SoCal Part 1...Hollywood!

Just before our trip was going to start we knew we wanted to head down Friday but were shooting more for late morning to arrive in the evening and then we realized. HEY ,lets make the most of it, after all who needs sleep and rest on a vacation. Haha. So at 4am we loaded all the kids in the car...and wait...pause. Let me tell you about our sweet car.

So we were going to take my friends mom's car which would have fit all of us, it was an SUV and it would have made it so we coudl all cram and split gas and the whole nine yards. Well she took her moms car to the shop and found out it had a fuel pump problem. SO we had to make a decision and quickly as this all went down Thursday, the day before our trip.

We could...

A. Take her moms car and pray it didnt explode (which was a good option but if we broke her moms car I would have felt terrible)

B. Take two cars (ugh more gas money)

C. Use someones car (we only knew Carina's nana who had one and it was a quad cab Silverado, would have fit us but we would have been cramped)

D. Rent a car. Our options. Dodge Durango. Dodge Minivan.

I was floored. They were soo expensive to rent but last minute this was the option we chose and off we went to rent a car. We looked at both and guess what. In a matter of minutes BAM we were renting a minivan. Gasp. Ugh. I made it very clear to everyone I did not want ANYTHING to do with a minivan. They didn't care or listen. It had more trunk space and seating space. Done. So I took the minivan home...in horror...ashamed that this momma was driving a mini van and we packed up. Now let me just stop here for a second. I learned to drive in a minivan. My first wreck was a minivan. My first embarrassing moment was a minivan and many other countless teenage moments all started in a minivan (some good, some bad) and the last thing I wanted was to ever step foot or sit my butt in a minivan again. Okay. So. I got home, packed up and to my surprise we had 3 bags, 2 blankets, a double stroller, a bathroom bag, juice boxes (4 boxes to be exact) a case of water, a bag of toys and I could still see out the back window. In fact. There was TONS of room! That was my first selling point. Well then we go get Lauren, and we get her in the minivan and STILL we were all comfy. Then we drive all the way to hollywood, countless stops, in car eating, movies to be watched and lots of jabbering but guess what. NO arguing! No "you are to close" no "quit touching me" no "She is drooling on me while she sleeps". IN fact, everyone got along and we got to our first destination...HAPPY!!!! Now when we got out of the car it was chaos again but in the car. Calm. Peaceful. Joyous.

It was then. I yearned for a minivan. Just sayin'. It was glorious.

Anywho, we went to Hollywood and were walking around to some of the stars, and some were great, some were boring and we didn't walk the whole strip but we saw all the cool places and our two major stops. Madame Tassauds Wax Museum (sorry if I spelt it wrong) and Hard Rock Hotel for some lunch. Yum. The kids really were great, we had amazing food, we had a blast hanging on or beating up (you will see) celebrities made of wax and to be honest, it was a great way to start of the vacation. It was also the first place Rian saw people in costume and he LOVED them. Everything about our first stop had me more excited about the rest of the vacation!

Now, enjoy the pics :)

The few hollywood stars that we were able to stop and see given all those crazy tourists stopping and trampling all over us. LOL.



**Note: I had the camera in the wrong settings this first day and didn't even notice...so some of the pics came out sort of blurry. Sorry if it hurts your eyes!**

The wax museum pics...Uhm hello...among these is probably the closest Lauren and I will ever get to taking pics with our wannabe future husbands a.k.a will smith and Johnny Depp. Oh and Hello SCARFACE (Al Pacino)! **Warning, these pics are what made me realize...this mommy needs to get back to counting calories and a bit of excercise. Ugh.**

And in case you can't tell after going through these, Carina is a bit of a picture taking hog. She didn't even know half the people she stood with. Haha.

























Carina made a wax hand that was pretty awesome to watch. It melted a bit on our way home from SoCal but not to worry. This crafty momma fixed it all up and now it sits on our kitchen counter. Kinda creepy. Ha!




Hard Rock cafe...we left with gifts for the kids and full tummies!





This was an amazing way to start our vacation and it only got better from there. We also that very same night. Stopped at Downtown Disney and Neya made a build a bear and we looked around quite a few shops. Super fun and this was only Day 1!