This weekend was a lot of fun. Friday I don't really remember (hence the point of keeping this blog, because that was only 3 days ago..) but I don't think we did anything. I didn't work much last week but I was still in major need of some relaxation. Isabella is super sweet and sent me a Godiva care package for my eye surgery so I think I just enjoyed a fair amount of that Friday night.
Saturday we went to the mall in Santa Monica that they recently renovated. It used to be all indoors and then you could walk outside to 3rd street which is also a very popular and touristy destination for all of its shops, restaurants and street performers. Now they've opened up the indoor part of the mall so its essentially this very cool looking, multi-leveled outdoor mall. We wandered down to 3rd Street for some lunch and went into a bunch of cool shops. I found this new store, Cotton On, that is originally from Australia and New Zealand and it has awesome stuff. Also, Donna's sister had bought a bunch of stuff from Victoria's Secret while she was in NYC and most of it didn't fit so she gave it to Donna to return so she didn't have to be bothered with it. So we went and returned all of it and had $171 to spend in Victoria's Secret for ourselves. We split it in half and picked out what we wanted.. It was awesome. I didn't even know that was the plan for the day so it was a great surprise. Zach got a hoodie he loves from Quicksilver and we all loved our lunches (all of us except our arteries) so it was a great trip.
Afterward we went back to their house because Mitch said he was going to make Gumbo for dinner and that he would have plenty to share. You just don't turn down Gumbo. Or Mitchell's cooking for that matter.
Donna started dying my hair that night but its going to take another application before its the exact right color. It didn't come out that orange or anything, so I'm okay being out in public until she can do the next step fortunately. We were going to fix it yesterday afternoon, but time got away from us and it was Francie's party before we knew it.
Francie and Rob (hippie and Elvis) are the couple I babysit for. They have 4 kids that are amazing and they're just the perfect family. It's almost disturbing how perfect they are. Anyways, every year they throw a party at their house for their friends and their friend's kids. Everyone gathers there for Rob's famous cosmopolitans and some appetizers/pizza before they all head out to go trick or treating together. Zach and I showed up towards the tail end of that so we could go door to door with the girls, and even though we only knew a few people there it was a ton of fun anyways. Mitch and Donna have the coolest friends. And, of course, there was delicious food.
Kyla dressed up as a Greek Goddess ("naturally" - as some random lady in a parking lot said when she asked Kyla what her costume would be) and Keira was Little Red Riding Hood. They were both adorable. I put one some butterfly wings and Zach was a bum and didn't wear his costume. Super lame. Anyways, trick or treating here is a wholly different experience. The entire elementary school all goes to the same few streets. The streets are PACKED with kids and their parents. Also, a lot of people do parties ahead of time like we did, so the kids are in huge groups as are their parents, and most of the parents are walking around with Solo cups in their hands. The people decorate like crazy. I don't even want to know how many thousands of dollars they spend on it. The best house was one of Donna's friends, The Bobbits or something. The husband is one of the most famous set designers in LA and he goes all out. This year you could see the house from down the street because it had a huge movie screen up on a pole flashing scary images. Then you get to the driveway which was flanked with two 20 foot tall pharaohs or something. Next to the driveway is a massive (bigger than real life probably) dead cow and a convertible that has a skeleton (holding a beer bottle..) in his hand. Caution tape all over it. You walk in the driveway and there is 15 foot long coffin that looks like its made out of concrete. To the left of that is a little graveyard surrounded by a metal fence. Fog was billowing out of there and there were a lot of things getting lit up. So you're looking at all of that and children all dressed up and creepy looking start popping out from behind the graves. Real children. And they will yell at you, etc. They even followed one kid who went up to them and said he wasn't scared of them. To the right of the huge coffin is another huge dead animal, this time a horse. Behind the horse is a hearse that has a coffin sticking out the back and a dead guy is peeking out of the coffin. There are also gigantic statues of gargoyles, panthers, everything. As you keep walking among other random decorations you get to this big tree in front of their house. They had several bodies hanging from the tree. That was probably my favorite part because it was so creepy. They had every detail down perfectly. They even lined parts of their property with huge fake boulders that looked so real Mitchell had to stand on them to realize they were fake. If I can do Halloween like that when I'm a parent, I'll consider my life a success.
Other houses had awesome things too, but none compared to that. The girls did have to skip a few because they were scared almost to tears. One guy dressed up as an ape and sat next to the candy table in his garage and him moving made Kyla terrified. Another house had a huge column type thing next to their front door and one of the people hid behind the column so you couldn't see him til you got to the door and he would just stand there in his mask staring at you but hardly moving. Kyla kept telling him to "stop!" Another house had really loud metal music and huge demons all over their property.. had to skip that house. Lastly, one house had a graveyard next to their sidewalk and a little girl was like army crawling around it and would come over to people as they walked by. So good.
We planned on going to the West Hollywood parade afterward, but it had gotten colder and we knew the crowds would be huge by then so we skipped it. Well, it was probably primarily just because we were SO exhausted from the trick or treating. We got to Francie's at 6:30 and were back at Mitchell's by 8:30 but it was still sooo exhausting. Zach rode by Santa Monica Blvd since its just a block away to see the costumes and by the time he got home from that he was ready to go straight to bed. Kind of disappointed we didn't see it, but at the same time going with the kids was probably way better. Keira told me how much fun it was to go with me there which made it so worth it.
This week the weather is going to get into the 90's. Today is the coldest day of the week at 86. Love it. Also, we are going to Palm Springs this weekend so it'll be even warmer there. The house we go to there is so amazing and the pool may be even better, so we're looking forward to that. Plus, I need a weekend away from that dog. He's eating all my stuff.
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