Monday, July 19--Last Full Day in LA

Yes, it was cold there! Probably mid 60's with a cool breeze. I think I might move out here each summer! ;-)

Guys went golfing this morning and the kids and moms stayed home and played and updated our Facebook pages! :-)

After an evening pre-dinner snack, we went down to the Santa Monica Pier and enjoyed a ride on the Ferris Wheel. Very neat views from up there.

And didn't realize that it was the end of Route 66...Did you know that Route 66 starts in Chicago and runs over 2000 miles to LA?

July 17-18 Beach and Beverly Hills

Since we got home so late on Friday night, our only plans for Saturday were to go to the beach in the afternoon and for Sarah and I to get out for a nice long walk. Well, Sarah's idea of a long walk is to walk in a pretty neighborhood and then to Costco to shop for some things for dinner. So our walk ended up being about 2 hours long! So, I can honestly say I've walked to Costco and carried home our loot! :-)

We headed to Ocean Park beach for some sand and sun and the girls built some pretty elaborate sand castles. The water current was very strong so we didn't go very deep in the water. It was the most family friendly beach I've been to in CA.

Cute Quote: On our way back to the car, we had to cross the street at a crosswalk. Jacob ran back to me and grabbed my hand because it was at the Do Not Walk sign with an orange hand. He told me that the "hold hands" sign was up. Can you tell we don't live in a big city with a lot of crosswalks? :-)

On Sunday morning, Mark's dad preached for the service and after their fellowship time under the pepper tree, Mom Gabb, Sarah and I headed to Beverly Hills 90210! We parked in a parking garage that said the first two hours were free...we neglected to look into how much the 3rd , 4th and 5th hours were, but we were parked there for four hours and we owed $12! YIKES! I guess we were in Beverly Hills near Rodeo Drive....what should be have expected, right?

We took a trolley tour where the guide took us in some of the residential areas and told us where some rich and famous USED to live. Julie Andrews and Mel Blanc were a few I recognized and remembered. She showed us the house where "Cheaper by the Dozen" was filmed too! Beautiful streets lined with a wide variety of trees. In fact, Beverly Hills is a Tree City with a huge amount of trees (100,000 sticks in my mind). After the tour, we window shopped a bit then found the "Crumbs" cupcake shop and enjoyed some cupcakes.

We came home to a nice grilled dinner made by the babysitting dads! What a treat! Then a marathon game of Phase 10 which will need to be continued tonight!

Friday, July 16 evening: Hollywood Bowl and Bugs Bunny

After our morning/afternoon trip to Hollywood, we came home for a very brief stint and then packed up a picnic lunch and got ready to catch the shuttle to the Hollywood Bowl to see the LA Philharmonic Orchestra perform selections from Bugs Bunny! The kids were so excited as well as the adults. We thought we were going to miss the 7 PM shuttle down to Hollywood, but thankfully the shuttle was running a little late so we didn't miss it! We got to the bowl right as the concert was starting at 8:30 and had to make our way to our seats up near the top in the dark. What a big arena! We were thoroughly entertained though...What an amazing performance! Big screens showing the Bugs cartoons and the LA Orchestra performing LIVE scores to go along with the cartoons! There was even a pianist and a harpist. Such culture...but such fun! We didn't get home til close to midnight, but it was an experience none of us will ever forget!

Friday, July 16: Hollywood and Nickelodeon

We headed to Hollywood today. We parked in a parking garage and headed up to Hollywood Blvd and the area outside Grauman and Kodak Theatres. There we saw the famous hand and footprints of the stars....some from back in the 1930's! We posed in front of the Hollywood sign...who knows? Maybe one of these kids will walk down the red carpet sometime!!!

We made our way to Burbank and found a very busy "In N Out Burger" restaurant! We enjoyed our hurried lunch and went over to our 2:30 tour at Nickelodeon given by a friend of a friend of Sarah and Steve's.

We saw how cartoons like Sponge Bob go from idea to tv show and the ultimate fun thing for the kids was that they got to go into the recording studio where they record the voices for Sponge Bob! Maggie was in the booth where Sponge Bob speaks and the adults got to hear the kids giggle and quote movie lines in different voices. It was so funny!

Thursday, July 15: Wine Country and Santa Barbara

We went into uncharted territory for all of us today up to Santa Barbara County to do a little wine tasting. We went to Gainey first and had a tour of their winery. The kids saw the grapes and wanted to try them....you can tell by the expression on their faces that they were still a little sour!

Of course, Hannah didn't think they were all that bad tasting, so I'm guessing we're going to have a little wine drinker in her someday. We ate our picnic lunch on their lawns and enjoyed the view. We headed to one of the other 614 wineries in that county (we told the kids we were going to visit ALL of them!) called Bridlewood. We paid our $10 fee (which I guess is pretty standard) and we got a souvenir wine glass and got to sample about 6 to 8 of their wines starting at white and moving to reds. They were all really good and it was a nice experience.

We changed into our swimsuits and headed back through the beautiful countryside and mountains to Santa Barbara. We owed the kids a beach and we delivered a scenic but kinda smelly beach. Mark was impressed that you could see ocean, palm trees and mountains all at once. Here is a view of the sidewalk/boardwalk that runs along the beach. Lots of bikers and rollerbladers and walkers use this path.

For some reason, there has been a lot of kelp on the beaches the entire time we've been here and it kinda smells bad and attracts flies when it lands on the sand. Not very pleasant.

