We made it!

We arrived in Hollywood last night - literally! The great folk from the Great American PitchFest (thank you so much for bringing us down here!) put us up at a great hotel right behind the Mann Theatre. This place is great!

We moved over to the Sheraton at Universal this morning and Signe and Bob brought us chocolate milkshakes! Have I said that this is the best event ever!? Yay!

The Great American PitchFest is completely sold out this year and will (maybe) be moving to the Mann Theatre next year. Rob will be arranging a site visit this Monday and we will get a private tour of where the Oscars take place! Hope my hip gets better!

Pic #1 - Coast drive down to LA. We stopped to see the Elephant Seals on the beach. They beach here (somewhere near Santa Barbara) each year to mate.

Pic #2 - View from our hotel room at the Sheraton

Ghirardelli

Need I say more? Sorry for the bad picture... we were probably drooling too much and wanted to get to the treats right away!

San Francisco

San Francisco is one of my favourite cities in the world! This is my 7th or 8th time here and I love it! Weather is much cooler here. Pretty windy, but plenty of sunshine. After the heat of Vegas and Anaheim, I'm not complaining! We spent the day down at Fisherman's Wharf yesterday, stopped in at Boudin for sourdough bread and took the cable car back to the hotel. We took the street car over to Castro this morning and stopped in at Clubcard to say hi and check things out.

Well.. not much to report here.. just plenty of relaxing and sleeping in! Catching up on some work and trying to find a cheap and tasty sushi place in town without much luck. Vancouver has got to be the cheapest place to eat ever!

Going to do a little shopping now....

Pic #1 - sea lions by the wharf.
Pic #2 - picture of alcatraz from the pier
Pic #3 - this is the line up while the park was opening to race to Nemo, the new ride at Disneyland. Basically, this is the line up to line up and with 1.5 hour plus wait throughout the entire day, we decided that we really didn't need Nemo that badly

Disneyland

We made it to Disneyland... the internet is finicky.. so I will post what I can.

The weather is so very nice. Hot, but not a raging inferno such as Vegas. Rob and I enjoyed a few rides through the park and then finished our evening with some fireworks. Is it wierd that we get excited watching the AV and production set up for the shows?

Picture 1: My frozen monkey tail!
Picture 2: Self portrait while spinning in a teacup

Leaving Las Vegas

Good Morning Everyone.....today we leave Las Vegas and make our way over the mountains to California. It should be a short 4 hour drive which will be a nice change from the 8 to 12 hours we spent on the road getting here.

I wanted to post this last picture



This is your view from the hotel when you are not a gambler and you buy cheap online.

World's Largest Chocolate Fountain

Although I am not a fan of the chocolate fountain... I had to post this!

Pic #1 - chocolate fountain
Pic #2 - a picture of where the chocolate is being poured from (ceiling)
Pic #3 - details

Ack.. it's hot

5.5 hours later and 43 degrees celsius, we finally made it through Death Valley. Ohmygoodness, it was hot hot hot!
The wind was hot. Our car was hot. The ground was hot. It was so dry and hot in some areas that there was nothing except rocks. However, if you have never been to Death Valley, it is absolutely breath taking. It is amazing to think that this area was once covered by the ocean to the tips of the mountains. You can still some of the areas where they mined for silver, zinc and calcium. We felt like a car commercial driving through the winding paths against the mountain with no car insight behind or in front of us. We needed a tag on the frame that said "Do not attempt. Professional driver. Closed course."!

Arrived in Vegas later in the evening. Walked over to the Bellagio and caught two fountain performances - my favourite! This is my 3rd or 4th time to Vegas and everytime I come here it is a little different. The new monorail is up and running from the MGM to the Sahara and the Aladdin has now become the Planet Hollywood. Then still it is the same vegas with the cheesy themes, shows, drunk people, smoke.... oh well.. you gotta love it!

Pic #1 - gopher type animal from Yosemite
Pic #2 - driving with a long road ahead of us and no vehicle insight
Pic #3 - this was once the ocean bed
Pic #4 - fountains of Bellagio facing the Paris Hotel

Yosemite.. here we come

Arrived just outside Yosemite last night and we found a hotel with a dog (picture to come)! So cute! I miss Cleo.
We are driving through Yosemite this morning /afternoon and should be in Vegas by dusk. Just waiting for our hotel breakfast right now and we will be on the road. Here are some pictures from our drive over and almond trees! I love these things. We drove past some huge almond orchards. I had no idea how they grew and we ended up stopping on the side of the road to pick some fallen ones. Unfortunately, they were not ripe, but it kept me entertained.

Where in the world is lotus events?

We left early Saturday morning and drove down the I-5. We made it as far as Eugene, Oregon tonight and will be driving to Sacramento tomorrow. Not really many picturesque moments so far, but we will definately being keeping our blog up to date as we travel over 600km over to Death Valley, Yosemite, Las Vegas, San Francisco, LA and more!

Stay tuned!

Sunshine Coast!

Katie and Allan's wedding went like clockwork! Holy, this is definately one of our favourite weddings! We couldn't have asked for a better couple, for better food, for better weather! Can you tell how much we love them!?

We returned to Vancouver Friday afternoon, but not for long.....

It's June!

I remember Rob and I freezing our behinds off wondering if summer was ever going to arrive and then POW!

So what's happening in June?

Thanks to Blue Olive for having us over last night to play some WII and drink mojitos! You guys have the cutest cats ever!
They also came out to our last event at the Western Front - GOT CRAFT? - and took some amazing (as always) photographs of our vendors' crafts - thanks for the college.

Rob and I are headed to the Rockwater on the Sunshine Coast this Wednesday for Katie and Allan's wedding. Most of their guests are coming from out of town, so this is a destination / holiday wedding with a BBQ in Vancouver on Tuesday, Rehearsal BBQ on Wednesday at the Rockwater, Wedding on Thursday and Breakfast on Friday.

Has anybody seen the UBC Boathouse in Richmond? What a beautiful venue! We have a wedding their in the Fall and can't believe that we never knew about this hidden gem.

5 more days to LA!

Rob and I leave on Sunday to meet up with Cassandra from I Heart Indie Weddings in Seattle, then off to Portland to check out Crafty Wonderland. We are travelling through Oregon and stopping in San Francisco, the Coast, Anaheim (Disney, of course!) and will be at the Great American PitchFest from June 21 - 24.

So next question is... how much stuff can I fit in the back of a Toyota, two door, hatchback?