When I saw this topic for day 28, I knew just what I was going to write about. I had a great surprise last year when James planned an overnight trip to Southern California for our 12th wedding anniversary in September. He'd gotten us tickets to see and hear John Williams conduct the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. He had planned the whole trip, arranged for his parents to stay with our children, booked the plane tickets and hotel and kept it all on the downlow so that he could surprise me with a really memorable present and a much-needed getaway for us!
Before the concert and right after we left the airport, we headed for one of our favorite and very much missed restaurants in L.A. County, Aloha Food Factory in Alhambra. We met up with our friends Heather and Jon and had such a great visit!
I had the kalua pig plate, which also has white rice, teriyaki grilled vegetables and awesome macaroni-potato salad.
James had an island plate, too, but with orange chicken instead of kalua pig. After our island plates, we split a 2-pancake order of Macadamia Nut Pancakes with a creamy vanilla-pudding-like syrup. SO GOOD. I was disappointed that I didn't have any room for some shave ice, because theirs is like biting into super-soft snow instead of crunchy bits of ice like a snow cone. But I was extremely satisfied.
After lunch, we went to our hotel by way of a cupcake shop called Dots. Believe it or not, I'd never been to a cupcake shop before. I've always just made my own.
We took the cupcakes to the concert, along with food we picked up at Trader Joe's for our Hollywood Bowl picnic. I liked their cupcakes but ultimately felt that I could do better! After Dots, we went to the Embassy Suites in Glendale.
Really cool huge water feature in the lobby, and there were koi and little turtles in the pond at the bottom. I like Embassy Suites because you get a suite (obviously), plus they have great complimentary breakfasts with cooked-to-order omelets, bacon, potatoes, fruit, cereal, pastries and lots of other yummy yummy stuff.
After we got our things put away and got ready for the concert, we stopped at Trader Joe's and then went to the L.A. Zoo parking lot for our shuttle ride to the Bowl. That was the best way we found to travel there when we used to live in L.A. It was only about $3 per person (or maybe $5?) for the round-trip ride, you don't have to hassle with driving in traffic or the nastily crowded Bowl parking lots that are so hard to exit afterward. Also, the buses go the back way and there are security and police officers that hold up traffic when a bus is coming through, so you get in and out pretty fast.
We had such a great time! We'd been to the John Williams concert twice while we were living in L.A. and really enjoyed it. He's so incredibly talented, and he puts on a long concert with several encores. He does a mix of well-known tunes and more obscure pieces from popular movies. I had no idea that he composed the music for Fiddler on the Roof, but we got to hear a song from that film among many others.
There were also several songs from the Star Wars films. Whenever one of those songs started, or the love theme from Superman, out came a bunch of light sabers that moved with the beat of the music. I sure wished I had one! Next time.
We didn't have enough time to visit our old Sunday School class and still make it to the airport in time, so instead we enjoyed a delicious breakfast, then drove around Glendale for a little while, going past the apartment where used to live and some of the houses we admired. We also admired the palm trees, which I really miss!
We flew back home and happily reunited with our children. It was such a quick trip, but really refreshing. It was so nice to have a chance to just spend that time together, being able to talk and not talk (Best in Show, anyone?) and enjoy some quietness and relate to one another as just a couple and having a break from Mom & Dad duties! And it was wonderful to see Heather and Jon again and have the opportunity to catch up with them. We packed a lot into what amounted to 22 hours in L.A. Would love to do it again sometime for a little longer!
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