LA Baby.... What an AWESOME trip!

OK.... all that I can say is that LA was AWESOME!!! Very sleep deprived, confused on time, awkward eating times... but FUN!!! Mom and I had great flights to LA and then headed directly to the hotel for some quick rest before the BIG party! Unfortunately Jennifer was on separate flights... got stuck in Dallas with a 6 hour layover... so she met us at the hotel shortly before we had to leave for the party.

Our first BIG problem to solve was... how are we getting to the party? I mean really... who wants to arrive at a big LA event in an economy Nissan Versa rental?!? Not us... so we chose to catch a cab and pay LARGE bucks ($40 each way) to get there.

So having NO CLUE what to expect... we arrived to Mr. Chows for the party. What was funny is that the cab driver was shocked to be dropping us off there.

He said shockingly... "Is THIS it?"

Just so you know what we saw when we drove up and stepped out of the cab...

Large white tents, flashing cameras (not at us, of course), paparazzi yelling, red carpet, the media, celebrities... lets just say that Mom and I were a bit star struck (to say the least)... but enjoyed every single second of feeling kinda important. We checked in... donned our entry bracelet and made our way to the line to get down the red carpet to the door of the party. Once we hit the red carpet, we quickly stepped behind the stars and made our way quickly down the strip... we weren't sure why no one stopped us for an interview! HA!

The party was super crowded... scooting our way through the crowd to the bar to grab my first drink. We stood around for a while to "soak it all in" and then headed our way to the "After" Party in the back...

THEN...

Guess who I had to closely scoot by to get around... that's right... Ms. Paris Hilton. She and I ran into each other several times... I must say that she looked pretty darn good. Not as bad as the media sometimes makes her. We were making our way to another room... and noticed that the guy in front of me got his picture with Paris. Two drinks later I was ready and willing to go find Paris again to her picture with me... but of course she was gone. (Many people have asked me why I didn't snap tons and tons of pictures while at the party, especially of Paris. There was a fine line between being calm and cool aka: not star struck VS. snapping a million pictures with the risk of my camera being taken or me being kicked out of the party.) So I chose to be conservative and cool... although I was more willing after a few drinks. :) Oh well... if I have the opportunity to attend next year, I will do things differently... No worries about the camera.

So at the party I saw the following... Paris Hilton, Marla Maples, Olivia Newton John, Leeza Gibbons, David Foster, Deidre Hall, Jayne Seymour, Forrest Whitaker... and there were plenty of more stars there... I just had NO clue who they were.

Some pics...

This pic was taken at a booth sponsored by Patron Tequila. A fun place to take a self portrait from the party... thought it came out cute!

The stage at the "After" Party.

The COOLEST & BIGGEST ice sculpture where the delicious martinis were mixed. The bartender mixes it and pours the drink through the top of the ice sculpture... it travels down a long tube to get chilled and lands in a martini glass right above where my Moms hand is. I had a few too many of those. Mmmm...


Here is Leeza. She is how we got tickets to the event. Leeza is great friends with my LA friend, Kelly... who then extended the invitation to us! Thanks Kelly!

Olivia Newton John... still very pretty and had a HOTTIE for a man.

The infamous Red Carpet...

Forest Whitaker arrived while I was leaving... so OF COURSE I got a picture.

Our next EARLYYY morning was the Oprah Show!!! Woke up at 4AM for a 5AM departure to the Hollywood Bowl parking lot.... arrival at 5:30AM. With our super empty bellies... we jumped in line. No phones, no cameras, no nothing was allowed. Jennifer and Mom were super grumpy since they hadn't eaten breakfast... thankfully some nice strangers behind us were more prepared and shared some delicious snacks with us.

Here we are in line!

