The boys had the opportunity to go to
LA and record To Be American with their choir in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. I was the chaperone and Sara got to go because it was her birthday. I travel every week to Gilbert for the boys to practice. It can be quite entertaining being in the car for an hour and a half each way with these crazy boys, but throw a girl into the mix and wow does it change the dynamics!
Sam kept the tunes going and drove us to our hotel in Costa Mesa. We stayed at the Best Western.
I am picky about hotels but rarely have the money to stay somewhere I
really feel comfortable. This hotel was affordable, pretty and SUPER
clean. There was also a great breakfast, eggs, sausage, bacon, waffles
etc. I loved it and would stay there again for sure.
We got settled at the hotel, got some Hot and Ready pizzas and went to the beach. It was really windy. We had to protect our pizza from the blowing sand. I thought I was going to sit and read while the kids played in the ocean, but the sand was pelting me and made it hard to keep my book open.
We still had fun.
The sand had half buried our shoes from the wind. My purse still has some sand in it.
The next day was Sara's 14th birthday. We dropped the boys off at the concert hall to record all day and we went downtown to the fashion district for some birthday shopping. It was a new experience for us and a fun one!
We found somewhere to park and started shopping!
There were beautiful dresses and jewelry everywhere. We were in girl heaven! The trick was not spending all of our shopping money right away. We did end up getting some crazy good deals. I learned that Sara is quite a barterer. She was great at the "pretend you are going to leave the shop so they beg for you to come back and pay next to nothing for the item" thing. I was so proud.
After we finished the morning in the fashion district, we went to South Coast Plaza. We had no idea what kind of shopping mall it was. It was very high end, so we couldn't afford anything, but we had a lot of fun trying on $1,000 dresses and jewelry. The flowers all through the mall were real and GORGEOUS!
We felt very out of place. It was an eye opening experience for Sara. She kept saying things like, "Why would you buy a pair of shoes for $1200 when you could donate that to the poor and change someone's life?" She took a picture of this little change purse because she didn't think her brothers would believe that it really cost $340. I am grateful to have such a down to earth, bargain shopper for a daughter.
We went to Tiffany's because... well... it's Tiffany's and you just have to see that pretty blue box and all the diamonds.
We also looked at DeBeers Diamonds. It was like a museum of jewels worn by so-and-so down such-and-such red carpet. They gave us a catalog in a big DeBeers bag. We got some crazy neck-bending looks with that bag. It was hilarious.
While driving the boys back and forth to the beach for their choir gatherings, we saw this castle like house with gargoyles keeping watch on the roof corners. It had a very Gothic feel to it in the midst of beautiful beach homes.
Sunday morning, we went to church with all the youth in the choir. The ward we went to was bursting at the seams with over 200 extra young men and women. They sang a special musical number during sacrament meeting. It was incredible with all those amazing voices!
After church, the boys stayed with the choir for lunch and rehearsal for an evening performance at a different church building. Sara and I went back to the hotel for lunch. We had bought food the day before and were very excited to eat our cantaloupe, salted caramel Greek yogurt and Tabasco Cheese-Its. It was delicious! Then we went for a Sunday walk on the beach.
My pretty Sara
And wind blown, a little bit scary Steph
This was most of the kids that were there for the recording practicing for the evening performance.
The next morning the boys had a farewell beach bash with the choir kids and Sara and I went Goodwill shopping in the area. We found lots of great clothes, super nice things because of the wealthy area. That is our kind of shopping.
Then we picked up the boys and made our way back home.
The kids got a little crazy and I got frustrated and declared that we
would have silence for a while. It was silent for at least an hour and
several of them fell asleep. Mostly we had a wonderful time and lots of
fun.
