Day 8 - Time to head home

WHEW!!! What a week this has been! It ended up getting to be very long. We had a late afternoon flight out so we had some time to do some last minute driving around. We ended up south of downtown LA and went to the Exposition Center and the California Science Center. That was kind of cool, but I definitely preferred the rose garden to the science center! We were on the back side of the coliseum that was used to host two separate Olympic games. Had I read up on my history a bit I would have made sure to get around to the main gate/entrance area, as I remember watching the opening ceremonies in 1984!! We then drove around and took in quite a few sights just from the car. Parking will kill ya! A couple of places I wish we had seen earlier, but oh well! We had a last visit to In-N-Out burgers and then headed to the airport. I ate FAR too much there and so couldn't even stand the thought of Porto's Bakery! :( It's probably better that I not eat too much of their rich goodness!! I didn't get any good exercise in! We had a delayed flight, but it wasn't too late which was good since we had Meeting today! We were amazed at how warm it was when we landed! Evenings in SoCal had been much cooler! Now we are home, laundry is finished!, and it's back to the workday for both Kent and I tomorrow! Tiana already has a friend over for a sleepover! Thanks for tagging along on our trip!




Last Day Pictures Pictures from InFlight

Day 7 -- Warner Bros., quiet time, lunch with Susan and girls

Today was a bit of a quiet day. Kent and Tiana took the Warner Bros.' studio tour while I took a trip to the local scrapbook store and went and sat at a park and did a bit of reading. In the afternoon we met Susan, Kodi and Tricia at Univeral City Buca di Beppo for lunch. The older girls sure seemed to hit it off. Thanks so much to them for a wonderful afternoon!!! Now we are going to head to the airport, change cars and head to Hip Kitty Jazz to watch a former classmate -- Kristin Korb perform. I think that Tiana will like that quite a bit!



And a few other pictures.

Day 6 - LA Fashion District and a drive through Beverly Hills and Bel Air

Well, after a big sleep in today we took the bus and subway into Los Angeles city. We went to the fashion district. There are some great "tax free" bargains to be had. A bit of haggling is expected too. Not the greatest area, necessarily -- very grimy. After a bit of walking around we ended up just coming home and then after a bit we decided to go driving. We drove up and through Beverly Hills and particularly Bel-Air. WOW!!! At one point as we were driving over the ridge into Beverly Hills, Kent pulled down a drive to get out of the way of the car pushing us from behind. Not far down that narrow road we saw a sign that said that all cars were being videotaped! We decided to back out of there! I wasn't very comfortable on the cowpath at all and felt much better when we were back on the main road! We found Bel Air. Not sure which of the stars all live there, but I can tell you this, that for all of the beauty there, it felt lonely there. All of the street facing windows were covered, it was gated, over-treed, video security, security people and vehicles, too. Very lonely, very isolated! Just my opinion! Maybe it's a bit of jealousy, but no, I like to walk in the neighborhood without fear, I LOVE to have all of my windows open to let in the sun and I love to simply enjoy my friends where and when I want without worrying about who might see!!! I didn't take my camera to Beverly Hills so I have nothing to offer of there, but here's a bit from the rest of our excursion through town!

Day 5 - LaBrea Tar Pits, Petersen Automotive Museum and the LA Holocaust Museum

We slept in today after our LOOONG day of play at Disneyland. That meant today would be a great day to take it easy. We started at the LA Museum of the Holocaust that is just a little piece of history tucked into the corner of a building. That is changing, but for now it is just a small little exhibit in the ORT building on Wilshire Blvd. It was made very emotionally interesting by talking with a survivor who has become a sculptor and artist. She does great work and I for one feel very privileged to have listened to her.

From the Holocaust Museum we ended up at Beverly Center Mall. I found some AWESOME dresses at Bloomingdale's, but you know, I just couldn't spend $300 on a simple dress! Kent did thank me for that!!! From there we parked at the Petersen Automotive Museum and walked up the two blocks or so to the LaBrea Tar Pits. I remember learning about them at some point in my elementary school experience and it felt pretty good to see them these many years later! The weird thing, we passed a sculpture on our way there, as a part of the LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), that is identical to one we have in Seattle!!

