Hakuna Matata!

When we decided to visit LA over the holiday, I checked to see if ant good musicals would be in town. As luck would have it, The Lion King is touring, and had performances during our visit. I booked our tickets a couple months early. I was not able to find any discount codes, so had to pay full price. At $112 a ticket, it wasn't cheap, but we were only 10 rows from the stage. A few weeks later, my sister, nephew and mom decided to see the show. The closest seats were only 2 rows behind us.

The boys had really enjoyed our previous Broadway musicals, so they were very excited to see Lion King. To get a jump on LA's horrible traffic, Alex and I decided to head over to Hollywood at 3. We figured we could walk around a bit, eat at world famous Pink's hot dogs, then head to the Pantages Theater. We did run in to some traffic, but it was light by LA standards.

We got to Hollywood in 1 hour. Believe me when I say that is fast. Oh look, here's glamorous Hollywood.

We did get a bit of street traffic. Hey, there's the Hollywood sign!

We made our way over to Pink's. This is one of those fast food joints where you can find yourself in line with either a tourist from Ohio, or George Lopez. This place gets crazy packed.

See what I mean? It was a long line. This night, it was filled with Ohioans, not George Lopezins. Yeah, that's a word! Anyway, we waited in line for an hour. Can I just give a shout out to my sons? They were so patient in line, despite the fact that we were standing in a long line, and on a busy/loud intersection.

When it was finally our turn, we ordered an assortment of hamburgers and chili dogs, plus sodas. It came out to $26.  We sat at the outdoor patio and enjoyed our junk food. Was it worth standing in line for an hour? Hell yeah! My boys patiently stood in that line.  Boom! Learning opportunity right there.  Mastering the fine art of waiting patiently is something that our family could not do a few years ago. So yay us!

By the time we had finished dinner, it was time to meet up with the rest of my family at Pantages Theater. We paid $20 to park (OMG!), then looked for my family at the front of the theater. 

We had time to kill before the doors opened, so I bought a program for the boys, then checked out some of the stars. Aaaaaeeeeyyyy! It's the Fonze!

One the doors opened, we headed inside. I had read that the Pantages does not allow photography, but everyone was taking pictures. I had left my camera at my in-laws house, so all I have are bad cell 

phone pictures. They don't do this place justice. The theater was gorgeous. It was built in 1930, and was the home of the Academy Awards for many years.

We walked around for a bit just to soak in the atmosphere. Of course, we made a stop at the souvenir stand. $65 for 3 Lion King stuffed animals. It was getting closer to curtain call, so we headed to the orchestra area. We spotted Lion King masks and snapped a quick photo.

We had great seats, only 10 rows back. Check out the beautiful interior of the theater.

My mom, sister, nephew and niece were just a couple rows behind us.

And the stage before show time.

The show was excellent. I did let the kids wear their noise reducing headphones. I gave them the option to not wear them, but once the music started, they both put their headphones on.  My favorite part was just watching my kids leaning forward in their chairs, with the look of pure joy on their 

faces. What a night.

It was 10:30 when the show ended, so we just headed home. We did get a nice view of downtown. 

And still some traffic.

Tomorrow, The Hat and a movie.

Lunch with Benny

One of the things I love about visiting California, is that I get to visit dear friends. We all worked in the same office when I lived in California. We always meet for lunch at Bob's Big Boy. It's tradition, dammit. This time, it was just Benny and I. But it's not a party without Benny, so I was happy.

Now , I have met some awesome people here, but they can't hold a candle to Benny's awesomeness. He brings it to a whole new level. When we get together, two things will happen. We will insult each other like crazy. And we will laugh hysterically. With my group of California friends, I can be me. That means there's allot of joking around.

Anyway, Benny was nice enough to offer me a ride to Bob's Big Boy. Joke #1 had him asking me if I needed a fork lift to get into his car. We had a nice lunch, chatting about life, talking about the insanity of my former and his current office, laughing and making fun of each other and the friends who stood us up that day. Good times.

The highlight of the meal involved the waitress asking him if he wanted a Diet Coke. Poor Benny. That didn't stop me from laughing at him.

Here is our food.

We failed to take a picture of each other. Wait, no we didn't. Here's Benny and I.

Actually, this is Bob and I. Bob is thinner than Benny. We had a fabulous time. I miss my friends so much. I'm blessed to have them in my life. Now get married, Benny. You're getting old, dammit! And it's finally legal in California. Find some dope and get hitched!  See you in July, my friend. I'll buy you a DIET Coke.

Christmas is here!

The next day was Christmas Day. We had stayed up really late the night before, as evidence by this picture.

We spent the morning opening gifts with Alex's family.

Then we headed over to my sisters house. More celebrating. More eating. It's what we do. 

We had a very nice visit. But it was getting late, so we headed back to my sister in law's house. Poor Noah quickly crashed out.

Tomorrow, we have a date with Lion King.

