Fun in the Sun

...California Vacation continued.




I figured I would bore everyone to death if I packed my whole vacation into one post, so here is part 2 of my Fabulous Thanksgiving Vacation!

Monday, while David and Mark went golfing, Teri and I took the kids to the movies. I went to see Twilight, along with Mariasha, Jordan and Karina. I'm sad to say this was the most disappointing part of the vacation for me. I am a huge fan of the books, but the movie got Edward all wrong. I started to read the book again since seeing the movie, and in the book Edward is always laughing, chuckling, smirking, teasing, etc. In the movie, he's so angry. I can't for the life of me see why anyone would be attracted to him. But enough of my rant. Teri took all the little kids to the cartoon, Bolt 3D. Everyone loved it but Treyson. He was scared of all the things jumping out at him and he cried.

Tuesday we went to the beach! It was a little windy when we showed up, and we weren't sure anyone would want to get in. But the ocean is irresistible to kids, and they boogie boarded happily for several hours. Three years ago we went to California, we went to the beach as soon as we arrived. David tried to skim board, and on the first try he went head over heels and separated his shoulder. We spent the rest of the day in the ER. So this time, he was understandably reluctant to try skim boarding again. I watched Karina ride the skim board effortlessly across the sand, and decided I had to give it a try. I never made it look as graceful as Karina, but I did learn to ride the skim board successfully. Here is a video of my most humorous attempt.

After we were done playing in the ocean, Karina came up with some relay races for us to compete in. I'm sure we looked goofy, but we had a lot of fun!

That night we went to see the play Wicked at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. We almost didn't make it to the play on time! The theater is about 55 miles away from Teri's house, and the show started at 8 p.m We decided to leave by 4:30 so we would have time to get dinner before the show. Mark was a little late getting home from work, so we left at 5:00. We thought we still would have time for a quick bite. WRONG! The traffic was horrible! The last 15 miles we averaged 8 mph! At 7:30 we were still 10 miles away, and we realized there was no way we were going to make it. I started praying silently for help, and suddenly all of the traffic disappeared, and we were traveling at freeway speeds. We arrived at the theater at 7:45, with just enough time to buy some refreshments in the lobby, ($50 for 4 waters, a muffin, a brownie, and 2 small boxes of candy!)

It was cool to see the gold stars on the sidewalk in front of the theater. I recognized most of the names on the stars, but the only one I can remember is Jackie Gleason. Inside of the theater was amazing, with very intricate carvings everywhere. The set was very cool, with huge clocks, clockwork towers, and a giant dragon. David took lots pictures with his phone, while the security guard threatened loudly to confiscate cameras. I was mortified, but it didn't phase David at all.

This was my first time to see Wicked, though Teri's family and Mariasha had seen it before. I really enjoyed it, even though Galinda with a Guh... was a touch goofy for my taste. Once she grew up I liked her much better. The sets were beautiful, the voices were gorgeous, especially Galinda's, and I liked the ending much better than the book. (Actually the whole thing was better than the book. I would recommend you never read the book at all... ever... for any reason. It's nasty! Go see the play instead!)

To Be Continued... (Yes there's more! I told you we packed a lot of fun into the week!)