LA

 Thursday we got up and headed out pretty quickly. We stopped first at Ventura Beach which was so quiet at 9am. It was a cute little town and the beach was so pretty. We stayed for about 20 minutes and walked around and threw rocks in the water and then left. We drove to Malibu, which took us through the hills around there and it was so pretty. We went to a state park just north of Malibu proper and the beach had five people on it, we saw a ton of dolphins really close by and we just enjoyed being on the beach for about 30 minutes. The water was so cold so no one was out swimming but the ocean is beautiful so we all were happy just to be there. 

 

 

Then we drove down the PCH further and went through Malibu and Santa Monica (we saw the pier but didn't take the time to stop and walk down it) and then got on the highway to go to Burbank. It was so fun to see the LA temple and then we drove through Josh's mission a bit and then we went to the movie studio area so we could take the Warner Brothers Studio tour. It was so much fun and more involved than when Josh and I did it years ago. Universal is right there too and if we had time I might have been tempted to go to the Harry Potter stuff but we'll save that for Florida. We spent about three hours on the tour and it was fun to see a slice of how movies and tv shows are made. We took a golf cart tour (our first golf cart caught on fire so we had to wait for a second one and our tour guide was a bit frazzled after that) that went around the back lot where we saw all sorts of buildings and landscapes used in lots of movies and tv shows, especially Gilmore Girls and Friends but also a scene from Jurassic Park. I was excited to see the GG gazebo (it is one of my all time favorite shows) and Emma was especially excited to see the outside of the Full House house, though we had already been to SF to see the real deal. This one was mostly used for Fuller House. 

 

We got to go on a sound stage where they are currently filming some show I had never heard of but that was cool and then there were two buildings we could explore on our own. One had some cool costume displays and there were interactive displays on forced perspective and green screens and on post production (like sound stuff) that was all fun and cool. Then we got to go to a building that had props from Marvel movies (like the actual Batmobile from The Batman that just came out) and costumes and then Harry Potter stuff too. It was cool and I'm glad we did the tour to give the kids a bit of an LA experience. I love movies and in another life I wish I could have been a clarinetist in an orchestra that recorded movie soundtracks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got done with that and went to In N Out for hamburgers, fries and chocolate shakes. It was so good and another quintessential California experience. Then we went up to the Griffith Observatory which offers a great view of LA. It is a cool science museum but was already closed so we just enjoyed the view and saw the Hollywood sign and called it good. We drove down to my mission companion's home (Michelle) in Orange and even though it was only 30 miles away it took us an hour. Got to love LA traffic!  Although google maps had us rerouting all over the place to avoid the main highway so we got a nice tour of East LA but we made it in time to chat for awhile, see her house and then get the kids settled for a good nights sleep.