From there we spent an hour or so at Petersen Automotive Museum. It was quite interesting. A nice easy day followed with an easy dinner at El Pollo Loco.

Here's today's pictures

Day 4 - Disneyland

Well, pretty much the title sums up our day. We arrived at the Park at around 9:45am and we left after 10 pm. Tiana and Kent went on plenty of rides, I did a few, but mostly I was happy to take pictures. There is no end of scenery! So many details -- not a one forgotten!! The happiest moment of my day -- seeing my favorite, Eeyore! Just as we got to the park we saw Pluto and Goofy going on a break and since we never made it back to Main Street, we only saw Woody and his girl (I didn't see "Toy Story") other than Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger. We did see a number of characters from a distance during a street dance parade, but that was it. So, check out the pictures and join us in Disneyland!

Day 3 - Malibu, Santa Monica, Venice Beach and Beverly Hill

Wow! What a day! After a bit of confusion in communication, we ended up driving to Malibu and then along the coast for awhile. First, though, we stopped at this FABULOUS bakery and cafe that my cousin Susan told us about. It was a Cuban bakery with the largest selection of delectables you've EVER seen! I'm going to go back and beg for permission to photograph it later! Oh my!! On to Malibu: Although there are houses built right on the shore and thus blocking our ocean/beach view, we did manage to find a spot or two where we could get out and watch the surfers. I guess we missed some big swells. They had some big ones last week before we got here, but all that surfing looked like to me was a lot of waiting for a little ride! Got plenty of pictures, though! From there we drove to Santa Monica, walked out on the pier, walked up into town and shopped along the 3rd Street Promenade and then down on the beach again to our car. The beach sand is different here than along the parts of the coast where we've been in OR and WA. It's yellow and a bit coarser. We drove then to Venice Beach. In a word: GROSS! Talk about thoroughly morally bankrupt. I love to people watch, but I got pretty tired of it right away. There are shops lining this one section where you can buy your souvenir tees and a good lot of them are rated "R" or glorify pot. Of course, if marijuana is what you are looking for they have multiple "clinics" where you can see a "doctor" and he can cure your ailment with a simple prescription. So, where there is pot to be had, you need to the stores that would sell the pipes and water bowls and whatever else, so they have that too! Tiana had one guy try to put a CD down her shirt, he tried to make me listen to it, and another bumped Kent and the first thing he did is feel around to make sure that his wallet didn't go missing in the action (it didn't!) We got to see very scantily clad men lifting weights and lots of leftover hippies. We left there for the ultimate in excess -- Rodeo Dr. in Beverly Hills! Talk about gorgeous -- but surely at a price. Many a door said, "By Appointment Only". We saw a pretty cool car -- a Mercedes-Benz 12 cylinder, jet black, windows tinted, driver-standing-at-the-ready beauty. Can only wonder who he was driving around! We left there and stopped at the Universal CityWalk on the property of Universal Studios. Very bright and flashy -- just like the movies, but definitely more along the lines of "normal" compared to anything else we saw earlier in the day! Tiana DEFINITELY got her shopping in today!

The day's pictures are here!

An Awesome Day 2!

This morning we went to Meeting in North Hollywood. AMAZING! Almost everyone had some connection to people we know in WA and we met in the home of a good friend's in-laws so that was very awesome!! We went to Todd and Jill's after that. How incredible to meet up with him, meet her, Cade, Will and Brett and catch up with Guy and meet his wife Susan, too. It has been 22 years since I last saw Todd and Guy at Grandma Dutton's funeral! We spent a very hot afternoon being entertained by the kids in the pool and on the trampoline and the dogs, Rosie (Guy and Susan's), Penelope, Annabelle and Henry. What a fun bunch of hounds -- the dogs I mean! It was almost eerie how much I saw genetics in play. I swear when Todd was talking, I heard and saw my brother in his face!! We even talked about planning a family reunion sometime. Would be kinda fun to be sure! We took a few wrong turns leaving Todd's house, but we got to see some new places. We went to Bob's Big Boy for dinner, enjoyed lots of nice weather. And are now just thinking of planning our next days. Most of today's pictures are mostly only exciting to family, but feel free to look here for them. I'm feeling so bad, though, because I didn't get a good picture of Susan! My biggest apologies!!