About a week and a half ago Annie and I (and Little Browne because he had no choice) headed down to Venice Beach to enjoy an overnight stay before we headed on to Newport Beach. The purpose of this trip was family and spending some time with them while Annie was still pregnant as well as being our last little getaway prior to LB launching into the world.<\/p>\n
My sister and niece flew into L.A. from Texas and met us at the place we stayed on the beach in Venice and the next day we headed to Newport Beach to spend a few days with my grandmother at a time share she has there.<\/p>\n
There was a period of time in my life when I spent a lot of time there\u2026it\u2019s one of those places where everybody fits in and it\u2019s relatively easy to feel normal because of the VERY diverse group of people. When you\u2019re cruising down the boardwalk you\u2019ll come across the lawyers taking a break from their L.A. office, the homeless, the mentally ill, the artists, the freaks, the locals, and absolutely everything in between. There is something quite soothing about Venice Beach for me\u2026maybe it\u2019s the memories, maybe it\u2019s because I feel normal there, or maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m forced to look at humanity in a very raw way. Whatever it is, I love it.<\/p>\n
Annie found this absolutely amazing spot to stay right on the boardwalk in Venice Beach called Venice Breeze Suites. If you\u2019ve spent much time in Venice Beach you know there\u2019s not a ton of \u201cnice\u201d spots to stay. I\u2019m not a snob or anything but you want to feel clean and safe right? Well, this place was perfect. Our room looked out at the ocean and beach as well as down the boardwalk too\u2026we got my sister a room right across the hall from us and her view was the same. In a word\u2026breathtaking! The rooms were fun and funky and the rooftop deck, was, holy guacamole Batman! You\u2019ll see in the pictures exactly what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n
Since Annie and I got down there earlier in the day we went and walked up and down the boardwalk checking out the scene. Annie had not been there before and she seemed to really get a kick out of it. We stopped in a cool snowboard shop called Arbor where Annie got a new sweatshirt which is made from bamboo, and then stopped in to the Venice Ale House for an plate of nachos and a couple of beers for myself. There are some great shops to check out as well as Muscle Beach, the basketball courts that always have some hardcore games going on, all the artist tables, and so on\u2026plenty to do while you soak up the culture that is Venice Beach!<\/p>\n
The next morning we walked up and down the boardwalk again with my sister and niece\u2026good times for sure. We grabbed some breakfast (and possibly a screwdriver or two) and then headed out to Newport Beach. I will fill you in on Newport in another blog post. I had some interesting observations and we also went to an awesome restaurant I will talk about. Anyway, we\u2019re keeping the adventures going, even with Annie being 37 weeks pregnant!! Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About a week and a half ago Annie and I (and Little Browne because he had no choice) headed down to Venice Beach to enjoy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[50,61,339,492,516,517,518],"class_list":{"0":"post-2275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wine-types","8":"tag-batman","9":"tag-boardwalk","10":"tag-muscle-beach","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-venice","13":"tag-venice-beach","14":"tag-venice-los-angeles","15":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n