Hail Hollywood!

Our day in Hollywood was a pretty quick one. I only had two or three things I REALLY wanted to do: (1) See the Star Walk of Fame, (2) See the Hollywood Sign on the side of the mountain, and (3) Go to Madame Tussuad's Wax Museum. Luckily I got to do all three and was pretty excited to be able to. Since Larry had lost his wallet and big chunk of the vacation money we didn't want to spend any extra money if it wasn't already planned or needed. However, I had already planned on the wax museum so it wasn't an added expense and I even found discount admission coupons at the hotel before we left, so it kind of worked out better. Although I didn't realize Ripley's Believe It or Not and the Guinness Book of Record places were on the same street, and we did have some coupons to go there too, but it wasn't already planned and I couldn't spend the money if we didn't NEED to. Everything worked out great at Madame Tussuad's...until we went souvenir shopping-which I'm addicted to ha ha. We, or rather I, spent WAY too much, but I think it was worth it. I really only bought the pictures that they have the people do during the "tour", but it still cost a pretty penny.
Once we got out we started to walk the star walk, and I have to say I had NO idea the Walk of Fame would be so crowded, it was like The Strip at Vegas with people handing out cards and different impressionist from Lady Gaga to Yoda, no kidding here! But we also got to see where the original hands and footprints in the cement started (I had read about how this started a while back, so it was kind of cool to see another part of Hollywood history). I had gotten pretty burnt by this point (as I've mentioned) and was all greased up in sunscreen and my hair was all sorts of frizzy from the humidity so we weren't really in the best "walking in the heat in the crowds" mood, which is why it ended up being a real quick trip. But as we were leaving I still decided I had to see the big Hollywood sign, so we started driving around (side story: as we were driving around we saw this guy sneaking photos of up this girls' dress-I was so appalled and wanted to tell the girl, but unfortunately we were never close enough to. The guy even WATCHED us watching him as he took the pics. I can say after that alone California is definitely not the place for me as a permanent dwelling!) Anyways, so we're driving around and we drove into this neighborhood and FINALLY we spotted it, or rather, Larry, with his awesome eye sight, found it and told me. I was practically screaming when I saw it, this was one thing I definitely had on my life's "to-do" list and so I was happy to cross it off. It was definitely one of the highlights-for me-of the trip.

The drive from Six Flags to Sea World is a 2-3 hour drive so once we saw the sign we decided to hit the road and hurry to our new hotel. I got a lot of reading done on that trip so it wasn't all bad (not to mention loving have the car with AC in the 90+ degree weather!). So it was a really good day, overall.

Some of the pics:

The first Taxi I've ever ridden in-the guy took us to get a
copy of the car key and to Six Flags to pick up our car.
He was super nice :)

Harry Potter cast in cement-I thought that one was pretty cool

These were from the Wax Museum too, we had some fun with Obama.
The Hollywood sign was superimposed on a green screen, I WISH we got that close!

Some random shots from the Museum. Brangelina (top), Miss Kim Kardashian (middle),
And Rocky with Larry (bottom). I didn't see any I wanted to pose with so only Larry
Got that privilege.

Six Flags Adventure

I think our Six Flags time will definitely be the most memorable by far! The first day we decided to try the X2 first because I had heard that has the longest line, and boy it did take a while, one of many long lines for that day. After 7 hours at the park we were only able to ride the X2, Viper, Revolution, Tatsu, Deja Vu, and Roaring Rapids. Sunday is definitely a packed day! We learned that day the lines and metal bars mean absolutely nothing, people will cut anytime, anywhere with no shame! We also learned you can't do all the extreme rides in one day unless you enjoy headaches. And boy did we have the master of headaches by the end of that day, but we still had a lot of fun!

Our second day we did Scream, Goliath, Riddler's Revenge, Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth, Superman, Ninja, Gold Digger, and Tidal Wave (Which you end up getting more went on the bridge near the ride than you do on the actual ride). Luckily even with 3 of the more extreme rides we didn't end up with too bad of headaches and being Monday it was so less busy, we were able to be the first riders on Scream and the Lasso ride and have the whole rides to ourselves! Plus we ended up getting it done in like 3 hours. After we got back to the hotel we decided to try out the pool-especially since our room hadn't been cleaned yet and I feel awkward being in there with them while they do that. The pool felt AMAZING! It was the perfect warm/cooling off temperature and I thought I'd never want to get out! The best part-it went as deep as 8 1/2 feet, I love being able to swim around in deeper water (it stems from when I was little and used to say I was going to be a mermaid when I grew up-I loved swimming and practiced holding my breath as long as possible, because I thought that's what it took ha ha). After a while we started to burn and we decided to get back to our room to take showers and get ready for dinner.

