California Trip

Our California trip began on Tuesday when we hopped a plane out of Fargo. Ben was pretty excited for the plane ride and I knew he would be a good flyer. I wasn't so sure how things would go with Hallie since she was going to be flying on our laps & sitting still is probably her least favorite activity these days. She ended up doing great which was a relief for Jeff & I and the passengers around us too. Here are some pics of us on the plane. In the $5 snack pack we bought on the plane, they had these fun cookies & markers with edible ink so you could decorate your own - that's what Ben is up to in those 2 pics. He shared his treat with Hallie - as you can see, she was a fan!
The night we arrived in L.A, we headed over to the Santa Monica Pier since it was close and is fun to see all lit up at night. We ate at Bubba Gumps while we were there and then headed back to our room for some much needed rest!

Even though we had a whole week in L.A, we kept things pretty low key. The place we stayed had a nice pool area and the kids had a great time swimming the days away. Thankfully the pool was really warm so Jeff and I didn't even mind getting in. :) Ben is getting to be a pretty good little swimmer and Hallie loved the water too! Ben wore Jeff's t-shirt to warm up one day after getting out of the water and didn't want to take it off. He thought he was so cool!
Jeff and I snuck off to Venice Beach a few times and even did some tandem biking. We tried out a few restaurants including Baby Blues BBQ which is a BBQ joint that was featured on the food network show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We also hit up Santa Monica beach. It was a little windy but still warm enough to enjoy time near the ocean. Ben had a blast throwing a tennis ball into the waves and watching them bring it back to him. He would run away yelling every time the waves tried to "get" him. Jeff was the only one brave enough to actually swim in the ocean since it was still so cold. Here are some pics from our various beach days.


We didn't try to do much celebrity spotting this time around but Jeff and I did manage to stumble onto an on-location filming of the NCIS spinoff, NCIS: Los Angeles. Chris O'Donnell was filming a scene on Venice Beach where he answered a payphone and retrieved something taped underneath. He was the only celebrity I spotted during our trip and he's not really a megastar or anything, but I took a pic anyway (upper right pic in the collage below)! We were really close (about an arms reach away) and it was cool to see how they film things. It seemed like they were using people that had been walking the beach as extras to walk through the shot....too bad we didn't get there a few minutes earlier! :)

Ali and I did check out the Warner Brother's Studio tour for another dose of Hollywood. It was pretty cool to go all over the lot and see the whole streets and neighborhoods that they have set up for filming. They use many of the same buildings over and over again and change how they are painted and decorated in order to suit whatever film/tv show they are using it for at the time. We saw the front of the orphanage for Annie (its the yellow building in the pic below) and the fire escape in the back where the "Hard Knock Life" number starts out. On that same street, the guide pointed out a few places where scenes of the tv show Friends was filmed.
Later on, we were also able to sit inside the Central Perk coffee house from Friends (see pic above) and we saw the set for the tv show Two and a Half Men. We saw the building they use for the exterior shots of the restaurant on True Blood (that's the green building in the middle left pic). That building is located in the "jungle" on the Warner Brother's property. They are the only studio to have a working jungle and it is the place where the scene of the T-Rex chasing the jeep in Jurassic Park was filmed. There was also a museum of Harry Potter stuff which I was pretty excited about. Check out Ali and I by the blue car from the movie in the collage above!

Wheww - I know that was a lot to read, so I don't blame most of you if you just looked at the pictures. Please leave comments when you visit -- sometimes I feel like I'm spending all this time working on the blog for nothing! :) For grandma & grandpa (and anyone else who is bored) you can check out more pics from the trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/tiffanylynn/CaliforniaTripApril2010?feat=directlink