Wedding Prep & Rugby {Malibu}

After a late night of driving last night, this is what we woke up to:  Wembley the attak dog.  She was up and ready to go -- way before we were!

We all piled in one bed at the hotel.  Shan and I slept great.  I think Wembly did too, because she was wired this morning.  But Ryan got the short end of the stick -- and the very corner edge of the bed. Good thing he's easy going...

I hopped up and showered first, and chilled on the bed watching the news about the Paris terrorist attacks.  Such a sad world we live in sometimes. 

We didn't quite make it out the door by 8 like we wanted, and the hotel didn't have free breakfast.  Starbucks for the win.  I got a blueberry yogurt muffin AND oatmela AND a strawberry smoothie.  I like my breakfast.  And guess who we saw!  Frankie Valli - the singer from the 60s and 70s.  He wasn't happy about his morning bun not having a thin layer of butter on it or something.  Too funny.  But man he looked good for 80!

Our first stop for the day was at the LA Flower Market in downtown LA.  Definitely not the best area to be in.  I couldn't belive that is where they found their wedding flowers, but Ryan spoke Spanish and they got one heck of a deal on them.

This sign was at the entrance and I definitely made them stop and pose for a picture.  It's officially wedding week!

Inside the giant warehouse was, just as you would expect, nothing but flowers.  They open at 2am to get all the flowers out to all the shops across LA for the day!

Shan and I went in and she found her little shop right away.  Norma was all prepared.  She had her list of exactly what Shan needed, and had the perfect hydrangeas.  Done.  Easy stop.

We walked around to a few more shops and got gift bags and big galvonized buckets for wedding decor.  I found this blinged out cake in one of the stores and really tried to get Shan and Ryan to go with that.  It didn't happen. ;)

Next stop: Vintage Grocers in Malibu for wedding cake testing!

I even got to try some, too.  I'm not a huge cake fan normally, but man, that was so good!  Vanilla and chocolate and vanilla with rasberry filling.  Done.  Another item off the list.

Third stop:  Kristy's at Malibu, the restauran where the rehearsal dinner will be.  Just wanted to check it out and meet with the owner to make sure everything was all set.  Done.

Our fourth stop was at a friends house to finally empty out the packed car so we had room to breathe! We brought down a lot of wedding decor this weekend, rather than trying to deal with all of it next weekend, and a friend let the store it in her garage.  

Next stop:  Pepperdine University campus for Ryan's alumni rugby game!  Have you ever seen a more beautiful campus!?  I mean, come on, it overlooks the ocean!

I've never watched Rugby before, and didn't really know what was going on.  Plus we were late and he only got to play the last quarter, but it was pretty entertaining none the less. 

The caterer for the farewell brunch after the wedding next weekend was also catering the meal after the rugby game.  So we got to kill two birds with one stone this stop and finalized everything with him while we were there.

Fifth stop for the day: the rental house that Shannon's family rented out for the next weekend.  We techinally weren't allowed to be there yet, so I tried to climb the gate and check it out.

The picture I got:

I couldn't see much, so we decided to try and run up the hill -- which also didn't work because it was too steep and dogs were barking.  At least we know where the house is now anyways.

Final stop for the day: Oak Canyon Ranch,  the venue where the wedding and reception will take place.  It's such a beautiful property up in the canyon between Malibu and Agoura Hills.  A little rustic, cool trees, a creek.  It's just going to be perfect, next weekend!

We ran a couple more erands in Agoura Hills trying to find little bottles of alcohol for the welome gift bags (with no success) but we still put the bags together in the friends garage.  Any thing we could do this weekend meant less we had to do next weekend.

We hit the road a little later than we wanted, and stopped to pick up some dinner in Santa Barbara at the Natural Cafe.  Celebrity spotting number 2 for the day was Blake Griffin!  He was walking out with his kid as we went in.  That is one big dude.  (No pictures -- I wasn't fast enough.)

Made it back to Mountain View pretty late and I got my bed ready on the couch.  It's got to be one of the most comfortable couches around and I always look forward to sleeping on it!

Another full day -- or week -- of wedding prep coming up after a little fun tomorrow at the Raiders game!