camp
7:45am Hike to Jeep pick-up point
8:00am Private Off-Road Jeep Tour
-those who are going to Avalon get off when it gets there at 5pm and go to hotel...
-those going home get on the ferry (which then leaves for Marina Del Rey at 5:15pm)

Monday, June 23rd
Sightseeing in Avalon

Tuesday, June 24th
Possible snorkel & dolphin trip
Return ferry to Marina Del Rey

The email was from Jeff's friend Sam who had emailed it out to a bunch of his friends. I love a man with a plan and was beyond excited to just step into a pre-planned vacation, there was no way I was going to miss the second half of the trip (possible snorkel and dolphin trip!) so I switched a few shifts at work to get the beginning of this week off and away we went! It turned out that the only people who could make it/were brave enough/were awesome enough/made the cut were Sam (Jeff's friend from flim school and the mastermind behind the trip), Elizabeth (Sam's girlfriend), Jeff and me. The slideshow is pretty self explanatory from the ferry ride over and the hike into the campsite to the jeep tour to Avalon. It was an amazing trip and I can't wait to go back:
ps: I was having some issues with iMovie and YouTube so the top of some of the pictures seem to be cut off, don't worry though - they are all posted... and the opening to the video is a picture we took one night, Sam brought along the real deal when it comes to cameras (you can see the size of the lens in one of the jeep tour pictures, the thing must have added an extra 10 lbs to his pack) so one night he put it on the longest exposure possible and then we took turns using the flashlight to spell different words - they look pretty cool...

USA vs Barbados

Jeff played soccer in college and he is now something of a super-fan (may I call your attention to my jersey, it is actually his - he owns an impressive four of them for Team USA alone). Today we went to watch the US national team own Barbados, final score: USA 8 - Barbados 0. I was excited because the field they were playing on is actually the home of the L.A. Galaxy, the Los Angeles Galaxy is a professional soccer club based in L.A. that made international headlines last year by signing English superstar David Beckham. Soccer is huge in Europe - as big as football, baseball and basketball combined in the US, and David Beckham is one of their most famous players. So the MLS (the professional soccer league in the US), in the hopes of drawing America's attention to the sport, signed David on for the next five years for a cool $250 million. So far, I think the fact that Katie Holmes comes to watch most games with Victoria Beckham is actually generating more PR but I think they will take whatever they can get... game on.

The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Happy Fathers Day Dad

Harry Stonefield is even cooler than Harry Potter

I'm in London right now, and was just at the National Portrait Gallery. I've been in London for a week, but I've been working about 11 hours every day, so this was my first just-for-fun adventure in England. As I left the gallery I saw some Harry Potter costumes. I have no idea why they would put Harry Potter costumes in the NPG other than the fact that Harry Potter is a BAMF, and it got me thinking about the other BAMF's I know in my life. Harry Stonefield may not have as big a fan base, but I've been listening to his stories since I was a little girl and they're even cooler...

For those of you who don't know me, I am Paige's little sister. Paige has been hounding me for months now to post on the blog to little avail. I have come up with a lot of things to talk about, but have continued to fail at finding the time to do it. I finally came up with a reason to post that even I'm willing to set aside time for... my Dad.

My Dad is an amazing person for a lot of reasons. He has a beautiful, fun, super-smart wife, he lives in on some of the best property I've ever seen, his dogs are great, his toys are really great, and his kids aren't half bad either [ ;^) ]. Not only has he had an immense amount of success in his personal life, but in addition he has been incredibly driven and successful in his career.

When I was a little girl my dad used to sit with my sister and me at bed time and tell us fantastic adventure stories about a cool kid named Harry Stonefield. He and I spent hours making up new things for Harry to do, and new stories altogether. I still use the 'Chipmunk Story' he and I came up with when I'm babysitting.

Things changed a little bit as I got older, we told less stories but had more of our own Big Red adventures, from Little Gasparilla to Put. Soon, Dad met another partner in crime, one Miss Julie Seligson, and before you knew it there was a new Redfield in the family. Together we got to explore Mexico, France, Quebec City and more.

When I started school at Georgia Tech, he supported me tremendously. He was by far the funnest Dad there at Phi Mu on parents' weekend. We walked past Fiji, and I got to hear some great college stories too. Later when I transferred to MIT, he helped me get set up - warm clothes, a space heater, a trip to the mall with tentative new friends. It was a huge comfort to know I had a Dad close by who was watching out for me.

As I've gotten older, he's always been there - a fun side to my serious one, a love of the outdoors to my book worm side, the voice of reason when classes get tough, a wonderful father to the daughters that adore him.

This summer I'm living in NYC and I got the chance to visit my Dad before I left for London. Mucking out the swimming hole, watching a fun movie, and eating fresh food from the garden - I may be a city girl but even I can see what a charmed life this is.

From England with Love,
Kit, Katie, Katherine, Kate, Iverson, Ivy, ... ahh you get the idea

Tent!

I am going camping next weekend so I figured it was high time to make an investment... Kayla has a friend in town (that she knows from high school) and she is the one poking her head out in the first picture.

