Showing posts with label LA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LA. Show all posts

1.18.2013

A Weekend Visitor.

At the beginning of December I had a visitor from Bremerton! My friend, K, who has been in a few plays with me, which is how some of you might recognize her.

She flew in super early and was an amazing sport, because I ended up dragging her to a Baby Shower. She, being incredibly creative, decorated one of the cutest onesies for the new Momma.
After Tim had woken up (he was still on graveyard), we went to the San Diego Zoo. The panda exhibit was practically empty and so we got some one-on-one time with this panda. He was definitely showing off for us! 

The next day, K and I went up to LegoLand. She is a HUGE Lego fan, so while I took a few pictures, I'm pretty sure she left with a picture of every single thing.



Tim took Tuesday off work and the three of us drove to Hollywood! The real reason for K's trip was to see a live taping of The Big Bang Theory.  I had managed to procure tickets to the taping on Tim's birthday (which is a long story that involves me having a nervous breakdown at the business center in Disneyland Hotel). We left our place around noon and Tim slept in the back seat while I drove to LA. We got there a little early, so K and I left Tim in the car (in the parking garage) while I took K to see The Hollywood Walk of Fame and Dolby Theater. We got to the Warner Brothers Studio in time to eat a quick dinner and check-in for the taping. The audience wranglers did a great job of getting everyone into the studio quickly, where we waited about an hour before they showed us an unaired episode of the show before our show taping. The taping itself lasted about 3 hours, but it went by very quickly. Our episode, The Egg Salad Equivalency, aired on January 3rd. No cameras or cell phones were allowed in the studio, so that's why I don't have any photographs. Although, we did have a quick exchange with Regina King as we were walking to our car!

Wednesday was K's last day with us, but she wasn't leaving until later that evening, so we decided to check out Point Loma. My friend C also came with us! The day started a bit overcast, so the view wasn't great, but we did have a fun time going down to the tide pools.


 K is a picky eater, but loves bacon, so C recommended a place called "Slater's 50/50." The 50/50 stands for 50% ground beef and 50% bacon, which is how they make their hamburger patties. Tim and C also got maple-bacon milkshakes for lunch. It was quite an experience, but pretty tasty and K loved it. :-)
(There were chucks of bacon throughout the milkshake.)

K and I ended the day with a drive down to the Mexico-US border and along the Silver Strand. We stopped at The Hotel Del Coronado to look around and go to the beach. It just so happened that while we were in the lobby of the Hotel Del, K noticed a stream of water coming from the ceiling. We let the concierge know and he kind of looked at me like "um, what are you talking about?" until he actually looked and then people started running around trying to keep the woodwork dry and capturing the water. Basically, K and I saved the Hotel Del. 
It's hard to see in the picture, but they had a staff member standing under the stream with garbage cans. '

It was a whirlwind couple of days, but we all had so much fun! 
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10.23.2012

Ma - I'm a STAR! (Part 3)

Monday was the day of our television debut. We were meeting our fellow TV stars at 11:00am to get in line for the taping. Everyone made it safely from San Diego and we were ready for our close up!

Too bad we had to wait several hours for the taping. It was actually close to 4 1/2 hours of waiting!

At one point we got our picture taken:


And then everyone in the audience was interviewed by the producer, Stan, for the opportunity to be a contestant.

About an hour later, it was time for the taping! I've attached the link to the online video below, in case you didn't see it when it aired on October 15th.

The Price is Right

Ma - I'm a STAR! :-)

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10.22.2012

Ma - I'm a STAR! (Part 2)

Sunday morning, we were up bright and early so we could go on a tour of The Dolby Theater. Did I mention my love for The Oscars? Yes. Ok, so this is one of about a million pictures I had Tim take of the outside for me. 
 Oh look, here's another one...
 Unfortunately (and I'm so serious about this), we couldn't take any pictures inside the theater. Supposedly one of the networks owns all the rights - blah, blah, blah - crushing dreams - blah, blah. LAME!

After our great tour, we found out we could get super discounted tickets to the resident Cirque du Soleil show, Iris, with our tour tickets. We decided to get some for that night and we ended up with tickets in the fourth row, center section, on the aisle. I'm pretty sure someone super famous sat in my seat. Yeah, I shared a seat with like Brad Pitt or something. No big. :-)

Next door, is the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater. This is a picture with Anne Baxter's prints - which was really special for me (I didn't know she was in there) and definitely reminded me of home.
 And I couldn't leave without a picture of the Harry Potter trio - which Tim had to ask some people to move so their shadow wasn't covering it. (It was actually more of a "TIMMY - MAKE THEM MOOOVE!" from me - they got the idea.)
 Proof that Tim was there...
And after all this, we still had about an hour to kill before our Brunch reservation, so we went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Points for whoever can name these celebrities. Are you ready?









How'd you do? Pretty easy - yeah, but it was awesome! 

Finally it was Brunch time at our hotel. 
Then we headed out to find The Grove shopping center and the CBS studios, so we would know where we were headed the next morning. While at The Grove, we spotted Olympic Gymnast Shawn Johnson shopping at Nordstrom. Smart girl. And short. Very short. 

Our next stop was Rodeo Drive!
 We looked in some of the boutiques, which sadly, weren't what I was expecting. I say this because we've been shopping in the Ginza district of Tokyo, which is so over-the-top and so overwhelming, that the snooty little boutiques of Rodeo just didn't compare. Later, we found out from friends, that most of the merchandise is "in the back," but I just wasn't as impressed. And surprisingly, it was empty. There was almost no one shopping that day, so we couldn't even people-watch. The upside - CUPCAKES!
We left Rodeo Drive and tried to go see The Beverly Hills Hotel, but all of the surrounding streets were blocked off for an event, so we headed back to our hotel via The Sunset Strip. 

And we ended the night with Iris. Follow this link for a preview video of the show. It was really amazing, but I think for me was seeing it in The Dolby Theater. That was just...awesome. 
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Ma - I'm a STAR! (Part 1)

I FINALLY got to go to Hollywood and I'm sold. It's awesome. By now, you should now that we went to a taping of The Price is Right, but in preparation for my TV debut, we decided to live it up - Hollywood style. 

I 'Hotwire'd a sweet hotel - The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel - that was smack dab in the center of Hollywood. Literally across the street from the Hollywood and Highland Center.

Our room was great! A nice mix of modern and vintage. 

We settled in and then headed out to find some stars! On the way, we took some pictures of the famous 'Hollywood' sign.
 And then we were off on a search - our destination: Lucille Ball. I was a little disappointed that her star was in front of a shop for ::questionable:: ladies, but since those shops make up 90% of Hollywood Blvd, I shouldn't have been too surprised.
 Of course, I HAD to get a picture in front of the Dolby Theater, aka The Home of the Oscars. If you know me, you know I'm obsessed with the Oscars, so this was a big deal.
 That night we opted to see Frankenweenie at the famous El Capitan Theater, which has been the location for several movie premieres and offered a rather unique experience. Prior to the start of the show, they hold an organ concert with an original Wurlitzer organ and then before the movie, they had a laser show. It was a very cool!
We ended the night at the Disney Soda Fountain with an amazing hot fudge (and marshmallow cream) sundae! Did I forget to mention that the El Capitan Theater is owned by Disney? Next door, which you can kind of see on the right (above), is the home of Jimmy Kimmel Live - also owned by Disney. 


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