Our third day was the one we'll never forget. We got onto the Green Lantern and the Batman (which was the ride I had seen all the adults go on when I was younger, but too small to ride so I was really happy to get my chance to ride it this time). After finishing those rides we re-did Scream, Goliath, Superman, Tatsu, and X2-in that order too. It wasn't until X2-the last ride of the last day-at the very end of the ride that I noticed something fly out and Larry yelled out an expletive that worried me. I asked him what it was-our keys to the car! I was SO unhappy and had no idea what to do with no car keys. (Back story here: Larry is pretty infamous for almost losing stuff on rides, one time we got off one in Utah and he didn't have his phone-turned out they had it at the ride, it had fallen out as he climbed in the seat. Another time we were riding another ride that loops you in all sorts of directions he mentioned his phone had fallen off and shattered into pieces, but still worked with no scratches amazingly and my keys had slipped out but he caught them on his back before they flew out. I always wondered what we'd do if we lost the keys and was just always glad Larry was lucky enough for nothing serious to be lost on rides. That idea kind of vanished at this point). When the ride stopped Larry also noticed his wallet was missing. SO NOT GOOD! The biggest problem (to me) with this was that he couldn't use his debit card-it had been blocked for fraud before we left-so all his money for the trip HAD to be in cash, and there's NO way to replace cash if it's gone! When we got off we told the ride operators about it and they told us we'd have to go to guest relations to get them back and we figured it'd be no problem since we knew where we'd lost them. Nope! They said we could fill out a form and IF they found them they'd mail them to us. Not a solution when you have over $600 in the wallet now missing and was our cash to get back home! Plus he had his IDs and they were the ONLY car keys we had, we felt screwed! After walking (yes walking) back to our hotel I searched and found a Nissan dealership near our hotel that could cut me a replacement key (which would have to wait till the next day because they were closing as I was calling), but his wallet was our biggest worry. We were able to walk back to the park after they closed and did their searches to see if they found anything, but with no better luck. The employees, of course, acted like they couldn't care less about our lost items-like they were sunglasses or an Ipod-which I wouldn't have cared about losing nearly as much! So we weren't too happy and now had to walk all the way back to our hotel-so we've now walked 6 miles in 90+ degree weather, not as much fun as it might sound. I can only describe how sunburned, sweaty, and sore we were by this point.

So it wasn't the funnest ending we'd expected for Six Flags, I can say that. But we figured out a plan: Get a new car key as soon as possible (we HAD to leave for San Diego the next day), bug Six Flags everyday till they found the wallet, and cut back on expenses as much as possible. The good news is Larry and I were put in a rough spot, but we made it through together, just us, no one else helped us. I think it made us a big stronger to see how we would face hardships like this.

More random pics from this part of the trip:

The front gates to Six Flags-I was PSYCHED!

Larry and me in the park

This was Larry-when I didn't have any plans-zoning to the TV
Kinda reminded me of a kid ha ha





This was my real random one-Larry is a HUGE bed hog
This was a KING sized bed and you can kind of see
He takes up as much room as he can!

The Friday-Saturday Blur

So we had originally planned to leave Saturday morning so we could use Friday to do all the last minute stuff you do before going on a vacation. Things like cleaning, food shopping, laundry, make sure the kitties would be taken care of while we were away, and I also wanted to get a pedicure. Well we got things done pretty early, early enough that Larry decided he'd be able to drive through the night and he wanted to try out a California casino, so we actually ended up leaving around 7 on Friday night.

The drive was SO long, but we made it fun with movies. (We watched 300 and then Road Trip-fitting huh?). We made MANY stops, whether for gas, bathrooms, or food. It got me thinking about how I've read stories about couples who can't be in the car very long without fighting, but I think Larry and I work so well when we take road trips (as long as they are preplanned and not usually last minute for the most part).

We finally arrived about 5 or 6 AM at the casino (Commerce Casino) Larry wanted to try out, we arrived in PJ's and so we decided to change and eat a quick breakfast (picked up at the local gas station, Thank you 7-11!) and I'm pretty sure we made people think we were bums living out of our car, but that's the fun of vacations sometimes right? Unfortunately the casino had no electronic games, which are the only ones I play, so we just kind of walked around for a while and then found out the Hold 'Em tournament he wanted to enter didn't start till 1-we had TONS of time to wait! I mentioned looking for our hotel, we had plenty of time and we figured I could unpack while he played if they let us check in early, of course this was before we found out it took a whole other hour to get to the hotel from the casino! And if you didn't know, traffic in California S-U-C-K-S sucks!