At about 7AM, they checked our ID's and we jumped in the bus heading to the Kodak Theatre. We were shuttled to the Theatre because all of the streets were still blocked off from the Oscars the night before. After HOURS AND HOURS of waiting.... we were finally to our seats at around 9:30 or so... second level. The seats weren't too bad. NOT close though like the VIP's... we are still wondering how you become "VIP's". We saw a few women that were seated around us run downstairs at the last minute to get a closer seat. I thought about doing that... but didn't want to take the chance of losing our decent seats. So we sat back and enjoyed the show.

Guests on the show were Sean Penn (thought that he was still drunk), Kate Winslet (very sweet and still Oscar-shocked), Hugh Jackman (super cute and funny), Penelope Cruz (she looked 12 yrs. old and also Oscar-shocked) and some of the Slum Dog Gang.

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience of sitting in the Kodak Theatre and watching Oprah "do her thing".... she just wasn't as spunky as we expected. We forgave her though... :) She was most likely tired, hungover and not real interested in entertaining us... :) Our next mission... Oprah's Show in Chicago!

After the show, we strolled on Hollywood Blvd... Chinese Theatre, looked at the Hollywood Stars, shopped and bit and then headed to the infamous Ivy Restaurant.... a super hotspot celebrity hangout. NO stars seen... as far as we knew. I must say that there is LOTS of money in LA... lots of super B-A cars and ridiculously expensive clothes. We didn't quite fit in... not stick thin skinny, no cool RayBans and no "too damn" high heels. Geez, their feet HAVE to hurt.

Enjoyed our $$$$$ lunch at the Ivy super exhausted after the Oprah Show.

After our meal, we cruised around town (thanks to our lifesaving GPS)... made our way to Santa Monica for a "Yummy Cupcake" and some shopping at the Promenade. Down the Pacific Coast Highway (US 1) we travelled to Malibu to look at all of the beautiful homes. After several hours, we headed back into town to cruise Rodeo Drive. We set the GPS for Gucci on Rodeo Drive... and as soon we made our way to the Gucci store, the GPS said "Arriving at Gukki"... nice pronunciation!!! That simply cracked us up.... maybe you had to be there! :)

We dumped off the exhausted Geege at the hotel and Jennifer and I headed to the City Walk at Universal Studios for some quick dinner and shopping. We had to get back to bed at a decent hour since Jennifer had to catch a 3:20 AM shuttle to the airport. OUCH!

The next morning, Mom and I slept in a bit. At 8AM, I called The Ellen Show to see if we could get on stand by. Never heard from them. We had skipped our 8:30AM Dr. Phil show... but decided at the last minute that we wanted to attend a later taping. So I called the Dr. Phil show and found out at 11:15AM that we had 12 Noon tickets for the show. We quickly got ready, parked in a CEMETARY and enjoyed the taping of the Show. Dr. Phil was super cool... his show was about his interview with the Octoplet Mom and he even stayed around 30 minutes or so after the show taking questions. We felt MORE apart of this show then we did Oprah's... 150 guests in the audience vs. 3000 makes a huge difference. Mom has since watched the DVR'd Dr. Phil show that we taped and we made the show... a quick shot of us clapping while he and Robin walked out of the studio. Woo Hoo!!!

After Dr. Phil... we met up with Kelly... my friend and Oscar Party "connection". (Kelly was who I stayed with when I completed the Entertainment Tonight internship back in 1992 for my Senior Year Project.) She drove us around town... we went to The Grove for some late lunch and shopping. At sunset, we headed to the Griffith Observatory to catch the absolute BEST view of the LA Lights! What a beautiful sight!

We then headed back to the hotel... packed up, went to bed for another early morning rise to get the rental car gassed up, back to the rental lot, shuttled to LAX and on the plane by 6:30AM. Early flights = cheaper fares! Can't complain.

I told my husband that this was a ONCE IN A LIFETIME opportunity... and it certainly was. BUTTTT... if I am given another opportunity for another Oscar Party... I'm going and he is too!

Thanks Geege & Jennifer for a super super fun trip!!!