The one where we get swallowed by the ocean.

After a yummy 4th of July BBQ with the Kerr family, Matt & I decided to spend the afternoon being touristy in LA before watching fireworks on the beach. Our first stop was Hollywood, where we spent a whole 15 minutes--we knew that it actually isn't that exciting but still wanted to check it off the list.

So Matt fulfilled his picture requirement with a thumbs up to John Lennon and I took one with Audrey Hepburn's star (just in case we choose to name one of our daughters Audrey instead of Aubyn/Autumn/Aubrey).

After our pit stop in Hollywood, we spent a couple hours window shopping in Beverly Hills before heading to the Los Angeles Temple to walk around the grounds. It is so beautiful.

Then we stopped by the Santa Monica pier to eat at Bubba Gumps!

Matt isn't particularly fond of seafood (okay, he hates it), so Bubba Gumps was a bit of a stretch for him. It's such a fun place to eat, though, that Matt agreed to try it. He ended up loving the shrimp! Guess they cook it better than the military does, go figure.

Okay, now for the little story... When it got dark, we took a quick picture with the pier and then headed down the beach to watch the fireworks at Marina Del Rey. We set up in about the middle of the sand but since the fireworks were a bit further away, anyone walking by would block them so we moved a little closer to the ocean. We were still up on a tiny hill a good 10 yards from the highest point of the tide so we felt pretty comfortable with it. Here's the "before" shot with the pier (notice the color of my jeans):

Picture this for two seconds: lying on a towel on the beach, watching fireworks in the distance, and listening to the ocean waves crashing below you, all as you're cuddled up with your fiance. Pretty romantic, right? Cue the rogue wave--we're just lying there enjoying the moment when out of nowhere and with zero warning, a huge wave came in and over us! Classic. I thought it was hilarious, as you can probably tell from this picture we took right after the incident:

Yeah, we were slightly drenched. Me more than Matt, since I was closer to the ocean and sat up fast, giving Matt slightly more time to react. The cell phone that was in my pocket? Toast.

Meanwhile, the blanket-size towel we were using was super heavy & dirty with all of that water & sand in it so Matt dragged it across the beach back to the pier. It left a big trail along the entire beach. I was in stitches when I took this picture. It's the funniest mixture of Will Smith dragging that parachute in Independence Day and Linus (from Charlie Brown) dragging his blanket:

I eventually convinced Matt of the hilariousness (is that a word?) of the whole ordeal and we were both laughing as we realized that we'll probably never be able to top the memorable factor of this 4th of July.

Luckily for me, I had another pair of capris in the car so I just changed and we kept our little date going, eating delicious Nutella crepes on the Third Street Promenade. Oh, and as for the soaking wet cell phone, we were going to put it in a bag of rice to suck the water out but were too impatient, so Matt decided to try nuking it in a microwave. Kids, don't try that at home--it nearly started a fire.