Sarah's visit

Towards the end of July my best friend Sarah came to visit me. Yay! She was actually doing me a big favor by flying out to L.A. and spending a couple days with me and Bennett (I'm sure it was a really hard favor to do, haha). Mark left for Utah in early July for an internship at BYU and I was planning on driving out to hang out at the Wheeler's in Midway while he finished his last couple weeks of work. I was DREADING driving the 10+ hours by myself with no one to help me with Bennett so in a flash of brilliance, I convinced Sarah to fly out here one way, spend a few days playing in sunny California, then drive back to Utah with me. It worked out perfectly, the roadtrip was approximately 1.78 kagillion times better having Sarah there. Thanks Rah Rah!

We went straight from the airport to Manhattan Beach. We scored ourselves some free parking (If you've been in LA long enough, you know how awesome that truly is) and walked right onto the beach.

Bennett and Sarah are so happy to be at the beach!What kid doesn't love being thrown into the air?

Bennett does this a lot at the beach, I don't know why, but it's cute!One of our closest friends from Valdez, Mark Banner joined us for dinner since he happened to be living in LA for the summer as well. He made such a big stink about how wussy we were for not going swimming that day that we made him go in! It looked like so much fun that even though it was not super warm any more, Sarah and I both went in too! Sarah's toying around with the idea of swimming here, but she went in shortly thereafter.
This picture makes me laugh.Mark and Bennett are best buddies. Bennett seems a little concerned about the big hole Mark dug, though."Mom, why is Mark under the sand? I'm a little worried."Three amigos.

Sarah and I did a cool hike in Malibu through a wooded riverbed that ended at a waterfall. Let the record state that this is the exact moment that Bennett chose to have one of the most epic diaper fails of his life. Hideous. I'm pretty sure he scared about 12 other hikers into never having kids.
Some things never change. I can't walk by a giant tree and not climb it.

Lovely Sarah at the end of our hike and our trip. Time to head to Utah!