Vacation Highlights

Some highlights from our vacation last week to Newport Beach:

Visiting the "Original Frozen Banana Stand" on Balboa Island with Sommer. Our family LOVES Arrested Development, so anything remotely related to the show is pretty exciting. Apparently, this banana stand was the inspiration for the one in the show. Hooray! Or should I say, Annyong!

Taking Luke to Disneyland for the first time. I can't tell you how many times I have said that I would never take a small child to Disneyland - the stroller factor being reason numero uno. I figured he wouldn't get anything out of it and was okay with that, but he actually really seemed to enjoy it. We took him on Pirates of the Caribbean and he sat wide-eyed, looking from one side of the boat to the other the entire time.

Since Justin works for a company that has a membership, we also got to eat dinner at Club 33, the exclusive members-only club at Disneyland. (For those not "in the know," Club 33 is behind a secret door right next to the exit to Pirates of the Caribbean.) We went there for lunch last year and decided to try something different and do dinner. A-Mazing. Seriously the best food I have ever had in my life. One of the early courses (there were 5!) was rock lobster with a peach risotto thing. I thought I might die it was so good! The pictures we took just don't do the food justice, so I won't bother posting them.

Fast forward to later that night...we didn't pace ourselves correctly and had to run from Space Mountain over to California Adventure to make our fastpass time for the new World of Color water show. (Side note:  As a general rule, I DO NOT ride space mountain. Or any other roller coaster for that matter - except Splash Mountain. I LOVE Splash Mountain! - Anyway, this time, in a moment of weakness, I decided to go on Space Mountain with the rest of the "kids." I tend to write my own obituary - or newspaper headline - when I ride roller coasters. For example: "Young Mother Dies as Roller Coaster Cars Collide in Fiery Crash" or "Freak Disney Train Accident Kills One."  Anyway, things turned out fine this time around, but when we got off we only had 9 minutes to run through the fireworks crowd over to California Adventure to get our space in line for World of Color. (I mention this only because it was kind of exhilarating and it helped us work off the aforementioned five-course meal.) We made it and the show did not disappoint. It was amazing! It more than lived up to my expectations. It is unreal what they can do with water.

On Thursday we got to do a short tour of Warner Brothers. A good friend of our family is a VP at the WB and he took us around the lot. He had missed out on a special tour he was supposed to do for work, so we got to go with him and get a really behind the scenes tour of how all of the movies and tv shows are transferred from film to digital format for distribution on DVD or to the various networks. The coolest part of this was going into the vault of master films. Almost every TV show and movie Warner Brothers has made on film is in this vault. It is super cold inside because they have to protect the film and there are rows and rows of film cannisters. For this film buff it was crazy to see (and even touch!) the master copies of huge blockbusters like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. So awesome!

We also got to sneak in and see the Friends set, which has been set up as kind of a mini-museum near the prop department. They let us sneak in between tour groups, so we only had about a minute to pose and snap some pics. Last year was The Office, this year the set of Friends! Random cool stuff always seems to come up on these trips.

Later that night, part of our group went with our Warner Brothers friend and the rest of us decided it would be a good idea to head back to our Newport villa with Luke. On the way home we decided to take a detour and swing by Beverly Hills to take pictures of Luke (for obvious reasons). Along the way I happened to mention that I had always wanted to go to Torrance High School. It is not only the school that doubled as "West Beverly High" in Beverly Hills 90210, but it also doubled as Sunnydale High, the high school from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which happens to be one of my favorite TV shows ever. (You'll either understand this obsession or you won't. It's kind of a cult fave.)

From wikipedia regarding Torrance High School:

Torrance High's unique architecture and relative proximity to Hollywood make it an ideal location for major television programs and motion pictures. Among its credits:

• In TV, Torrance High served as the facade of fictitious West Beverly High School in the Fox Network series Beverly Hills, 90210 and in the CW's current spinoff, 90210; as Sunnydale High School, the alma mater of Buffy Summers in the WB Network series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and as a location for the short-lived Fox Network series Skin, and currently is the filming location of the hit NBC drama Medium.
• The movies saw Torrance High used as the high school setting for the Freddie Prinze, Jr. movie She's All That. Torrance High also played a prominent role in The Wild Life, Not Another Teen Movie, Bring It On, Whatever It Takes, Cursed, Wild Things 3, Bruce Almighty, The Hot Chick and Less Than Zero. In 1984, a documentary entitled All American High was filmed over a period of a several months by Keva Rosenfeld.

Sommer saw that Torrance was on the way back to Newport from Bev Hills, so we decided to live my dream! At first I felt a little guilty because it was getting kind of late and I didn't want to keep Luke up too far past his bed time, but...I chose to be a bad mom and take fun pictures of my son at this famous location. The high school is huge, and pretty well-secured. We lucked out and band practice was going on, so we were able to get into one of the parking lots and walk right onto campus. The sun had almost set, so the school was kind of eerie. It had a very vampire-esque feeling. (Ha ha.) I am really glad we stopped. My sister and brother in law are the best for humoring me!

 

Other highlights:  We went to the beach and Luke enjoyed playing in the sand. Luke also enjoyed eating the sand. (He didn't attempt until we were almost ready to leave. I turned my back for a second and BAM! mouth full of sand.) You can see him contemplating the sand in the picture below.

I left a lot out, but this is already long enough. Suffice it to say, we had a really great and relaxing time. This Perry vacation was one for the books!

 

Past Perry Vacations:
2004 - Disneyland and Universal Studios
2005 - Grand Canyon and Las Vegas
2006 - Costa Rica

2007 - House Boating at Lake Shasta with the Nelson Fam

2008 - Kauai (minus Som and Mike who were on their honeymoon)

2009 - SoCal - Disneyland, visit to The Office set

2010 - Newport Beach and beyond

2011 -  TBD!