Cali Vacation 2011: Day 2

Hello All,
So on our second day of vacation we ventured into Hollywood to take a tour. We did a City Sightseeing Hop-on and Hop-off tour. We started off at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and drove down Sunset Strip to Rodeo Drive. We then transferred from the Red Line to the Yellow Line to go to Santa Monica Pier and back. Then we transferred again back to the Red Line to tour the rest of Hollywood. Here's some pictures from that day.

I took this picture in front of the Chinese Theatre prior to boarding the bus that morning.

Here's some stars as seen from the tour bus.

This is what Stacy does on vacation....talks on the phone.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Madame Tussaud's Hollywood Wax Museum

The Laugh Factory which happened to be having Tim Allen as a guest that night.

We saw the House of Blues as we walked the Sunset Strip.

One of the guitars as part of the Guitartown on Sunset Strip. The Gibson art guitars celebrate the music scene on the Sunset Strip.

The shop with the striped umbrella is Millions of Milkshakes which is home to the one and only Celebrity GPS. This tells you where Hollywood stars can be found right now in LA.

One of the five Beverly Hills shields that surround the city. By the end of the day we ended up seeing three of the five.

The world famous Rodeo Drive.

They were filming something there as we drove by it twice throughout the day.

This is the Beverly Wilshire that was a part of the movie, Pretty Woman.

When we made our transfer between the Red and Yellow Lines we had to go to Sprinkles Cupcakes. It is only about a block away from Rodeo Drive. It is world famous since it was the very first cupcake bakery. Since I have this thing for cupcakes we of course had to go there.

We each got a different kind of cupcake. From left to right: Stacy got a chocolate marshmallow cupcake, Katie got carrot cupcake, I got a black and white cupcake, and Dad got a red velvet cupcake. I have to say they were delicious. Definitely an experience I was glad to have.

On our way to Santa Monica Pier we passed Fox Studios and I little bit further down the road we saw them setting up for the Golden Globes that happen to be that Sunday.

This is one of the tour buses we rode on throughout the day.

Here's a picture of Santa Monica Pier. After leaving Santa Monica Pier we went through the rest of Santa Monica and headed back to Rodeo Drive through Brentwood and Westwood. We also passed by the cemetery that Marilyn Monroe is buried in.

After transferring back to the Red Line we drove past CBS studios after going around the La Brea Tar Pits.

A true LA experience includes a stop at Pink's Hot Dogs. We were lucky that we got there when we did because they guys ahead of us in line said that it would be crazy busy in an hour or so because everybody would be getting done with work. At Pink's they have one person take your whole party's order and they never write anything down. It was just cool watching them do what they do.

This is the picture of our Pink's hot dogs. Clockwise starting in the top left: Dad's Mullholland Drive Dog (grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, nacho cheese and bacon); Stacy's Mushroom Swiss Dog; Dad's Ozzy Spicy Dog (spicy polish dog topped with nacho cheese, American cheese, grilled onions, guacamole, and diced tomatoes); my Bacon Chili Cheese Dog; Stacy and I's Shrek and Fiona Dog (guacamole and diced tomatoes); and finally Katie's Mullholland Drive Dog. We also got fries and drinks. We all recommend that if you make a trip to Hollywood you should definitely go try Pink's.

After Pink's we got back on the tour bus to head back to Hollywood Blvd. On the way we passed Paramount Studios and the Hollywood Forever cemetery. We made it back to Hollywood Blvd. Stacy and I walked to the other side of the street to get some better pictures of the Kodak Theatre and Grauman's Chinese Theatre. When we made it back in front of Grauman's we found Judy Garland's hand and footprints along with the Harry Potter stars. We drove back to Anaheim and Stacy and I went to spend some time in the hot tub before we went to bed. Hope you enjoyed the pictures of our trip to Hollywood.

Cali Vacation 2011: Day 1

Hello All,
So this is the first blog of this new and exciting year. Dad and Katie took Stacy and I on a graduation trip to California since both of us will graduate this year. After our first flight out of Madison was cancelled we got on another flight to Cleveland 5 hours after our original flight was to leave. With our slight delay we made it to LA only 7 hours after we were scheduled to arrive. We were all dog tired but walked down the street from our hotel to the Gardenwalk where we had dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. We slept in the next day since we had basically been up for about 24 hours. We had breakfast at the hotel and went to a discount tickets and tours place to get tickets for the things we planned to do that week. This first day we spent at Knott's Berry Farm. Enjoy these pictures from Knott's.

Completely replenished after a good night's sleep we were ready to go to Knott's Berry Farm and ride some roller coasters.

The beautiful view of the mountains fromt he parking lot.

Yay for Knott's Berry Farm. The best thing about the day was that there were barely any lines since it was a weekday.

Dad had to try on the fish hat before we walked in the door.

Walking into Ghost Town.

The first ride of the day.

Had to get a picture with the statues in Adventureland.

The coolest ride, I think, because you ride a horse in that ride.

The horses roller coaster.

We got stuck in jail...LOL.

We walked to Camp Snoopy to see what was there even though we could only ride one ride. We did get to have our picture with Snoopy because he was right inside the entrance.

From Camp Snoopy we entered Fiesta Village where we rode Montezuma's Revenge and the Jaguar.

Then we went on the tallest ride there, Supreme Scream. I was shocked that Stacy went on it with me especially since she does not like heights.

This was my favorite ride of the day.

I liked this ride but Stacy did not since it went backwards.

The beautiful sky and the mountains as we were leaving Knott's.

That night we had dinner at Bubba Gumps. It was a great first day of vacation. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Continue to read my other blogs about this vacation. Sending you warm wishes and aloha kisses.

Turkey Day 2010

Hello All,
These are some pictures from Thanksgiving this year. We had a small Thanksgiving dinner this year with just Tami, Jon and I. Also almost our entire meal was made in the toaster oven. Who said you need a full-size oven to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner. Here are some pictures.

My preparations for Thanksgiving dinner started on Tuesday night when I made pumpkin cupcakes with caramel cream cheese frosting. Then I drizzled them with more caramel. They are amazingly wonderful.

Jon spent the night since on Wednesday night we went to see the new Harry Potter movie. This is him trying to sleep in which is very hard when I'm awake.

Tami and I "trying" not to make too much noise but we were excited for Thanksgiving.

Had to start off the morning with Just Dance 2. It is sooooo much fun.

My Thanksgiving decorations.

Jon went and got breakfast, cinnamon rolls. Yeah he went and bought them but I still had to bake them.

Tami breaking up the bread for the stuffing.

Our lunch/snacks minus the bread crumbs.

Watching Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The corn souffle is the first to be done.

Jon got nominated to help Tami make the stuffing. It was hilarious to watch especially since he wasn't really listening to her directions.

The turkey roasts are seasoned.

The stuffing baking away.

The turkey - rotisserie style. It smelled so good and tasted even better.

The finished product.

I'm cutting it up. You can see the steam...yummy.

The only thing that I got hurt doing was peeling the potatoes for the mashed potatoes. The peeler gave my a blister on my thumb. Oh yes, and with this we had flying potatoes because they were slippery so they would shoot out of my hand and across the room. It was quite funny. After watching the parade we watched all the Thanksgiving episodes of Friends then football.

Our dinner, just the 3 of us. It was perfect for us. Good times with good friends and good food.

Eating Tami's oreo ice cream dessert while decorating the tree.

This is what they did while I decorated. But this is usually what they do all the time while I'm doing other things. Hope you all had a wonderful turkey day. Sending you warm wishes and aloha kisses.