Ice Cream!!!

We have been known to succumb to our weakness and buy ice cream when it goes on sale or go to Yogurtland just because.  Given that one of her new addictions is fancy shmancy ice cream sandwiches from CoolHaus that, like everything in Los Angeles, aren't cheap she thought it would be a fantastic idea to invest in an ice cream maker.  Of course this idea was turned into a necessity when the Cuisinart Frozen Yogurt - Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker graced the pages of the last Costco coupon booklet.

I am sad to report we didn't break it open immediately and start making things in the car ride home from Costco.  HOWEVER, we did open the box up so we could look at the instructions and figure out what we could buy at the grocery store on the way home so we could make it the next day.  Well, the next day we just ended up eating some Pepperidge Farm cookies.  One day of putting it off turned into two, three, etc. THEN we had our sudden move and we thought 'let's celebrate the end of such a crazy day with home made desert.' This thought was immediately replaces by 'hey! we live in walking distance to Yogurtland, let's just go there.'

Eventually we did make it around to making some ice cream, and in honor of Andrea's most favoritest ever (dirty  mint chip) we made our very own mint ice cream!

We learned one lesson - use a food processor on the mint because huge chunks of mint aren't as appetizing as  you might think.

Among the many things we plan on trying out someday are two we can't wait to try:

cherry lime sorbet (we LOVE Minute Maid Cherry Limeade and it's been BEGGING  us to turn it into some kind of frozen treat) and peanut butter nutella ice cream.

Mmmmmmm, I can wait!  If any one has any experience with ice cream makers we'd love any advice, but will happily enjoy the adventure if we have to go it alone.

Happy snacking!

AZ babies

Oops! I was wrong before when I previously sated that we were caught up with enough posts for the month.  This is a belated post about a trip we made back to AZ

What kind of trip would be complete without seeing all our friends' babies?  The above is photographic evidence of a baby that got chocolaty-wasted.  Below is photographic evidence of said chocolaty-wastedness lack of long term effects.

One thing that is important to remember is that not all babies are human babies, obviously!

Another thing to remember is that not all babies are babies.

It is by complete coincidence that a majority of these pictures involve food on the face.  We do other things besides eat, I promise.

Hollyhood goes Ape!

Recently Andrea had a little visitor from the east.

This here is April, some may know her as the seamstress extraordinaire.

This was her first visit to Los Angeles, so we figured she better see the sights.  Since she got in on a Friday evening that just happened to be the first Friday of the month we really had no choice but to take her to Venice to experience the food trucks the way we were introduced to them.  Andrea, of course, chose ice cream for dinner.  I, on the other hand, waited until we made it over to the WORLD FAMOUS Randy's Doughnuts (as seen in such things as Iron Man 2, Arrested Development and Mars Attacks!) to have a much healthier chocolaty dinner.  It was fairly late when we finally got back to the apartment so we hit the hay so we could party the next day.

First thing we did was check out Griffiths Observatory.

Next stop, Hollywood.

A more appropriate title of the post my have been April (affectionately known as Ape) goes to Hollywood, but that just doesn't sound as cool.

If you're going to Hollywood, you better be stopping by Grauman's Chinese Theater to see the famed hand and footprints they have.  We only took a couple pics, we didn't want to spoil the fun for anyone who wants to do some exploring themselves here :)

 Rita Hayworth had some tiny feet, because Andrea's feet aren't big by any means.

And here's one of Andrea's new crushes - Emma Watson.  If Andrea could find some spell to become her, she'd cast it in a second!

On the way back we found this little beauty posted up on a power box.

Makes me hungry for dessert!

The trip ended FAR too soon, but at least it could commence in the ceremonial handing off of the doughnut box.

in with the new

With new living quarters ready and waiting to be occupied we gathered and transported our belongings.

If she doesn't want to sit at a desk all day, maybe she can be a hotel model.

So we moved from a one bedroom apartment to a studio hotel room, and even for LA that's a pretty big change.

Apparently lot's of people know about Carmageddon, this is junkmageddon.

As with any place, there are pro's and con's to moving somewhere new.

Con's:

MUCH smaller room, no covered parking, right by the Metro track (thankfully not as loud as the planes from LAX), we have people under us now so no jumping around in the middle of the night, can hear people in their rooms a lot easier, only one person at a time can use the internet in the room, and we have to use a smaller TV :(

Pro's:

Free cable TV, free internet, free power, free water, free breakfast every morning, room cleaned everyday, fresh towels constantly (very important with humidity), MUCH nicer view out the window, we actually get sunlight in the room (I felt like we were in some sort of cave in the other place), AND walking distance to Costco, Chipotle and Yogurtland! 