Santa's coming tonight, tonight. Santa's coming tonight!

Day two of out trip was Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is a huge celebration with Alex's family. My Mather in law makes barrels of tamales. Yes, I said BARRELS! OMG they are so good. So they day started out with us just relaxing. Weather was glorious, so the kids spent plenty of time outside.

Well ok, I spent some time outside too.

The kids love their Abuela's orange tree.

I made the kids take a picture with me in between bites of the orange slices.

After a slow morning, we helped my mother in law start cooking the tamales. This involves neatly making a tower in the tamale pot.

This is just a small portion of the tamales.

After watching us prep the tamales, Noah needed a break. 

  

We all headed to Alex's sister in law's big Christmas Eve party. There were so many people that we had not seen in a couple of years. It was so nice to see everyone. 

There was minor issue when carolers came over to sing. Lyrics were skipped, and this set Noah off on a bit of a melt down. But other than that, a good time was had by all.

The kids enjoying the party.

The carolers. 

"I'm going on an adventure!" Bilbo Baggins. Day 1 California

Every other year, we make it back to California for Christmas. This was the year. The day before our flight, we had snow. The kids had fun outside while Alex and I packed up.

Ok, I have no idea how I made that picture snow, but I'm a genius.

We had a 6:30 am flight, so this meant we had to get up at 4am. Yikes! The boys were so excited, they were pretty easy to wake up. We had the minivan loaded up, and pulled away from the house by 5am. The check in line was long, but it moved fast. We made it just in time for boarding. Phew!

It's just a 3 hour flight to LAX. What a nightmare that airport is. But one nice thing about it, is that it has See's Candy. Yay!

I resisted the urge to buy, and we headed straight to the shuttle pick up area. Although the airport was pretty busy, our private van picked us up in no time flat. Before I could say "andele", we were on the freeway, with Santana blasting on the radio. We're back!

We always stay with my in-laws. We got to their house in less than an hour. We were so happy to see everyone. We spent time just chatting and enjoying the sun. After a few hours, we headed over to see my mom. By that time, we were all hungry. Where else could we eat, but In N Out, of course! No visit back to California is complete without a stop here. So we picked my mom up, and headed to In N Out. I miss In N Out, but I miss mom more!

"I am king under the mountain!" - Smaug

Last week was Hobbit week in this house. What is Hobbit week? A completely made up week long celebration of all things Hobbit. We are big Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings fans. So for the five days leading up to The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, I did little things to build up the excitement.

Day one: a gift of hobbit slippers
Day two: another gift, Gollum winter hats
Day three: The Hobbit illustrated movie guide
Day four: Movie release day t shirts
Day Five: A home made Hobbit cake, then we went to see the movie.

Noah waiting for the school bus Friday morning. Decked out in his Smaug shirt.

Alex ended up taking Friday off, so he could help with the cake. I think we could have done a better job, but black ice in the morning made shopping for cake supplies impossible.

I'll forgive you if this picture ends up on Cake Wrecks.

We went to an IMAX screening, and loved it! We can't wait for the last Hobbit movie. The kids handled the crowd great. Here are the kids wearing their Hobbit gifts.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Another great quote from Star Wars. Faith is a word that gets thrown around quite a bit, both by the religious and not so religious. I have faith that we have enough gas in the car to get home. I have faith that I can squeeze into these jeans. I have faith that I can get two kids off to school every morning. See? That's allot of non religious faith right there. But there's so much more to that word.

I experienced true faith last week. It blew. Me. Away. I met some pretty awesome people. I took a trip down to Joplin to pick up my brother for a weekend visit. While there, I met James and Marsha, a couple that run a shelter in town. Their work is truly amazing. They founded a mission which serves the homeless and impoverished in the city. They not only take in people off the streets, nourish and provide clothes. They minister to them in a more meaningful way. They give them a purpose.

You see, in order to sleep in the shelter, a person must be 1. sober, and 2. agree to pay it forward at the shelter. They have something that they call Project Worth. In Project Worth, residents of the shelter do various jobs. It can be anything from gardening to creating jewelry to be sold at their store. As their website so eloquently put it, "The purchase of Worth-Shop items in our community are reminding 'the least of these' that they have something to offer, that they have the ability to earn and that they have worth."

 What an amazing place this is. There are so many stories of redemption in this building. Now I'm not totally naive. Not every story is a happy one. Not every one of these residents makes it out alive. But souls are saved at Watered Gardens. Because of the hard work and dedication of people like James and Marsha, people are given opportunities for a better life.

I imagine that James and Marsha's jobs are very difficult. There must be quite a bit of heart ache. But in that heart ache, must come immense joy when they see one person saved. So when you see a homeless person on the street, remember that person matters. He/she is someone's child, sibling, aunt/uncle. And think of people like James and Marsha, who do so much to help them. Donate to their wonderful ministry in any way you can.  http://wateredgardens.org/