It was a busy weekend at Casa DK...here's a quick recap: 

Hike to Hollywood Sign: On a beautiful yet slightly smoggy Saturday afternoon, John, Zach, Emily and I took off to Griffith Park and hiked to the Hollywood sign.  The websites with the hike info classified it as a “strenuous” hike, and right they were!  They hike ends above the sign, but high gates prevent you from actually getting close to the letters.  Alas, we were successful…and sore.

Hollywood Sign, from behind

Me and Emily!

John, Me, Zach, and lots of LA smog

Chinese New Year party: One of John’s co-workers at Chrsalis hosted the local volunteers for a Chinese New Year dumpling dinner party on Saturday. It was nice to mingle with other volunteers/interns in LA.  There were lots of JVs, Episcopal volunteers, and Vincentian Volunteers in attendance.

Ground Hog’s Day party: After dinner, we went over to our lovely FJV friend Rose’s apartment for her (4^th Annual) Groundhog’s Day party. She’s a riot – she made all sorts of appetizers and desserts in groundhog’s day theme, and hung up pictures of Puxatony Phil all over her apartment. It was nice to meet some of her friends!

On Saturday morning, I met up with Mariel and Caitlin (both BC ’10 – Mariel is a JV with me and Caitlin was visiting from Denver!!) at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market. The market was cute and VERY busy.  The vibe was totally different from anything in my neighborhood, but such is Santa Monica, I guess.  Earlier in the morning, I went to Mass: The Musical at St. Monica’s church.  It wasn’t really a musical, but the “contemporary” music sure made it feel like one. The church was packed and the whole time I kept thinking of Miley’s line “everybody seems so famous.” Everyone was dancing along to the very upbeat music.    

Note Zach's Green & Yellow Poncho (back left)!

Go Pack Goooo!: Later in the afternoon, the LA JVs joined us to watch the Super Bowl.  Thanks to a last minute save by Casa JD’s digital converter box (ours only gets Fox when our remote feels like working) we were able to watch Zach’s Pakers take out the Steelers.  Zach is a Packer’s fan through and through (see below).  Everyone brought awesome food too, so the party was a success!