Hollywood Vacay

 This trip to the Los Angeles area was 1 of our top 5 trips for sure! (Honeymoon to Cancun, AT&T Trip to St. Thomas, Washington DC, New York City round out out top 5.)  Those trips were all taken before I blogged.  So, I thought it would be fun to put up some old pics for posterity sake...especially with the Oscars being on TV this past weekend.

Steph and Eddie moved to Rancho Cucamongo (sp?), a suburb of LA for Eddie to finish up his Nurse Anesthetist progarm.  Through the generousity of SO many (Judy and Turner giving us their frequent flyer miles, Mom and Dad keeping sweet Little La, and Steph and Eddie letting us stay with them in their 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment) we were able to go out and see the sights for a few days!

We went in February which is Oscar season and there was this cool display at a mall where you could hold a real Oscar...as you can see it was tethered down!  But, here is one of my claims to fame! (others include holding an Oscar, sitting on the TV Show Friends couch, wearing Miss America's crown, meet Troy Aikman, Michael Irving, Tony Dorsett and Dirk Novitski while working at AT&T..all that comes to mind at the moment)

We spent some time looking at all the Hollywood stars!  So cool to see them in real life after years of seeing them on TV.

I was just a few months pregnant with Hudson on this trip. We got to share the news with Steph and Eddie in person over dinner one night while we there!

 

HA!  Remember this Steph?!  We met some interesting folk on Hollywood Blvd. We saw Elmo and thought ...Oh! Let's grab a quick pick and send it back home to Lawson!...We took the pic and THEN the gentlemen inside Elmo informed us that pics were $5!  Ha!  We were inclined to argue with him...but Eddie, who is ALWAYS trying to avoid a scene, just payed him off! 

We went on a fun Celebrity homes tour that also stopped for a photo shot in front of the famous "HOLLYWOOD" sign.  You can barely see in the distance!

 Down town LA back behind us.

We went to  Lakers game at the Staples Center. 

We could see Jack Nicholas sitting down in his front row seat cheering on his Lakers!

We drove past the Beverly Hills hotel.

We walked around the famous Chinese Theatre which features hand prints and little messages written by iconic celebrities in the concrete. It has hosted many major movie premiers.

We spent an afternoon strolling Venice Beach.  We saw a turbaned electric guitar player on roller blades , jugglers, palm readers, an outdoor gym on the beach, etc.  It was VERY interesting!

We were lucky enough to score tickets to the tonight show! 

 

We got to see the famous balcony where Richard Gere comes and sweeps Julia Roberts off her feet in Pretty Woman!  One of the highlights of my trip for sure!  You would never know if someone didn't point it out to you...just a random little balcony on an apartment building just on a small little side street.

We took a stroll down Rodeo Drive.

We spent one afternoon at WB studio. We really enjoyed this.  We got to sit in on the taping of the Freddie Prince Jr sitcom...if any of you remember that show.  That was really neat to see how they film a sitcom.  If their jokes didn't get a big enough laugh from the live audience, you would see the writers huddle up and take a new script to the actors.  The scene would be almost the same the punchline might just be altered to get a better response from the studio audience.

We got to walk through the set of the TV show West Wing. We also saw the outside of the ER set.  Here are some of their ambulances.

 And anytime you saw an ambulance bringing in a patient on ER...it would have been right where I'm standing!

 The General Lee.  Bo and Luke Duke sliding in and out of THAT window!

Waaahhhhhh....the Friends set and COUCH was still in tact. (even though Friends had been done for a few years!) This was just surreal to me!

In this pic...you can see the stage lighting.  Kinda ruins it doesn't it...it seemed like such a real little coffee shop.

We saw Pheobe's little stage and guitar.

And THERE she was!  The couch where Jennifer Anniston and Courtney Cox sat day after day! 

And...the best surprise of all!  They let you SIT on it and take a photo!  We also saw items "Monica's" apartment.  The famous door with the frame around the peep hole.  I SO touched the doorknob...there were movie star germs on that door knob.  And they had Monica's kitchen set up...touched the handle of Monica's refrigerator.

 

We also set in on a taping of Deal or No Deal Game Show with Howie Mandel.  That show was in its hay day at the time.  It was a REALLY fun trip! 

Then we came back home to this cutie!!!

Make you smile, doesn't it!! As I got to the end of uploading the LA trip pics...these popped up.  And I just sat and stared!  I had to share them.  My baby...where has the time gone!