the day that should have been from hell but was actually from heaven :)

today we went to Beverly Hills, to check out places where famous people have died, visit the restroom in the park where George Michael exposed himself, and other cool family friendly stuff like that ;) sadly the Manson murder house now has a big gate so you can't creep up the driveway, with your heart thumping in your ears and the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. sigh.

anyway despite this... i unapologetically love Los Angeles. while it's just a smoggy urban sprawl to others, i think it's beautiful and completely fascinating. i love that there is every style of house you can dream up, from midcentury to quaint little french farmhouse and huge obnoxious tuscan villa all in the same block, with painstaking attention to detail. i love the rows of super tall palm trees that lean towards the equator and the beautifully tree-lined shady lanes that still feel so 1960s and Mamas and the Papas and just plain awesome.

anyway we were on our way from Dr Phil's house (which i very much doubted was Dr Phil's house - it's such a busy street) to see Paul McCartney's house which is also where George Harrison died (i know it's sad... but i just love the Beatles that much...) when our car started to putter and sputter. but we just HAD to get up Coldwater Canyon to check out Prince's place (which i imagined to be teeny tiny and a pastel shade of purple with a splash of raspberry:) when suddenly our car DIED!!!!

after 10 minutes or so, it miraculously rose from the dead, so we gingerly made our way back down Coldwater Canyon, through LA, driving slow enough towards home to actually notice stuff like the Nickelodeon Studios and the Viper Room. we stopped for a little while in a beautiful shady park in Downey (i know, huh - Downey! it was so pretty with a duck pond and pretty bokeh, and we even had duck bread and the geese were even super friendly and didn't chase us!!) then onto towards home, at which point our car finally died again close enough to home to get the very nice AAA man to tow us home safely (very exciting for the boys - they now want a big diesel pick-up truck:)

we flipped our hair at our minivan as we went out to dinner in our good car, got home and made buttery chocolate chip cookies, looked at new cars online to scare the old car into making wiser choices in the future, filed our taxes (because that refund is about to come in very handy i think;) and now it's movie/bedtime. it should have sucked.... but i kind of loved today ;)

driving on Coldwater Canyon

George 'favorite Beatle ever' Harrison RIP (sob)

Aaron Spelling's 123 room house

Dr Phil's place (which i highly doubt - you can see right into the bathroom!)









dinner tastes extra wonderful when you haven't eaten all day :)

last night's sleepy picture of my 10 year old baby :)