L.A. Anniversary Fun

One of the most exciting things about moving to California was knowing we'd be LOTS closer to seeing: Conan is definitely one of Nate and I's favorite past-times. We wanted to see his show last summer when we were in New York, but weren't able to fit it in. So last weekend was a flex Friday, and we wanted to do something fun to celebrate our Anniversary. (Seeing as how it will probably be our last one where we do anything fun for many many years! Darn kids:)) We decided what better way than to venture out to the Big City and try to see Conan!

After waking up super early to drive to LA (which ended up not being as far as we thought), then trying to find parking for about a half an hour in Burbank, we finally got to where standby tickets for Conan are given out. We were too late. By about half an hour. They'd already been done. But the security gaurd said we could try coming back at 1pm to see if there were more. We found a free shuttle that takes you up the massive hill to the Universal City Walk, so we went and wasted some time there until we needed to get back in line for standby.

Giant guitar outside of The Hard Rock Cafe. And my giant belly.

The infamous globe. We didn't go to the park, of course, just outside the gate for pics.

Ah, so refreshing to see water...

Any true Californian should know about Tommy's.

I took this picture for my family. When they lived in Cali, I guess Tommy burgers were their favorite. I didn't choose this for lunch, I am not a Tommy fan, but the fam is.

After lunch, we headed back over to Conan. Good thing for the poor pregnant lady's feet, everything is pretty close at Universal Studios. We did A LOT of walking back and forth. We figured we were a little early, but didn't really have anything else to do. So we decided it wouldn't hurt to just go wait in line; atleast they had mist fans and water.
Yep, we were definitely early. Or just die hard fans. You choose.

There's Nate, all the way at the front of the walkway, only person in line. We chilled with the security gaurd for quite awhile. Very nice man from Iran, learned all about him. Again, atleast they had mist fans and water. And seating!

We eventually got our standby tickets, and were told we had to come back at 3 to see if we could get in to the show. More time for wandering. Remember when I thought it was refreshing to see water?

Then we found the LA River. Never mind.

Well, to spare you the rest of our adventurous story of trying to get into the show, we made it!!! Barely!!!!!!! Our seats were the very back row, far corner, but supposedly the best view in the house, because there was nothing blocking our view of the stage. We had such a blast, and have now figured out the system for NEXT time, so that we don't have to waste our entire day walking back and forth, and risking standby. We are Conan pros!

Cameras were definitely not allowed, but Nate snuck this one in of the whole stage setup.

Then I got daring, and wanted to take one. I was trying to hurry so fast, the camera got put on a weird setting, so it's blurry, but we got one!

That's the main camera; it says The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, in case you don't believe us :)

Conan is hilarious on tv, but we really loved him live and definitey plan on going again. It was a lot of fun to see how things work behind the scenes, too. We were thrilled with our success for the day!

Our beloved wristbands!!!!!! It's a big deal when you get your wristband! We waited a long time, got several different entrance tickets, but we still weren't for sure we were going to get a seat until they gave us our wristbands! We will treasure them forever. :)

We found a Comfort Inn (our personal fave) on Sunset Blvd to stay the night. While there, we found out the Hollywood Walk of Fame was only two blocks up the road.

This wasn't on our agenda, but figured we couldn't miss out on it for only being a hop, skip, and a jump away.

It certainly wasn't how I pictured it, you know, glitz and glam. It's really in a fairly sketchy part of town!

The infamous Chinese Theatre

We found a nice foreign man to get our pic. He was less than impressed with our non-fancy camera and it's poor zoom. But we know what that sign says!

This is from a fun outdoor mall on Hollywood Blvd that has a great view.

We found SO many random stars, this being one of Nate's faves.

In front of the Chinese Theatre is where the stars put their hand and footprints in the sidewalk.
My absolute, personal fave...Ol' Blue Eyes. I was super excited to find him, right up front by the door, near Marilyn Monroe and Julie Andrews.

In front of that sidewalk are a lot of poor, struggling actors dressed up in tacky costumes, wanting tourists to get their picture taken with them. They "appreciate" tips, and love to tell you that. We thought they should get a real job. Until we saw this guy:

He hung out around Michael's star and kept very busy! I didn't want to tip him, so we didn't take a pic with him, but I wish we could've got a close up of his face! He was good.

He had everything about the pop star king down!! Notice the awfully dressed Spiderman down the street a bit. Normally, I would've definitely gotten a picture with him. But this particular Spiderman had a belly about the size of mine, I could see his hair through the back of his mask, and I think he was wearing reeboks. No thanks, Spidey. Get a real job. :)

The highlight for Nate's day was when Snoop Dogg stopped by! Who knew Snoop was so tall.

Marilyn and I got along so well. She has a great sense of humor.

Lucille, on the other hand, did not love the idea of the big prego lady next to her yummy batter. Oh, Lucy...

Snoop's short stint with Nate really rubbed off on him. Fo Shizzle.

From the Walk of Fame, we headed down Santa Monica Blvd to the beach!! That's all I wanted for the whole weekend. While driving, we randomly fell upon:

The LA Temple! It seriously jumped out at us! We had no idea the Temple was on Santa Monica Blvd and overlooks the ocean. How greatful I am for the Angel Moroni, that way I knew it was ours!

And finally, ah...

The ocean. There's just nothing like it. All the tension from driving in LA all weekend was immediately washed to sea.

As we strolled the beach, we fell upon this little guy. Totally creeped me out.

He seemed very content. At first we wondered if he was stuck, but the tide came up plenty far enough; he just wanted to hang out in the sand.

I was afraid that on a Saturday afternoon, the beach would be completely packed. It wasn't at all and it was so lovely!

It was about 90 in LA last weekend, but so much cooler down by the ocean. It felt wonderful! I guess the natives consider it winter time now or something, so not a lot going down to the beach. Silly Californians; it was absolute perfection for me.

I couldn't have asked for a better day than to just stroll and lounge away at the beach (you will be spared 7 1/2 month pregnant swimsuit pictures).

Nate's favorite thing to do at the ocean is watch for washed up seashells and skip rocks into the water. The sand, the smell, the sound...all of it was exactly what we needed.

We ended our trip with a stop in Lancaster for some shopping, and of course, Costco. Nate bought me an anniversary ring (that's what he called it anyways) to top off the weekend!

SO sweet and thoughtful of him. This is because my actual wedding ring currently fits fine only if my body temperature stays normal, meaning until about 2pm or if I'm only in my house, not being active at all, all day. My fingers have swelled just a little, but if there is any heat involved (remember, I live in the desert), there could definitely be trouble getting my wedding ring off. I'd much rather have to have this $6 one from Kohl's cutt off of my finger, if needs be.

We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend getaway. It was such an awesome experience to see Conan, to have the whole weekend to be together and just have fun, and it was really great to find out that WATER isn't as far away as we thought it was!! Sign me up for every flex Friday weekend at the beach. ;)