Christine Came to Visit!

This is my friend Christine.  Several weekends ago she came to visit us and her brother in Los Angeles.  Christine is disgustingly creative.  Think of any creative/artistic skill-set and I can promise you: she either has it or knows someone who does.  She sings!  She dances!  She paints!  She plays guitar!  And you should see her fondant creations.  I love it!  She's also dazzlingly smart, and what with being an Earth Science major- she can tell you what all the pretty rocks and rock formations you see are called. 

The first evening after we brought her home from the airport we enjoyed a relaxing 6-hour conversation and some delicious Izze cocktails.  It was great!  I really enjoyed catching up with her, rolling ideas around with her, and watching M and Christine finally get to meet each other.  It's nice when your long distance boyfriend finally gets to meet your friends. 

The next morning we took her to the Getty Center.  This building is dazzlingly beautiful, it's only detraction in my mind is that it's stunning architecture detracts from the actual art it contains.

The Getty Center is located on top of a mountain ridge, giving it beautiful views of the ocean on one side, and all the way past downtown to the San Gabriel mountains on the other- especially on days that are as beautifully clear as the day we took Christine. 

The Getty Center also contains a beautiful garden full of bright colors and crazy angles.  The flowers were beautiful that weekend.  It's rare to feel like you're really getting spring in California- but the bare branches on the trees coupled with a slightly cool breeze and brilliantly blooming flowers really helped me feel like spring was coming again.  Doesn't everyone love that excitement?

I don't think succulents blooms very often, I feel special to have been able to see it at it's prime.  Just lovely!

As you can see, the beautiful topiary maze floating in the middle of a pool at the end of the garden walk was ablaze with beautiful flowers this weekend.  I'm fairly certain these are azaleas.  What a prize!

Malcolm was there too.  He did a lot of obliging picture taking.

Here we are together!

Christine had to wade out on the bride across the water, just to say that she had done it.  I don't blame her.

Christine, what with being an Earth Scientist- really enjoyed finding fossils in the stones that made up the museum.

Christine then wanted to go put her feet in the Pacific ocean, having only done so- so far- from the other side, during her trip to China.  She enjoyed it!

This looks so much like her to me.  Fascinated by some tiny bit of wonder she managed to find somewhere.  So bright and colorful!

Then we had a chance for a quick jot up the 3rd street promenade.

The day ended with cupcakes at one of the many gourmet cupcake locations that has sprung up recently.  This was all happening on the night of the Oscars, so Malcolm got a "red carpet" cupcake (it was pretty much red velvet but with a gold star), Christine had a peanut butter and jelly cupcake, and I had a banana split cupcake.  They were all excellent.

I love my friend, and I'm so glad that she got to come see us, and also that M and Christine got to finally meet each other.  It was really nice for Malcolm to begin to see into the three years worth of experiences and relationships I developed at Rice without him.  Christine was a big part of that, and I'm glad M got to interact with her too.  She's great.  He's great.  So let's all be great together. 

Finally, while I was in Houston, Christine did a lot of amazing showing me around.  She took me to Middle-Eastern markets, Indian confectionary shops, and Greek cultural festivals just to name a few.  I wanted to be able to show her some cool things in my cool new city as a way to pay her back and to recreate the fun experiences we had.  To show her how much those drives around Houston meant to me, and how much I valued the friendship and the cultural enrichment AT THE SAME TIME.  I hope I did alright!