Weekend.

I've gotten into the habit of domestic duties on Friday nights. I'm pretty thrilling. :P I guess this is what happens when you are over 30...tho I can't say I was allll that much more fun at 20. 

So, Friday was quite uneventful. I cleaned. I made these for dinner.

Preston put on 'Gladiator' and I got really sucked into it until I fell asleep. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! Seriously one of the best movies ever. 

It's such a good feeling on Saturdays to open your eyes and realize that you don't have to go to work and that you can sleep a little bit more. It's a great thing.

I had some tea and read a couple blogs before getting ready for my day. Around 9, Gianna and Joanna arrived followed not long after by Marcy. We walked down towards Venice for a beach clean up. It was a beautiful day and there were TONS of people there. 

Things I learned at the beach clean up:

1. The sewage plant near LAX used to put 'liquid waste' two miles out and 'solid waste' five miles out...and it wasn't all that treated. Now it's treated more and put further out to sea. EW.

2. All these 'nutrients' caused tons of plankton to come to the area of Santa Monica Bay and then die...which sucked oxygen out of the water creating a dead zone where no sea life could live.  It took 10 years of work to see some improvement in this problem. 

3. You greatly increase your chance of getting sick if you swim in close proximity to a pier. Piers often hide drainage pipe and have old sewage systems that leak underneath. EW.

4. Hundreds of sea lion pups are washing ashore dead or dying due to warm water temps and overpopulation. (Preston had actually already told me of this problem. He keeps seeing them.) 

5. You shouldn't swim or get in the water within 3 days of rain, because the bacteria levels are very high due to inland runoff. (I knew this too and Preston just IGNORES it all the time, yet somehow doesn't get sick. ew.)

             The ocean in California is pretty gross and it's sad. :-/

6. Styrofoam is an evil invention. It breaks into millions of tiny pieces that are impossible to pick up. 

7. There's some disconnect between cigarette butts and littering. IT'S LITTERING. Those things are EVERYWHERE. The beach is not your personal ashtray. Show some inkling of thought before just tossing it on the ground. Cigarette butts wash from miles and miles inland out to sea.

After picking up a billion pieces of Styrofoam, an absurd number of cigarette butts (don't worry, we wore gloves), pieces of plastic, streamers, a TAMPON (ew. I used the bucket to scoop it up. We aren't expected to pick up those things), plates, utensils, tissues and other things, we headed back to my place.

Some of our finds (mostly teeny Styrofoam!)

We reapplied sunscreen and hydrated and then jumped in the car to head to the Festival of Books at USC. 

Festival of Books is a big book fair held on the University Park Campus. There were probably a thousand tents, multiple stages, and numerous speakers. 

We love books :D 

The four of us got lunch at a place on campus I've been wanting to try-Seeds. The salads we got were pretty yummy. While we were eating, we chatted with an author who was there to scope out the event. I think we were all impressed with how cool she was. :D

This is her blog. 

We strolled through the tents. Many tents were selling books and others were selling book related items or handing out information. There were more than a few Scientology tents...creepy! Everyone bought a book but me. It's terrible, but I'm a devout Kindle reader. I never thought it would happen to me, but it has. I just LOVE my Kindle!! Even if I have the paperback...I'll buy it on Kindle if the price is reasonable. It's a problem. :P

hehe. I took this.

One of the coolest thing we saw was on the kid's stage. The Museum of Natural History, which is just off campus has pretty convincing dinosaur puppets/robots. It was fun to watch all the kids react to it. AND! The dinosaur had wispy feathers, which is now the latest dinosaur hypothesis by archaeologists. 

DINO SAUR

The day was really warm, so we kept moving in search of water and shade.

:)

I took the girls by the lab to show them where I work. It was especially fun to show Marcy, since we used to work together. :)

From there, we headed home. I said goodbye to everyone and spent some time catching up on "The Amazing Race". I think it would be so fun to go on that show, but I'd probably have a melt down on air. Being tired does not agree with me.

I made this tasty dinner and we decided to check out "Trip" again-the live music place down the street.

We had to pay the $5 cover, which I'm quite able to tell you...was not worth it:P However, the band was much better than it had been last time. These musicians were younger and played their instruments with a lot more skill. The vocals and lyrics were still weird though. The last band was like death metal, so we took off. 

Sunday was pretty boring and not much to talk about. I started the "Outlander" series and finished "The Killing" on netflix. 

That wraps it up for me. :) I hope everyone else had a nice weekend!