By the time we got there I found out they did have a room available so they'd let us check in that early (a whole 8 hours early!) Well we realized the casino was too far in such an unknown direction and path that we'd stay, take a nap, and figure what we'd do about it later. My favorite part about our hotel was you could see the roller coasters from the entrance!

After unpacking (we even had our own little kitchen area, which was another favorite part of that hotel for me) and napping I saw there was a mall a short distance from the casino so we figured while he was playing I'd go walk around that (awesome deal I'd have to say, or so I thought at the time). The only problem is finding a way there was a joke! The freeway ramps were closed so I had to find a crazy alternate route. Once I got there I started looking around and ended up spending way too much (even with a $50 Macy's gift card AND $15 on a Visa gift card-but they had a Target AND Bed Bath at the mall, which we don't have in Utah and I thought was pretty cool), but luckily by the time I got done looking around Larry was done with his tournament so I was able to pick him up just in time. After that we just went back to the hotel and unpacked and ended up going to bed early to catch up on sleep for our Six Flags Adventure :)

It was a good starter day, here are some random pics from that part of our trip:

My pretty pedicure

I'm not sure why I found this fascinating, but the seat didn't
fit the toilet at one of the stops and I just had to get a picture ha ha

Our quickie breakfast

The Casino Larry played at

Random decorations in the casino

More randomness inside

You can kind of see the rides in this picture. I was RIGHT in front of the hotel
Shows how close we were to the park

We're Back (Number 25)

So we're officially back from our vacation and let me start by saying we had an absolute, fantabulous, blast! With only a few hitches on certain days, we sure didn't want to leave by the time we were done! I pretty much got to do a lot of the stuff I had planned and we had a TON planned to fill each day. I had so much fun and so many stories to tell I thought I'd save a post for each "section" of our trip so that I don't have just one long post about the whole thing. So here's the posts I had planned for the next few days:

The Friday/Saturday Blur
Six Flags Adventure
Hail Hollywood
Sea World Wonders
San Diego Zoo Quick Stop
Drive Home/Miscellaneous Pics

I took SO many pics and videos and I'll have to find some time and a way to load them all up so I can share them all, or at least most of them because I'm sure there'll be a lot of copies. I definitely can't wait for my chance to either go back or for Larry's and mine next vacation together :)

Right now I get to go have lunch with my brother, Andy, who is home for a few weeks from his time serving in Hawaii and Mongolia. I'm excited to finally see him and hang out with him!

~*~Happy Anniversary!~*~

So it has officially been 1 year since I have started this blog! I have to say I'm surprised. It was one year ago today that I told Larry I thought it might be fun to start a blog over dinner and even though I didn't know if I was sure about the decision we went home and I began to figure out what to do to start one. Now it's 61 posts later and I'm still at it. Not only am I still at it, but I am happy to say this blog has done what I wanted it to do, it's inspired me to create stories, to go out and live my life and make sure to keep the memories! So congratulations to "the girl and her boy" :)

We now have less than 3 weeks till our vacation and we have it almost all figured out down to the last few details. I'm getting more and more excited as the days pass. We may be making a few extra stops while in California, but we'll see what we'll have time (and money) for. So far I have to say this is got to be the best summer of my life and I hope it's not close to being over yet.

As for school, tomorrow is my last day and then I have a summer break for about 2 1/2 weeks, I'm really looking forward to sleeping in and being back to real full time hours at work. I took my Medical Coding final today so I'll find out tomorrow how I did and if I can check that class of my list with the others. I'm so happy to be past my halfway mark, I have only a few more classes left and after September it'll probably be the big wind down since a big chunk will be done around then. Then I get to prep for the HUGE test they are hoping to have us take in December (I'm told it costs about $300 and takes like 8 hours to finish),. I'm a tad nervous for that, I can't lie. But the good news is so far I've been able to finish the tests within half the time they allow and I get in the 90s on them so I hope the same applies to this one (hey wishful thinking may be my only comfort, but it's what helps ha ha).

I've been working on making some pretty big changes, details of which will come out soon, very hopefully. But I do ask that you keep your fingers crossed for me/us if you do read this.

Other than that I just thought I'd pop on by to do a quick celebratory post for the anniversary special :)

Till next time...(which will probably be after we get back from our trip)...