Today was our unofficial Explore the Los Angeles Area day. In addition to doing a few pre-conference items, we took a big driving tour of famous sights around Hollywood, played on the beach at Santa Monica Pier, and had dinner at Downtown Disney with my college roommate, Bekah, and her sweet baby! We are not used to "big city" traffic, but love the beautiful scenery and weather. ;)
We began the day at the children's favorite restaurant just down the road - IHOP!
While we waited for our food, the kids played their favorite IHOP game - Prehistoric Animal Charades! (Yes. Really.)
I picked up my conference registration and program this morning. The theme is "Brilliantly Disguised Opportunities" in light of the (likely) impending changes in high education. The conference organizers probably decided this was more upbeat wording than, "Face It, We're All Screwed."
We left to explore LA! We saw downtown LA from our car, although it was fairly smoggy.
Onward to Hollywood!
And the traffic. OH, THE TRAFFIC. I will spare you my detailed complaints and just say that all of the bad stereotypes of LA traffic are true. ;)
We made it to Hollywood! We could see all of the Walk of Fame out the window. Daniel wanted to know why none of the stars on the ground had his name on it. Oh, and he is also going to be a movie star when he grows up now .
The famous Pantages Theatre. And coming soon to the Pantages Theatre...a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, The Wizard of Oz!
Grauman's Chinese Theatre!
The famous Sunset Boulevard.
We saw a GIANT line for people at this restaurant (Pink's Hot Dogs). As we drove up, we also saw a sign that it was named the best hot dog in America by Fox News.
Beverly Hills! (If you know Weezer, "that's where I want to be....")
We also drove by the famous La Brea Tar Pits. For thousands of years, the tar here was often covered with water. When animals came here to drink the water, they would often become trapped in the tar; thus, when they died, their bones were preserved for thousands of years. Kind of gruesome but cool for scientific discoveries today.
After MUCH driving, only some screaming, and a lot of traffic, we made it to Santa Monica Pier!
We had a horrible problem finding a place to park, so Will eventually let me out of the car with the kids so that they could go to the beach.
The pier has a really neat amusement park and other attractions. We did not venture over there yet and just enjoyed the beach today.
There were a lot of large birds everywhere.
Daniel's favorite activity was digging in the sand.
Annika was brave and had a blast playing in the very chilly water.
Digging a giant hole together! Their goal was to find one of the animal "diggers" (aka shellfish). Daniel actually found one today and said it was awesome.
Annika went out on the boogie board! She is in the middle of this picture and you can make her out if you squint.
Daniel buried one of his feet in the sand.
After Santa Monica, we headed back to Anaheim for our next adventure: Downtown Disney!
Downtown Disney was advertised as a 10-minute walk from our hotel, but I can attest that it was really more like 30+ minutes. Still, beautiful weather and landscaping, and so nice that we could walk after spending so much time in traffic earlier in the day.
The best thing about today is that we had dinner at Downtown Disney with my college roommate, Bekah, and her sweet 6-month old baby, Evie!! (Annika would like me to write that her real name is Evelyn, like Grandma. ;) ) Evie is one of the most gorgeous babies ever. Those eyes! Those cheeks! And she is absolutely as sweet as can be.
At dinner, the kids were able to get balloon animals made! They each requested a dragon.
Annika and I stole Evie from her mom and each took turns holding her.
Downtown Disney, all lit up - beautiful walk back!
Tomorrow I will be busy with the conference all day, but Will is going to take the kids to Disneyland!! I am sure they will have a blast. Maybe even more fun than will be had at an accounting conference. ;)
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