Girls Weekend in LA

A couple of weekends ago, we had a Girls' Weekend in LA with my Rich sisters and mother. We all abandoned our children with our husbands and left at the crack of dawn (luckily I was one of the last to get picked up so I only had to wake up around 4:30am unlike my poor more southern sister who left her house at 3:45am. Just one more perk to living closer to the airport I guess!)

I knew we were in for a treat when one of the first things we did was try to figure out this silly drink dispenser. For some reason we had a heck of a time getting it to read the card and take the order but once it did it was pure entertainment watching how this thing dispensed drinks. 

{We are probably all deprived of cool gizmos in our life seeing as to how there are 16 children between the four of us.}

Having left at the crack of dawn plus gaining an hour as we journeyed back to California, we had lots of time to enjoy that day and our first stop was the LA Temple.

It is HUGE! I was rather blown away with the magnitude of this building. You just couldn't help but stare as you walked around it.

Not only did we do Initatories while we were there but we spent a little time wandering around the Visitor's Center which was a treat. 

After we finished at the Temple we grabbed some lunch then headed to the Walk of Fame.

 

We saw some winners of stars as we walked along the sidewalk.

Just to name a few.....

We also might have gotten a little silly in the Disney store.

No need to comment on this one. Just laugh and know that my MIL is funnier than yours!

After we walked the streets for awhile we had been effectively persuaded by the tour man to take a Hollywood tour for half price, so we hopped into the tour bus and off we went to stalk celebrity homes! 

Yes we became those creepy people.

  Too bad I have already forgotten who lived where. 

I'll do my best, but no guarantees I've got any of them right! 

Plus for all we know the guy driving the bus could have been making it all up too, so who knows!

This was just some random ferris wheel in someone's yard. 

{It's Hollywood, apparently people don't ask questions.}

 Dr. Phil's house

Selena Gomez's house

Simon Cowell's house

 Ellen Degeneres lives in the top penthouse of this building

The streets are just beautiful lined with the palm trees.

We also learned that you know you are in Bel Air when you see silver street signs and fire hydrants. Oh the life of the Rich and Famous. 

 This house up in the nose bleed section is the house from Iron Man! 

Dang, can't remember this one. Anyone?

This one might have been Tom Cruise? But now I'm kind of thinking maybe not...

Drew Barrymore's house 

Richard Simmons' house

As well as his awesome mailbox.

The Greystone Mansion 

This is the Masion where the Mutants live in X-Men.

That window at the top is apparently the window into the room where Michael Jackson was staying when he died.

And that house on the top was Rihanna's. 

We also saw several gates to other random celebrity houses as well as lots of trees blocking houses. All in all it was really fun! Our bus driver kept telling us to keep our eyes open and stare at everyone because there was a 90% chance of seeing someone famous that could change to 100% at any time! haha. He kept pointing out paparazzi who were in staking out hotels and shops. He was a hoot.

That night we ate at Chili's where I got my favorite dish,

Honey Chipotle Crispy Chicken Crispers 

(or something like that.)

If you haven't had it, then I just solved your dinner dilemma, you need to go there immediately. It is by far my favorite thing on the menu. 

The next morning we took a walk down to the beach because our hotel was only about a mile away.

We agreed this thing looked like it could eat someone. 

And yes my MIL is still this cool.

These little flowers were so bright and fun.

We loved looking at all the fun houses that were right on the beach.

And up these cute alleyways.

And of course the beach was pretty.

But holy smokes was it cold. Our toes were much better off up in the sand.

These macaroons were lined up so pretty in this little shop that I couldn't help but take a picture!

After our walk we wandered through Target then finally went back to the hotel to get ready for our show that night. 

And apparently it was too much to have all 5 of us getting ready at the same time because we blew a fuse and had to call maintenance to come fix it!

But that's ok because then we were awesome and used my fun new clicker to take pictures of ourselves.

We are so cool.

We went out to eat at California Pizza Kitchen where we didn't realize pizzas came sized for a whole table instead of individual serving sizes. 

We should have asked more questions than none.

I got a bit burned while I was there. It was awesome to see that much sun!

And then that night we saw the show we had come to see.

Newsies!

The theater was amazing and the show was a lot of fun! 

We decided since we had taken selfies everywhere else, we should have one in the theater of course. But it was too dark to do it without the flash so Joanna and I decided we would test run the flash before we got the group to look just to see if it would even work. Well clearly it worked (even took away my sunburn) and also burned our eyeballs and left us seeing spots for several minutes. This all led to us getting the giggles and we could not stop! 

And with every additional picture we took we lost a few minutes of vision. 

But it was ok because I factored that into our timing and allowed for enough recouping time between the last picture and the start of the show. 

The next morning led to another walk down to the beach which of course meant more pictures. 

 

Sunday morning (I think? Who knows at this point!) I woke up to find a decent sized spider way up in the corner of our shower. Being the brave person that I am, I used Joanna's water bottle to hopefully splash the spider into the tub and down the drain. Well despite my best efforts, instead of splashing the spider down into the tub, I splashed him into the air and right out at me! I let out a shriek (which I RARELY do) and leaped out of the bathroom! Luckily my shoe was close by so I could seal the deal for the spider, but shoot it scared the pants off me! Flying spiders are not what I wanted for my morning! And unfortunately everyone else got to wake up to a squeal of terror.

And then things calmed down and we hit an LDS chapel for church and caught a flight home. 

It was a perfect weekend get away.

Thanks again girls for the laughs and fun! We should do it again sometime.