The Santa Monica Stairs aka Satan's Escalator

(look in the background on the pic on the right to get an idea of how far down they go)
The description of this place on Yelp says it is "a kick ass place to get an ass kicking workout" and I think I couldn't have said it better myself. Ashley and I were at a bar watching the Lakers game last night when one of the other girls we were with asked if we wanted to run The Stairs with her this morning and we tipsily agreed. I had heard about these famed steps from one of the girls on our unit, she said they were probably the best workout she has ever had and I have been dying to try them ever since. The Stairs are actually two sets of public stairs that are about 180 steps each, they descend from Santa Monica into a neighboring canyon giving you a lovely ocean view and a grueling workout. I would classify myself as in better shape than your average bear so I started off walking down the stairs and then decided to jog/run back up. My lungs were burning by the time I reached the top but I was OK so I immediately turned around and went back for more. I made it back up two more times (progressively slowing) before I had to take a break and walk around a bit. I only made it down and up a total of six times in 45 minutes, by the end of trip six my legs were shaking so badly that I was afraid of falling down all 180 steps if I attempted it again! I don't think it was the hardest workout I've ever had but it is definitely one of the coolest/chicest/LAest ;) We saw celebs (someone from Dancing With the Stars!), trainers, people who shouldn't take their shirts off... it was quite a scene.

Mucking Out

Katie is spending her summer interning for a company in New York City, this is fun for her because A) the company is awesome and she will probably end up working for them after she graduates next year, B) her boyfriend Sheldon lives in NYC, C) Dad and Julie live in upstate NY so she is a two hour train ride from being spoiled and D) it is New York City. To make things even more fun, the company also has a branch in London which they have sent her to this week. This past weekend she and Sheldon went up to visit Dad and Julie before she left. Dad immediately saw an opportunity to put two extra pairs of hands to work helping him clean out the swimming hole. The cleaning (or mucking) out of the swimming hole should ideally happen once a year. Gramp created the swimming hole by damming up a stream that runs off of the lake and through the middle of the property. The swimming hole is nice and deep and sits right next to the main cabin, the only problem is that the dam collects not only water, but every other bit of leaves, sticks and dirt that comes down the stream. These various types of debris sit at the bottom of the swimming hole slowly decomposing and turning into mud (or muck) that is roughly the consistency and color of diarrhea. Now it is one thing to build up your courage to jump into a cold swimming hole in the middle of the woods when you can see straight down to the gravely bottom, it is another thing entirely when you peer into the water and see nothing but darkness that could be harboring anything from a 300 pound snapping turtle to the Loch Ness Monster. While Dad may be fearless when it comes to all the creepy things that could be in that water, he knows that the rest of us are not so, as close to yearly as possible, he opens up a pipe in the bottom of the dam to drain the swimming hole and then shovels/rakes the muck downstream and cleans off all the fuzz that is growing on the rocks around the edges so that the swimming hole will be nice and clean for anyone brave enough to take a dip.

Beach Cruisin'

Duncan is my partner in crime when it comes to the "moving to the beach" mindset. Here is the deal, Ashley moved to L.A. first and initially lived in Westwood which is an area, largely comprised of college students, adjacent to UCLA. She chose this area for an obvious reason: it was a 15 minute walk from her front door to the inside of our hospital unit. She and her roommates (also nurses) lived there for two months while they adjusted to life on the west coast (it was summer and they were sub-leasing from some students) and then they decided to move to an area that was a bit further from campus (and therefore a bit less hectic) called Brentwood. When Kayla and I were doing our remote apartment search (me from NY and her from North Dakota) it seemed obvious to look for an apartment as close to Ashely as possible since A) we didn't know anyone else and B) we heard traffic was horrendous. These both proved to be valid points and I believe we chose wisely given the situation we were in. As you may remember, Duncan showed up in L.A. about a month after I did. He is not a nurse so he was not tied to UCLA, however he did not know anyone aside from Ashley so he chose an apartment half-way between hers and his job office. So the moral of that story is that we all now live in West L.A. which is great for getting to work and planning stuff at each other's apartments (like dinner) but it also means that we don't have a home base when we want to do stuff outside of West L.A. - like go out in Hollywood or spend a day at the beach. As I mentioned before, I am quickly becoming obsessed with two particular beach communities (they are right next to each other) called Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach (the star is my current apartment):
Over Memorial Day weekend Duncan and I went over to the Hermosa/Manhattan Beach area to check out a local arts and crafts fair called 'Fiesta Hermosa'. Our plan was to park somewhere in Playa Del Rey (it is a bit difficult to skirt the Marina on bikes or we would have just left straight from our apartments) and then ride down to Hermosa and back. We were all parked and ready to go when we discovered that Duncan's bike had a flat tire... time for plan B. We called Jeff (who lives in Hermosa) to see if we could park at his house (parking was insane because of Fiesta Hermosa) and he not only said "sure!" but suggested that we take his two beach cruisers so we could still get some biking in. Awesome. The day turned out better than we could have planned, we walked Sierra around the festival (Jeff was working so she was home alone) and then rode the beach cruisers along the water all the way up to the southern end of the marina and back. This gave us ample time (at beach cruisin' speed) to oogle the beach houses, have a few drinks at a beach front bar and just generally decide that you are only young and living in L.A. once and so it would be a shame not to live at the beach ;)