la la land

Last week at this time Paige and I were headed west for a few days - very last minute, very unexpectedly and very somewhat inexpensively. She emailed me one day when I was working hard pouring vino and about scoring tickets to see LIVE WITH KELLY AND MICHAEL. I glanced at it thinking that we could make a quick jaunt up to NYC to see the show if she wanted to, no big deal. Only later on that evening did I read the email more closely and see that it was an after-the-Oscars special in Los Angeles. WHAT?! Within 48 hours, we had booked our flights and were so excited! And so we arrived, still early in the day on Sunday, to LAX where the sun was shining and the sky was blue. It felt like a different world - and in fact is. I wasn't prepared for how much I had missed this glamorous, spread-out town and everything that goes along with it. We squeezed as much as we could in the short amount of time that we were there, got to spend time with Derek, watched the Oscars along with everyone else and woke up early the next day to go stand in line at the hollywood bowl to get wrist bands to be shuttled to the filming of the show. I was shocked at the number of people that were up and wanting to do this so very early in the morning. Actually getting into the Dolby theater and seeing where it had all happened the night before was something that I won't soon forget. It was lit up very cool and there was an energy in the room that was hard to describe.

Day 1: Santa Monica - the promenade. Saw celeb Poppy Montgomery. Lunch @ the Georgian hotel Veranda. Dinner/drinks @ the village idiot.
Day 2: Hollywood bowl, dolby theatre + Kelly & Michael. Celeb guests: Christopher Waltz, Jimmy Kimmel, Carson Cressley, Maria Menounous. Ate breakfast @ Blu jam cafe. Venice beach - Venice ale house, Santa Monica pier -Shutters resort HH. Saw the coast Malibu, ate at Dukes.
Day 3: breakfast @ the waffle, Hollywood sign, paramount studios tour - saw Scott baeo, angie harmon, cripple from glee, Dr phils son, studio of the doctors. the grove farmers market - keegan Allen from PLL & Mario lopez, lunch @ monsieur marcel, saw Minnie Driver getting ticket, drinks @ little next door & ate @ El Karmin, pinkberry @ the farmers market.