But the kids had fun, digging in the sand and making sand castles. Jacob is always on the hunt for a sand dollar (he looked for one in the rivers in Arizona too!) but they don't seem to have a lot of shells here on the beaches. This beach had some smooth rocks scattered about, but that's about it. We saw a hippie van in the parking lot. I think the owners were asking for donations if you took a picture of yourself with it. I imagine they make a small fortune each day.

Are YOU Smarter than a 5th grader?

Steve, Sarah, Mark and I embarked on a marathon adventure this morning when we headed to the Sony Pictures Studio to attend a taping of "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" starring Jeff Foxworthy. We were among the last group to enter Studio 30 and thought to ourselves that we would for sure be up in the corner somewhere well out of sight of the camera. Well, we were pretty wrong about that! We were put on the front row and not only did we have good seats but it was "Celebrity" Are you Smarter than a 5th grader! So, I'm sitting on the end of the front row with about 4 seats to my left. The first celebrity was actually a country music band called "Trailer Choir"...two boys and a girl. Since only one could be on stage at a time, the other two came to sit in the chairs next to me! I will have to admit that I've never heard of them, but it was pretty neat to be sitting next to the stars of the show! The next celeb was Craig Morgan, another country singer. He was very entertaining as well! Then the third star was Dr. Drew. They finished up with the current Miss U.S.A Rima Fakih. The only bad part of the totally FREE day was that we weren't allowed to eat or drink or use the restrooms from 9:45 till about 2:45. So, by the end, I had the beginnings of a headache and I had to use the restroom and we had to wait until we got home!!! But we had a lot of fun and the kids did really well at home with Ama and Papa. They put on anther circus show for us after our ribs dinner. They are playing SO WELL together...I don't think my kids have played this hard in years!
My name is Angie Gabb and I'm definitely not smarter than a fifth grader... :-)

July 13

Looking out their front door!


I took a walk this morning around the big block. The sun was finally out...the Marine Layer seemed to have burned off finally! I saw some interesting sites: a couple of couches and mattresses on the side of the road, and a lot of colorful flowers.
I felt like I was in a botanical garden! Tall palm trees in the middle of a busy city!
The guys went golfing at Lost Canyons for most of the day so Sarah, Mom and I stayed home with the kiddos. Maggie and Adia put together an animal circus show with Anders and Alex as the dogs and Hannah was the acrobatic tiger.
Jacob quit the circus earlier in the day which seemed to cause some ripples, but they recovered and put on a nice show. They have a beautiful yard in front of their house that is completely fenced in, so the kids can play hard and safe. It is weird to hear cars zooming by near them, but they are safe because there is like a ten foot fence and bushes between them and the road.
In the afternoon, Sarah and I took all the kids except Jacob (I think he wanted a quiet day at home with Ama) down to Venice Beach and boardwalk. We saw skateboarders on the skateboard park, lots of "interesting" tshirt booths and restaurants and people. We spent some time on the beach and the kids built sandcastles and watched one of the lifeguards go into the water to get people away from the rocks. The water was so blue and the waves much bigger than I remember on the Atlantic Ocean.
Mark and Steve's cousin, Joel Otto, and his family came over for dinner on the first leg of their California vacation. It's always good to see family!

We celebrated summer birthdays with cupcakes and the 5 year olds got a few presents.

July 11-12

Well on Sunday morning, we got the Gethsemane Evangelical Lutheran Church experience...they have a very beautiful church and friendly congregation. For about 1 1/2 to 2 hours after church we stood and sat under the huge pepper tree in the parking lot chatting. For many of their congregational members, this is the only time during the week when they get to see each other because they live far away so they make the most of their time together.

After lunch, Sarah and I ventured off the church/parsonage "compound" and walked to the store. For me, walking anywhere as a destination is a treat because where we live, you can't walk to any type of store or location due to the busy highway we live on. Well, the "street" they live on is a four lane one and I think the cars go just as fast, if not faster, but there is a sidewalk which makes a huge difference. Plus, there are things within easy walking distance. For example, from their backyard over the bushes, you can see a Japanese grocery store and a CVS. A few blocks down is a grocery store, so Sarah and I walked there to get a few groceries. We had to be careful not to overload our cart or we wouldn't be able to carry it all! It was a great experience and I got to see the local flavor of their neighborhood.

The four adults went out for dinner at C & O Trattoria near the Venice pier. It's a family style Italian restaurant and it was very good! We walked out on the pier there after dinner and saw the Pacific Ocean!
But it was very chilly! I wish I would've brought some jeans, but I couldn't find them at my house before we came out here. The thought of wearing jeans in FL during this time of year is nauseating, so it was really hard to pack for this trip! We had a nice time out, just the adults!

On Monday morning, Mark and Steve's parents flew in and after getting them settled, we headed out to see Reagan's Presidential Library.


It was only 44 miles away, but took us over an hour to get there because we took the scenic route up the Pacific Coast Highway (or PCH for short). We went through the Santa Monica Mountains up to the library. It was a pretty drive...more so on the way home because the "marine layer" had burned off and the sky was bluer and so was the water. The traffic here still amazes me!
The library is more of a museum than a library. We saw a replica of the Oval Office and then we saw the actual Air Force One plane in this huge building. It's hard to believe unless you see it.

We came home and my college friend and roommate, Gina, came over for dinner. She enthralled us all with her Army and job tales. She's doing really well and it was so great to see her again!