HOLLYWOOD

While in LA we had to have a Hollywood day!  Anyone who knows me knows I'm serious celeb gawker!  I'm always checking Perez Hilton and TMZ for the latest celeb gossip.  So it was exciting to be in that whole element and show Bridger all the craziness and exciting things Hollywood has to offer.  He was surprisingly more interested than I expected him to be.  We saw a lot of people dressed up as characters, some were definitely creepy.  I mean really, who wants to see some stranger walking down the street dressed up as the guy from Scream or wearing a "Jason hockey mask??"  Not me!  We took a lot of video of the characters.  It was funny to see them all group together and chat.  I wonder if they aspired to dress up and take pictures with tourists on Hollywood Blvd as kids?  We saw Spiderman, Darth Vador, Yoda, Elmo, Tinkerbell, The Mad Hatter, Marilyn Monroe, Spongebob, and a bunch of others.  We only took one pic with Elmo b/c Ellie absolutely LOVES Elmo.  

Right off the bat when we got out onto the blvd of course a guy walks up to us trying to get us to buy his dvd.  He said something along the lines of, "take this overseas with you," and proceeds to hand Jas a dvd.  He starts asking us where we are from and is in awe that we have 2 kids.  We disappointed him when we said UTAH...then says he thought we were from EUROPE!  Ha!  I wish...but it was quite a compliment.  He told us he was an opening act for Eddie Murphy or some comedian that I didn't care for anyways.  Bummer for him that we didn't have any cash on us or he would have suckered us into buying it.  After we had convinced him we were cash-free he finally left us alone.  I don't mind supporting up and coming peeps but I DESPISE being approached by strangers trying to sell me something.  The rest of the day went smooth with no more randoms approaching us.  We walked up to the telescope to take a close up shot of the Hollywood sign, had some lunch and snapped some pics at the Kodak Theater.  I'm an Idol fan (although this season has been a let down), but B thought it was pretty cool to see where they film it.  The highlight was when I insisted that we drive past High Voltage before we left.  This is where a lot of LA Ink is filmed.  We went around once and my pic was blurry so we rounded one more time.  When we were around the back side who did we see in the back with a couple other employees...none other than Miss Kat Von D herself!!  I was so excited b/c I think she is such a unique and fierce gal, not to mention super foxy!  It made the entire day even better!

The view through the telescope.

How far away we really were.

Kodak theater where American Idol is filmed!

The Chinese Theater.

Despite Elmo's disgusting support of the Lakers we still took a pic with him.

This was at CVS...we had forgot Ellie's wipes so need to grab some.  Jas and B found this magnifier, when B had it over his eyes we thought he looked like an Avatar! Haha

Yep...that's Kat and her very sweet ride!

This was about 2 minutes after getting in the car to head back to the apartment...I think they had a good time!

***Disneyland***

Our first family vacation!  Near the end of March we made our long awaited drive to California.  We agreed back in December to make a trip to Disneyland as part of Christmas and finally took a break from the freezing cold and headed to LA.  Jason's friend was so awesome to let us take over his apartment in the super hip area of Silver Lake for the week and stay with some of his friends that lived nearby.  We were only about 30 minutes from Disneyland and a quick 10 minutes from downtown Hollywood!  Jason hadn't ever been to Disneyland and Bridger and I haven't gone for a few years.  I was ecstatic that we were able to make this trip happen on our own!  I was slightly concerned since no one else would be with us and we'd have to switch back and forth for the rides that Ellie couldn't go on but with the "Switchpass" that the rides offer, it was so easy and B got to ride everything twice!  The first day we spent most of the day at Disneyland and only hopped over to California Adventure for a couple baby rides and Tower of Terror...B HATED that ride and even tried faking that he was going to pee his pants so he could exit early...being the mean mother I am, I didn't let him leave me alone on that ride!  His favorite ride ended up being the roller coaster at California Adventure.  Ellie's favorite was definitely the parade.  A few of the dancers even came up to admire how adorable she was!  We waited about 30 minutes to have the spot we did for the parade and it was soooo worth it!  We were able to get some great video of that.  As far as the characters go, Ellie loved Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.  They were the most interactive with her and were so cute trying to coax her over to them.  The other characters were classics to get photos with but you felt a lot more pressure to get the picture and go b/c there were so many people waiting.  Day 2 at the parks went a lot more smoothly.  We knew what rides we needed to get our "Fast passes" for and what we were willing to wait in line for.  

All in all our first trip was a success and I can't wait to do it again!

Somehow we lucked out and only waited 5 or 10 mins to see Mickey!  

This was the first pic we got right inside the park.  Ellie was pretty creeped out by Goofy.

It's a Small World.  Jason never wants to hear that song again!

Roger Rabbit was the first ride we took Ellie on...I don't recommend it for babies!  She was pretty scared.  I guess I forgot how dark that ride is!

The super fun and friendly Pooh and Tigger!  They were so cute with Ellie and B.

Bridger and Mom on Splash Mountain.

No trip to Disneyland would be complete without a ride on the TEACUPS!

Ellie fell asleep at one point and Daddy decided she needed her face painted!  It turned out so cute!

The Buzz Lightyear ride.  B even got a higher score than Jason!

The parade!  Don't miss this if you go!

Jason and B on his favorite ride!

The ferris wheel is so high and swings over water.  Every time it would swing B would hold on for dear life!  Why as parents do we enjoy torturing our kids just a little??

Monsters Inc.  This ride is a fun one!  It's the last ride we went on before heading back to Silver Lake.

I now know why parents want a vacation from the vacation!  It was such a busy week but I'm so glad we were able to take our kids to Disneyland as our own little family.  I'm lucky to have such a hard working husband who made it possible!!  Thank Jason/Dad...WE LOVE YOU!

BFF Play Date

Meet Sophie!  This lil' nugget belongs to my bestie Anna aka Nanners.  Her and her husband (Steve) live in STG.  Anytime we are down to visit I always sneak in some time to see them.  A few weeks back I rode down with Corina on a Thursday and talked Nanners into letting me save Sophie from a day at daycare while she worked on Friday .  This was Ellie and Sophie's first official play date!  They have hung out a couple times before but not without both parents together and only for short periods of time.  They are both mega Jazz fans as you can see below.  Needless to say, these lil' ladies are destined to be BFF's (whether they like it or not!)  

VOTE FOR ELLIE!

We entered Ellie into a baby contest!  Voting started today at 5:00, here is the link: http://www.971zht.com/pages/babyidol10/

She is #536!!  Please go and vote for her and spread the word!  Voting is easy but it's a pain to scroll through all the photos to view hers so I'll post the pic here for everyone who doesn't want to click through 535 other photos to see hers...