Oh yeah, one last pro,

THE WIENERMOBILE IS HERE!!!!!  Andrea and I even ran into the driver one morning.

And thus we are now caught up with a post-a-day.

Out with the old

So as previously mentioned we had to move out of our place, and here's our little ol' place all cleaned out and empty.

 I thought THIS was a small kitchen...

 Many great people have called this little space their guest room (like five or something, I lost count).

 We've also had a ton of people over for dinner at that table (another five, I think).  I think the only time we actually ate at the table was with company because we usually had picnics on the floor.

The placement of that light switch, right under the towel rack, was sorta stupid if you ask me.  

 How I miss a closet that has more than 2 feet worth of hanger space.

 This is where you can hang out if you want to hear AWFUL singing at 3 or 4 in the morning, dogs barking all night or contemplate how to pull some sort of prank that you could completely get away with (I think I came up with some good ones, but they'll have to wait for another time).

And we're out. 

About to take this stupid elevator for the last time.  I will not miss how it kept me up at night, had to smell some of the worst things in my life while being trapped with no escape, or getting stuck after the fire.

Hey! Where'd you go?

(this is the theme song for this post)

So I wasn’t able to keep the goal of a-post-a-day, but I have a good excuse: we had to move out of our apartment and into a (MUCH smaller) hotel room in less than 24 hours.  Yup, there was some ridiculousness that happened as a result of Andrea extending her stay and we were forced to make a very rapid exodus.  I hope this isn’t going to be a lasting trend, but I think I am quickly learning to lose any materialism that might be lurking in my bones because I wish we could just give all our stuff away so we don’t have to move it ever again.

BUT, it only took five trips and 22 hours and we're now done with LA.  Good riddance to bad rubbish I say, as we now call South Bay our new (albeit temporary) home.

The most notable part of the move was driving to Crenshaw to return our modem (apparently home to the only walmart in all of Los Angeles).  One of the fun things we found at the mall (besides cranky employees) was an LAPD station right there in the mall.  It was kind of interesting to see all the motorcycles with shotguns on them and all the cop cars all over the place (only a few of which I took pictures of).

Andrea and I were VERY hungry when we saw this poster, what else could we do but take a picture of it.

what? ANOTHER amusement park?!?!

It's true, we once again have found ourselves at an amusement park, Six Flags Magic Mountain!  This was a little more momentous though because I've never been to a Six Flags and have only been to one other non-Disney park - Busch Gardens Tampa.  Oh yeah, in addition to being my first time we were going for free because Andrea scored VIP passes for fancy pantsy celebration of the opening of the new Green Lantern ride!

When we pulled up, this was my first glimpse at the famed park.

I don't know about you but I immediately thought about Vacation.

Since I hadn't been there before and Andrea hadn't been in a VERY long time we didn't really know where to start.  So we just decided to go to the left and ended up on one of the craziest roller coasters I've ever seen.  Oh, and don't let me forget to mention Andrea wasn't feeling well earlier and she was worried that she may get sick on the ride :(

By some strange miracle she felt better after the ride, which was a good thing because there was a lot more riding ahead of us.

Anyway, since we waited so long for the other coaster we only really had time to make our way over to the DC Universe (I feel like there should be some sort of sound effect after you read that) for the VIP party to start.

After waiting what seemed like half an hour (it was probably 20 minutes, but we were feeling 50% impatient) we finally got in and quickly made our way to the main event Green Lantern: First Flight.

It's a good thing Andrea made me go on Tower of Terror so many times (because repeatedly falling in an elevator apparently works well to get you over an EXTREME distaste for rides where you get dropped) since this ride is basically a series of free falls.

Anyway, there's only one thing that you should really make sure you do while riding roller coasters: eat.

  One very cool part of this party was all the free food: cupcakes (pictured here), roasted corn on the cob, mini chicken sandwiches, mini BBQ sandwiches, frozen lemonade, candied nuts, peanut butter brittle, chocolate (I think they were turtles), and that's all I remember.

I was glad to be fueled up by all this nutritious stuff because we were ridding like maniacs.  I lost count of how many times we went on Batman The Ride with out having to actually get off the ride, but I think it was like 8.

I was amazed at how many rides we went on because we didn't get there until pretty late in the afternoon but it was as if we had been there the whole day.

Of course we had to get some pictures with the Batmobile!  I mean after 12 or 13 times on Batman it only seemed appropriate.

Can you find me in  this one?

I only narrowly escaped Gossamer!  (I did, in fact, have to Google that.)

What a fun day: we came, we saw, we conquered.

7-11!!

