Hollywood, CA

Dan and Heather on another whirlwind vacation!

As soon as Dan and I got back from Miami, we were whisked off on our next vacation to the other side of the country. We flew to Las Angeles, CA on Wednesday morning to spend the whole weekend in Hollywood.

It was 70 degrees and beautiful when we landed and we had a driver at the airport again to pick us up. (I still think it's pretty cool they pick you up! It's something I've only seen in movies!) We stayed at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel on Hollywood and Highland Blvd. This hotel was pretty swanky! Apparently, a lot of stars stay there in the Presidential Suite.

Our room was pretty big and we had a great view of Hollywood Blvd, the Roosevelt Hotel, the back of the Kodak Theater- which is where the Grammy's are held, and the Hollywood sign.

The first night, our group was bused out to the Santa Monica Pier just in time for sunset. We got to watch the sun go down over the ocean on the edge of the pier.

After sundown, we ate at the Mexican restaurant at the very end of the pier, MariaSol. It was pretty good! All the DirecTV executives were there and introduced themselves to all of us. Everyone was pretty impressed that Dan also won the Superbowl trip and he quickly became known as "Superbowl Dan" for other introductions.

That night they gave us our detailed itinerary and we were really kept busy for the whole weekend. The next morning we all met outside the Grauman Chinese Theater before we went on a bus tour of the stars homes. We took pictures of the Hollywood Walk of Fame Stars and the hand and footprints and signatures in front of the theater.

The tour wasn't too bad, although most houses we saw had huge privacy bushes in front. I'd plant bushes too if people in buses drove by my house to gawk at me all day. We didn't see anyone but the houses were pretty amazing. They were huge! We got to see the 38,000 sq. ft house used in X-Men, Michael Jackson's house, and The Manor, a 150 million dollar mansion which is the most expensive house on the real estate market.

After the tour, we drove to Rodeo Dr. and had lunch at The Farm. We got to walk up and down Rodeo Dr. and window shop at all stores like Prada, Gucci, Coach,Versace, and many, many others. We didn't even bother going inside to ask prices. Haha some of the people we were with said they saw a $150 pair of socks and an $300 t-shirt--and those were probably some of the lower end items!
That night we got to go to the Jimmy Kimmel taping. His studio is on Hollywood Blvd so we didn't have to go to far.

We got to watch it from the VIP lounge greenroom. We couldn't take pictures but we did get to meet Patrick Dempsey after his interview. After the show, they took us to dinner at Spago, which is Wolfgang Puck's signature restaurant since he lives in Hollywood. The food was really...different. It was tasty, but I couldn't pronounce half of what was served and they kept trying to fill our glasses with wine or beer. I finally flat out told them I was pregnant before they really stopped trying. Afterward, though, they always made sure I had plenty of water!

On Saturday morning, DirecTV gave us tickets to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. We spent the morning, along with the other couple from our center who won the trip, taking pictures and wondering through the museum. It turned out to be really disconcerting when you turned around and you'd see someone famous standing in the middle of the floor staring in your direction. Some of the wax figures seemed pretty realistic at first glance!



We spent the afternoon at Universal Studios where we ate a catered lunch in Studio 28-the home of the original Phantom of the Opera set. We got to take a VIP tour through the back lot on trams. This tour turned out to be much different because they let us get off the tram at certain locations. We walked through one of the dubbing studios, the prop building with all the props used for tv and movie sets, and several actual movie or TV sets. We got to walk up and down Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives and the suburban neighborhood that had a torn apart 747 airplane through most of it from War of Worlds. We stopped at several western town sets, the Whoville set from The Grinch, and part of the set from The Truman Show. It was pretty fun getting to see the sets and the half-built projects for new movies.

Since Saturday was our last night, DirecTV hired stylist to do the girls' hair and makeup, a masseuse, and a celebrity photographer to take pictures of us. Dan was awarded his very own Hollywood Walk of Fame sidewalk star with his name on it and then they treated us to dinner at STK. We got ride to the restaurant in stretch limos and there was a lot of paparazzi there when we arrived. Apparently, STK is a really high-end restaurant where a lot of celebrities eat. I didn't see anyone I recognized but they had a private dining area and patio just for us so we weren't really around other diners.

The food was amazing but since all we'd done the whole trip is eat- we could barely eat it. Right next to the restaurant is the club Coco De Ville (another LA hotspot) were the whole group got to go clubbing. By this time of night, I was dead tired. It was probably about 12:30pm and I was struggling to stay awake. Dan and I were they only ones in the group that didn't drink so we stayed out on the patio most of the night and then one of the limos took us back to the hotel.

On Saturday morning, we finally had some time to go shopping on Hollywood Blvd and so we took some time to look through the shops and get several souvenirs. Hollywood was a lot of fun and we were exhausted when we got back to Utah.

I loved being on vacation and we went to really fun places, but there really isn't any place like home! I'm glad I have such a talented husband who earns these awesome corporate trips from our work! Now we have some time to relax before we head to Cancun, MX in 2 weeks!