We left home on Wednesday, December 26th at 7 am with our whole family and Mark's caregiver Kennedy Lowry. Our van was loaded down with the luggage carrier on top. We drove and drove. About Idaho Falls we hit snow and from Pocatello on, the roads were bad. We drove until 9:00 pm that night and found a motel in Nephi, UT. It was the Super 8 and it was a little ghetto. (I think Kennedy was wondering if she could trust us to find ok places to stay.) We had hoped to get as far as Cedar City, but this was unrealistic with the storm. The next day we drove through snow again for 2-3 hours, but somewhere between Cedar City and St. George the snow disappeared. When we stopped for lunch in Mequite it was only +6 Celsius, but we wanted to kiss the ground because there was green grass, no snow, palm trees and sun! That day we made it to Santa Ana, by suppertime. It was such a relief. Kennedy was a hurting machine by that point. She had a car accident on the 24th and was pretty sore, especially with all that driving.
Our hotel there, the Quality Suites John Wayne Airport was great! It had a courtyard in the middle and lots of gardens. Also, each room had 2 double beds and a sofa bed. The sofa bed was in a separate living area so it was possible to get a little privacy for Kennedy from Mark (He was in her room and the rest of us in the other room). They also had a great cook to serve breakfast in the morning.
The first park we went to was Universal Studios on Friday, December 28th. It was about an hour drive through crazy traffic from our hotel to Hollywood. We got to glimpse the Holleywood sign on the mountain but only briefly while driving. I was surprised it was on an west facing mountain.
The park was all decked out for Christmas à la Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
Just after entering the park we got our picture taken with one of the whos from the Grinch who Stole Chirstmas.
Our first activity was to go on the Studio Tour. This was my favorite part of the day. We got to see sets from lots of movies and TV shows and also had some cool interative experiences while on the tour. This is one shop from the NYC or big city set. These buildings look real, but they are just made with "foam, glue and lots of paint." There is nothing inside these buildings
This is the clocktower building from Back to the Future. After we got home be bought the movies so that the kids could see them and understand why this was cool to Rob and I.
See the water coming? They showed us how they create rain for movies, then sent a flash flood towards us. The foamy water you see is the flood coming.
This is skull island from King Kong. It is literally only about 6-10 feet high, but that is the set used in the movie
This was my most successful video I took on the trip. nenenena!
This is one of the houses from Desperate Housewives. They have a whole street with these houses, but the houses are not real--again foam, etc with no real rooms or finishing inside.
Jaws!
On the lower lot at Universal Mark and I ran into Dora while waiting for the others to go on a ride. She had a break in having kids come see her and she came over and cuddled up to Mark for about 5 minutes.
Austin getting his picture taken with Optimus Prime
The kids meeting Bumblebee
Austin in front of the Transformers Ride. This ride had really long lines. Eventually in the evening, Rob , Alyssa and Austin waited in line and got to go on the ride while Kennedy and I stayed back with Mark and Preston. They said it was the best ride in the park--a partly 4 D, partly roller coaster indoor ride. Apparently it was worth the wait.
Our family in front of the Universal Studios Globe outside the park as we were going for lunch.
Sorry. This isn't a good picture of Rob, but I had to include it anyway, because we had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, Hollywood, outside Universal Studios. The car in the background was in the middle of the restaurant.
This is outside the the entrance to Universal Studios, decked out for Christmas. We were able to go to the Grinchmas play. It was a 20-25 minute show based on the Grinch movie. It culminated in the lighting of an enormous Christmas tree. One highlight (for some people) was that they had brought in snow to put on the ground under some of the seating areas.
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