In honor of 7-11 I feel the need to make a little post about something that is very near and dear to my heart, the slurpee.  If you happen to be a poor soul who doesn't know what a slurpee is, it's a frozen drink that is 100% delicious.  What else can I say?  It's refreshing?  A sugary sweet delight?  Tastes like heaven?  Yes, all of that and more!

I am ashamed to admit that I didn't get my free 7.11 oz cup of happiness today (every July 11th 7-11 gives out free slurpees, obviously).  But I did have one on the 4th, so it's all good in the hood.

If you ever have visitors from the East, remember your manners and get them their very own so they can have an excuse to take pictures that won't come out properly (those silly kids). 

And you may be required to do a stained-tongue check.

 Julia passed this time, but barely.

I'm sure if she didn't she would have totally flipped out.

If you have any idea how picky Andrea is with what kind of treats she has, you know that a slurpee has to be totally awesome for her to even hold it!

You're the best slurpee!


***Andre pays royalties to have Andrea's image with a slurpee. Andrea in no way endorses any individual slurpee varieties or the line as a whole.

the Getty

If you find yourself driving north on the 405 freeway from Santa Monica to Burbank (which we ALL do from time to time) you may notice a tram on your left side.  Andrea had wondered what it was for, an eccentric billionaire?  a really lame amusement park?  what?!?!?!

On one fateful day, our dreams came true and we wondered no longer!  We found out it's a tram for the Getty, from the parking structure to the museum.

The museum was fun, besides the "Gods of Angkor" exhibit I liked the buildings and fountains the most.

 This was quite interesting because the water drains out that center hole and drops down to a second fountain.  Double fountain!

Andrea really liked the plants.

I think they made her miss her babies :)

Ride Pics

Who doesn't love to see themselves while having copious amounts of fun?  The only thing that could make such a picture better is if you're making some sort of ridiculous face.  Knowing that Disneyland offers patrons an opportunity to not only have this kind of picture taken but ALSO makes them available for sale.  Lots of amusement parks (and almost every hotel/casino in Vegas) offer this kind of thing, but unlike those other jerks Disneyland lets you take pictures with your phones, cameras, whatever FOR FREE!!!!

With an almost $80 entrance fee and faced with constant markups that seems too good to be true!  But wait, there's more!!  If you act now you can see a bunch of our embarrassing/funny/odd pictures for no added cost.  That's right, free to you for the low, low price of nothing what so ever!!!

Sorry, this was my first attempt and didn't realize you had to be quick... and not use the flash.  I guess this would classify as embarrassing because it embarrassing how bad it is.

 Here we see Andrea hogging the spot light.

The lady in front of me is giving a thumbs up and it looks like I have sickly arms and am holding her head.  Rest assured I am not touching this person.

 Hooray!

 Andrea gets giggly on this ride.

 This isn't particularly interesting... except for whatever the lady in green is doing.

 THIS IS SO INTENSE!!!!

On about the fourth time or so on the Tower of Terror I decided to have a little fun with the pictures.

Can you see what's going on?

If you can't you better

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I'm sleeping!  How funny!!!!!  I wouldn't normally toot my own horn, but another guy on the ride nearly died laughing when he saw the picture.  Oh wait, they told us on the ride that we got sent into the Twilight Zone, maybe he died from the elevator crash! do dee do do!

It's a LOT harder to look like you're sleeping on California Screamin'.

Now Andrea wanted in on the fun.  Let me just say, it was hard to sleep with all the people screaming around us.  I think the guy in the white shirt was in some kind of pain or something...

I don't know what this looks like to you but we were trying to pretend like we were sleeping again.  FAIL

 I don't think we could have topped the last sleeping picture, so this time we went for scared to death.  Once again Andrea got the giggles and just looks really excited while I look like I've got an Ed Grimley thing going on.

 I don't think the guy behind me is having a very good time.

I really like this one.

But adrenaline pumping rides aren't the only places you will find great pictures at Disneyland.  In the Innoventions exhibit we found a glimpse of our future selves.

Oh, how fun.  One thing I thought was a little strange was they have huge posters of some the different rides around the park that have cool artwork but they don't sell them.  In the Happiest Place to take your money on Earth, we found a souvenir that could cheaply and easily be replicated that have great marketing (everyone that actually enters the park walks right past them) and wasn't for sale.  Amazing.

Well that just means we have to pose by them.

(Andrea isn't making a stink face because she doesn't like Pirates of the Caribbean [that would be ridiculous, because she LOVES pirates], she's making a pirate face obviously.)

If we're going to pose by these posters, we might as well pose in front of other pictures.

 Andrea's become very loyal to Neutrogena in a very short amount of time.

How true.