These past two weeks have been a whirlwind of incredible family fun time, working my butt off to make up for vacation time taken, not really sleeping, eating amazingly delicious food and drinking a little bit too much wine.

And I’m sure not complaining.

But yesterday was a pretty fantastic day that turned out to be full of a lot of firsts!

We started out like we do every Wednesday – at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market – except we had a few joiners.  Robin and Jeff tagged along and got to see the chefs in action first hand.

The wind finally died down for the morning and the sun was shining bright.  It was almost warm outside.  The produce was getting a little more colorful and exotic.  It was the first day of spring!!  And it was really feeling like it.

Another first for yesterday?  The first crazy looking heirloom tomatoes!  And even though Brad said they aren’t at all in season yet (they aren’t… early April at the earliest around here), I just had to buy a couple.  Tomatoes are my absolute favorite.

After the market, we headed down to Venice for lunch at Lemonade and then took the parents to walk around the Venice Canals, where I was a little confused as to whether we transported to Venice, Italy, instead.

We all walked down to the beach to show them the insanity that is the Venice boardwalk when I realized that in my two years of LA living, I hadn’t even been down to the Venice Boardwalk!  I’ve ridden down the bike path and seen it all from afar, but had never really gotten into it and walked around with the craziness.  And I was not at all disappointed.

Oh hey there, first time to the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

(That picture does not at all show what the Venice Boardwalk is like…)

Next on the list of firsts, we drove the mile or so up to the Santa Monica Pier because I was determined to finally get on the Ferris Wheel.  Brad doesn’t like heights and always finds an excuse not to ride it with me, but now I had back up.  We were getting on that Ferris Wheel.

And somehow, I convinced the whole crew to get up there with me.

First Santa Monica Ferris Wheel ride!

I even got a little bit of sun on my nose, so I’m counting that as my first tan of the season.  Yes!

And now that my family fun time is pretty much over for now, I went on my first run in two weeks today…  Not a very exciting first, but gotta get into beach shape before our trip to Florida in May!

Guess it’s back to reality now…

xoxo