Los Angeles, California
On day 2 of our California vacation, we had big plans to tour Los Angeles. The night before, Libby got sick and both girls had to take middle-of-the-night showers and we had to change out our sheets. Instead of jumping up and heading toward LA, we had a late breakfast at our hotel (another perk of staying at a Hampton Inn– free breakfast!) and I had medicine called in for Libby.
After our slow start, we drove around LA for a while, checking out the houses and searching for the best view of the Hollywood sign. We finally stopped at Lake Hollywood Park, which I highly recommend. It was a gorgeous park just below the sign–a short hike up the hill put us in the perfect spot for a photoshoot. Unfortunately, there was zero parking and tons of traffic, so my dad and Justin dropped us off for our photo shoot and kept driving. I was so sad they didn’t make it into the pictures with us!
After driving around all that time trying to get the best view, Jase was a little let down when he saw the actual sign. He said, “So the Hollywood sign is just letters?” =)
From there, we had lunch at In-N-Out Burger. It was absolutely delicious. Everyone who has been to Cali before had told us to try In-N-Out Burger, and I was curious about the hype. Apparently, they use only fresh ingredients. They build restaurants within a certain distance from their beef suppliers so that they never have to freeze the meat. After eating there, I definitely believe that to be true!
After lunch, we took a stroll down the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I’m not sure what I expected the Walk of Fame to be like, but there were so many stars and names. We chose our favorites to be pictured with. Libby picked Jennifer Aniston because she is OBSESSED with Friends right now. Kyndall chose Usher because, well, Usher 🙂 Jase posed with Frank Sinatra’s star. Libby is learning about Apollo at school right now and wanted to be photographed with that tribute, too!
I chose Reese Witherspoon, my favorite southern actress, and Justin stopped at Jeff Dunham’s star.
Gra-Gra posed with Grace Kelly and Pops posed with Billy Joel.
We bumped into Spiderman and Superman on Hollywood Boulevard.
After our stroll down Hollywood Boulevard, we headed toward Anaheim and Disneyland. We checked into Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel, a Disneyland resort property. Once we had everything settled, we walked into Downtown Disney for dinner and a little shopping.
Downtown Disney, California
The kids had so much fun at Downtown Disney’s Lego store. There were TONS of figures made out of Legos, like this Hulk.
We had so much fun with the “Which Lego Are You” computer. The kids scanned their hands on the device and were {mostly} excited about their Lego matches. Libby was convinced it missed her reading the first time, so she tried it twice!
For dinner, we stopped by the Tri-Tip Man food truck at Downtown Disney. Jase didn’t make it to dinner and I ended up carrying him all the way back to the room! Poor baby was exhausted!
One of the many benefits of staying at a Disneyland property is that we could see the firework shows from the roof of our hotel. Justin volunteered to stay with a sleeping Jase in the room while the rest of us went up to enjoy the view. It was the perfect way to end our day!
