LA Vacation

Dax and I went to Los Angeles for vacation/cousin Taylor's wedding.  It was a much needed break.  Taylee got to come along because, well, when you are a nursing baby you have added perks around our house.  We flew out at 6 am on Wednesday, and after a 2 hour layover in San Francisco made it to LA about noon.  It took us an hour to get our rental car!  Dax told me they added on $33 for insurance.   He did not understand it was $33 PER DAY.

We stopped at Subway on the way to the hotel; we were starving.  Breakfast at 3 am and lunch at 2 pm is pretty rough.  We got to the hotel at 3 and crashed.  We went and found a home

town Mexican place for dinner.  I was hoping it would be a little better than it was.  Taylee ate rice and beans for the first time.  The dipped cone we had for dessert was the best part. :)

Thursday morning we got ready and drove to downtown LA to see the Walk of Fame and the Hollywood sign. I despised the traffic, and Dax despised the outing.  I thought seeing the stars on the sidewalk would be so cool, and while it was neat to see, it isn't the glamorous scenario that you envision when you see a celebrity getting their star.  It was a very gloomy atmosphere.  It was a very physical depression, being in that place.  Seeing so much corruption, seeing so many people in misery because of their choices, it was sad.  Hollywood Blvd is just lined with people and things that are just bad.  So Dax's protector sensor was on edge the whole time, and he just kept looking around thinking about how to keep us safe.  :)  We survived, and drove up in the hills to get closer to the Hollywood sign, but did not have much luck.  We ended up at the observatory though. 

 

Sandra Bullock's star.  Looking at the stars made me wonder, what are the qualifications to get a star?

 

When Spider-man asked if I wanted a picture with him, I thought, "Oh Hayden would love to see this."  Didn't realize until right before Dax was taking the photo that Spiderman would want money.  Oh well.  Hayden's remark, "Mom, that is not really Spider-man is it.  Look at that thing he is wearing."  The fanny pack gave it away. 

Next we headed to the Santa Monica Pier and ate at Buca di Beppo.  The parking limit on the street was 2 hours, so we didn't really go down into the pier, but we had a nice view of it from above.  We thought we would come back another day, but ended up doing other things.

Going back to our hotel in Torrance was a nightmare.  Traffic was so bad(and only creeping along) on the 405, and Taylee was getting hungry.  We were finally able to get off and feed her, but decided to take one of the blvds south to get back.  It took even longer I am sure (2 hrs!), but at least we got to drive through all of the suburbs of LA.  I went into a grocery store in Mid City to get some fruit for Taylee and I was the only white person in the store.  Not exaggerating.  Everyone was either black or mexican.  I felt eyes coming at me from all directions.  I didn't really feel worried or as if people were looking at me in dislike, just in surprise I guess. 

Friday we went with some of Dax's cousins to a rocky beach south of the Redondo beach .  It was probably one of the best things we did.  We explored the tide pools and found all sorts of anemones, crabs, starfish, and giant slugs. 

 From the top.  In this picture it is hard to tell, but those are all good sized rocks along the beach; no sand.

 We went and ate lunch at Red Robin because Dax had a gift card there (he received a really cool award at work, but unfortunately I don't remember what it is called).  After lunch we went to  Redondo beach and met up with the Taylor family.  Dax braved it and tried body boarding, but after going in as far as my knees and having a wave soak me to the shoulders I was done. Afterward we explored the pier on our own.  It was nice and relaxing.

 Her face as soon as Dad put her toes in the water.  COLD!

 Giant slug.  It was pretty gross looking.

That evening the Jenks' had a dinner for the family that was in CA for the wedding.  They ordered Mexican food to the hotel.  Much better than the restaurant we went to. :)  

Saturday morning we headed to the temple for Taylor's wedding.  The temple in LA is so big.  It was so nice to go to a place in California where the atmosphere felt peaceful!  By the time we got back to the hotel we decided not to go anywhere, because we were exhausted.  We just relaxed and took a little nap.  We went to the reception for about an hour and rounded out the night with a milkshake from In-N-Out.  

We flew home Sunday morning.  It was so nice to see the kids and get back to normal life.  LA was fun, but I decided next time we go on vacation I don't want to go to a big busy city.  I'm thinking somewhere in the tropics...