so...the ominous "exciting thing that i might be doing this weekend" did indeed happen on saturday, and i'm more than excited to post about it!! two friends and i took a day trip to meh-hee-coh!!!! after living here for over a year, i'd been talking about wanting to go south of the border for awhile, and i couldn't believe i hadn't done it yet. it's so close, and so easy to take a spontaneous trip out of the country. i love where i live!!

basically, the pictures are the most telling part of our adventure, as you can imagine. we drove down to ensenada, mexico, also stopping at puerto nuevo, a lobster village on our way back to la saturday night. justin, holland, and i had 18 hours of conversation, music, laughter, culture...it was outstanding!

the day made for several funny stories, including getting stopped in a 3 hour stand-still traffic jam, which ended up being one of the highlights, because we stretched our legs and enjoyed the view, as you'll see in the pictures...we also ended up on a couple of highways that randomly just ended, which proved to be hilarious (which you'll also see pictures of). ensenada was a cool town, with a bike ride festival going on, so people were milling about, and we found lots of colors and textures to take pictures of (we even made a parody of "satan's alley," which will make sense if you've seen the movie "tropic thunder"). then, our dinner stop at the tiny village, puerto nuevo, was amazing. it was a very warm, authentically mexican place, with family-style restaurants and jovial shopkeepers selling hand-painted pottery and local fruits.
the lobster we ate here was also my first lobster ever, and, oh man, it was delicious!! i couldnt believe how much i loved it...all slathered in butter, yummmm. ok i'm making myself hungry...moving on!

mexico, although very dirty, disorganized, and impoverished, was naturally beautiful, colorful, vibrant, full of friendly people, culture and life. it was an energizing experience all around--we had so much fun.

ok, below are the public links to the full albums from our trip. these pictures have captions, and you can click through them all easily, so i encourage you to do that. seriously, these are some of the best trip pictures i've had, so i'm thrilled to share them with you all. i will, however, post a few highlight pictures below, in case you can't access the full albums, for some reason... it was such a blessing of a day for my friends and me, and i really hope you enjoy it vicariously through the pictures!!

album 1
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016260&l=ea799&id=135000032

album 2
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016261&l=ff387&id=135000032

album 3
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016262&l=448ee&id=135000032



a few highlights...

finally some fun new pictures!! my roomie, holland, got some dodgers tickets from her boss. not just ANY tickets, either; they're really up close, just behind home plate, basically. so the two of us, and our close friends parker and justin attended tuesday's game against the padres. it ended up being a blowout--we won 10-1 i think--needless to say, we had quite the time documenting our experience at the game, almost more than actually paying attention to the game :) heehee. but, no, it was a lot of fun, and another highlight was going to applebees afterwards. seriously, it's so hard to find traditional chain restaurants like that out here, so it was a treat to go and order my favorite oriental chicken wrap and fries--yum!! so worth the trip! enjoy the pictures...probably no captions needed, as most of them are just us goofing off!

park and me (and his amazing new pearly whites!)

justin and holland

i guess something was thought-provoking...?

celebrating a home run!

the four of us

applebees?!?!

oh yeah, we're goin there!



last weekend, i also did something really unique and enjoyable...a couple friends and i went to an outdoor amphitheater and saw a theatrical reading of two radio plays. one was alfred hitchcock's "lifeboat," the other, john steinbeck's "stangers on a train." i felt like i was in such another time and place...it forced my imagination to be so active, because all we saw were the voice actors reading the plays, and then you're just left to visualize it. such a cool experience. i love trying new things!

stay tuned, because i think i'll have an exciting event this weekend to post about very soon!

...was very productive! i don't really have pictures that correspond to the new postables from this past week, but i'll post them nonetheless!

and, hooray, because a couple of them are actually career-related for once! :)

i met with my acting coach, anthony barnao, on monday before our regular weekly class. anthony is now a good friend, but i originally met him at an actor's bootcamp last year, and then worked with him on forming Stage to Salvation, his idea for a Christian theater group. anyway...he had told me awhile ago that he would like to see my work, and watch how i progress, and potentially manage me in the future. so, after months of classes, he told me monday that he liked what he saw, and he would like to be my manager! so, this is great career news! when i tell people this, the first question is usually "so what's the difference between an agent and a manager?" good question. consider me a brand, lauren parrent. a manager generally helps to shape the overall image of the brand, help get it all together, and an agent promotes the brand. they often overlap, though. so, i'm very excited about this blessing; i feel great that i have someone who i know and who knows me to be on "my team." he has a couple other clients, several that have had some really good gigs, so i'm confident in his ability. i look forward to having work of my own to blog more about. we'll see where it goes from here...

also, on wednesday of last week, i stayed after work at kris' and had an amazingly fun recording session!! my mom reminded me this week that when i was little i watched a special about the voice actors from beauty and the beast and told her "wouldn't that be a fun job? I'd love to do that someday." so, i guess i fulfilled my recording destiny this week! it was great! i'm so grateful that kris gave me the opportunity to use his recording studio and his talented direction, of course. i recorded stuff for a regular voice over reel, and then i'll do a character reel sometime soon. those will be fun to post!

lately, i've really been aware of the wisdom that comes from age. i feel like i'm really learning to listen to people and their life stories. you can learn so much that way! anyway, my friend, chelsie, has worked for a lady, rita, who needs help organizing and getting some of her writing together. i'm now going to be helping her out. she lives really close, and she has amazing stories, so i'm really stoked about it.

also, fun sidenote, when i arrived at rita's house, i parked on the street and noticed a guy standing by her neighbor's fence. he turned towards my direction to walk away, and we made eye contact. i thought his charming grin was familiar, and indeed it was. for those of you that might be fans of "lost," it was boone! i recently started watching the lost series on dvd (i'm on season 2, and i love it!). so yeah, ian somerhalder and i had a nice moment :)



that's all for now. isn't it amazing how time flies? it's already almost mid-september. my goodness...