Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong

Wow! What a busy, busy day!

Today was one of the busiest and most fun days I can remember. We did A LOT and I’m sure we’ll all sleep very soundly tonight.

Our day started off leaving the house before 9AM. We swung by and picked up our friend Char and her mom and we went to the Los Angeles Times’ Festival of Books.

None of us had never been before and it was great. Wish we could’ve stayed longer. We really went to see C’s favorite group Hi-5. They’re performing twice today and twice tomorrow. I just happened to open up the paper last week and saw the schedule of events for kids and there they were. I knew we had to go. We’ve taken C to a lot of theater (Elmo, Wiggles, Dora, etc) and she gets into them but it was nothing like this. Every time Hi-5 started a song, she walked out to the aisle so she could do the dances. It was so cute to see her face and have to respond to their songs. They’re coming in August for a real concert so you know where we’ll be going. Here are a few shots of C’s favorite performers.



Jen is C's favorite.


We also stayed for the next two author readings. The first was Todd Parr who writes and illustrates these very cute books. I hadn’t heard of him before but Elizabeth had read them with her son. I need to get some of these books. They’re terrific. A few of the titles are "Otto has a Birthday Party", "Underwear Do's and Don'ts" and "It's Okay to be Different". And he ends each book with saying "The End. Love, Todd" Loved the books and loved him! And after that was Katharine Holabird who writes the beloved “Angelina Ballerina” books. She read two of her stories AND Angelina was there to act them out. The girls LOVED this.
We had to go after Angelina but Henry Winkler (we're talking THE FONZ!) was up next on the children’s stage to read his books. I would’ve like to have stayed and checked out some of the other children’s book stuff plus get a signed copy of something. Later in the day, the Laura Numeroff who writes the “If You Give a Mouse A Cookie” stories was appearing as well as Julie Andrews Edwards. Yes that Julie Andrews of “The Sound of Music” and “Mary Poppins” fame is a children’s author. Her very first book “Mandy” is one of my all-time favorites. I would’ve loved to have seen her too but too much to do. Gotta run. Hey, maybe we’ll try to go back again tomorrow and see Hi-5 again (since they’re the closing act) and go early to check out some of the other things. This is a HUGE book event and it’s all free (except for parking at UCLA)

Okay, so we’re on the move. We head to the valley, have a very quick bite to eat and head over to Theater West to see their current show “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” staring Lee Meriweather. Yes, Miss America 19__ (as it’s stated in the program) is starring as the The Queen. A four person show, very interactive and very cute. Lloyd Schwartz (son of Sherwood who created such classics as “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch”) is the director and creative director of the theater. They do tons of children’s programs throughout the year and I’m glad we kind of found this by accident. They doing “Cinderella” in the fall so you know we’ll be back. Anyway, when I went to the box office to pick up the tickets (gotta love Goldstar Events for discounted tickets), Lloyd gave me my tickets and asked about my last name and I knew “so and so G”. I didn’t but explained my husband might. He asked if we worked in “the business” to which I replied “yes, both of us do.” He said he’d come talk to us later. At intermission, he came to find us and Lloyd and G had a nice conversation. Hey, G had just worked with him when Lloyd and “The Brady Bunch” cast accepted an award on last week’s “TV Land Awards”. So they started yakking away. Very small world. Anyway, the show was really cute. The girls even went up on stage when they needed volunteers. Very brave of them.



The cast comes out afterwards to take photos and give autographs. Char was a little more brave than C but they both did it. Here are some photos with the stars. It was so cute.

With Snow White...

With the Prince...
And with the Queen. They don't even realize they were with a REAL celebrity.



From Universal City, we jumped back in the car, dropped off Elizabeth and Char and headed towards Malibu where we met Alli to take some photos with C and Ever on the beach. The girls really enjoyed that, even if it was a little bit breezy and chilly. Hopefully, we’ll get some good shots overall. I’m sure we will. Carly really enjoyed running in the water and trying to beat the waves catching her feet. I don’t think she had been to the beach since we were in Jamaica which was two years ago. She loved it. We collected a few seashells and we all got a little wet and sandy. Very fun.




And the always smiling Ever...
As if that wasn’t enough activity for one day, we came home and C wanted to hook up this water sprinkle thing she got for her birthday. So hooked that up to the hose and she and G then ran through the sprinklers. I don’t think I can post any of those pics since Miss C was in her underwear and without getting creepy, don’t need those shots out in the blogosphere for the wrong person to see. But suffice it to say, that I got some cool shots with the water drops looking kind of like snow. And when C would run through them, she’d run with her eyes closed. It was pretty funny.

Exhausted? We all are. Nighty night.

Labels: Angelina Ballerina, Festival of Books, Hi-5, Mandy, Miss America

posted by Juls @ 11:17 PM