Hooray for Hollywood

Me and Ryan decided the a few weekends ago to be total tourists. We started out our weekend on Friday night going to Disneyland. Our passes were about to expire so we decided to go one more time before then

We went to California Adventure and hit all the good rides and barley any lines. It was the perfect time to go, except for some reason we thought it was going to be cold and we were kinda wrong about that!!

This is me in line waiting for the new Toy Story 4-D ride. It is awesome, next time you're at Disney you have to go on it!! It takes you to a bunch of different games of shooting and aiming and throwing, and I totally killed Ryan! At the other Buzz ride he always like triples my score so I was so excited to beat him!

I have lived in California for *almost* my whole life but yet had never done any sort of Hollywood tour. So on Saturday we drove down to LA and did the whole tourist bit. We walked around Hollywood Boulevard, went to Gramens Chinese Theater, and finished off the day doing a Hollywood Stars Tour. It was so much fun! You never realize how much stuff is so close to us. We went around in a bus and got to go up Mullhulland Drive (Where lots of stars live), see the Hollywood sign, learned all sorts of interesting things about the stars and their homes, Rodeo Drive, and all the exciting sights in LA, Hollywood, and Beverly Hills. We were the only people on our bus that were from California, I'm sure people were trying to figure out why we were there!

An overhead shot of me down on the streets

I love Tim McGraw!!!

Here is Snow White's star just for Linz!

Looking out over the city

I was so excited about doing the hand prints at the Chinese Theater, I had never actually been there and been able to go and see them. It was way smaller than I had imagined but I had fun walking around trying to decide who to take my picture with.

I decided Will Smith just because he is amazing!!

Ryan took his picture (only because I wasn't going to leave until he did) With Roy Rogers, and I'm pretty sure that it was mostly because he had even put his gun in the cement!!

I also took a picture with Judy Garlands and learned that we had the exact same size hands! But her feet looked tiny so I didn't even try!

After we finished up with our tour we drove over to Kat Von D's tattoo 

shop, High Voltage. Me and Ryan are huge fans of the show, and I'm not going to lie- she is kinda my hero. We were so excited to find the shop so we got out of the car and ran over to take pictures. Then when I looked through the window I realized that none other than Kat Von D was in there doing a tattoo!! I wanted to go in and just pretend that we wanted to get a tattoo so I could see the inside but Ryan wouldn't let me. I think he was worried that when we got in there they would say "sure we have time right now" and we wouldn't know what to do and just end up with tattoos that we didn't want! (Or maybe he was just embarrassed that we had been out front taking pictures!)

It was such a fun day acting like a tourist and trying to see all the stars. If anyone is here and looking for something to do I would definitely recommend trying this out!

Monkeying Around

SATURDAY

So this is my last post

about Costa Rica, and its taken me a little while to do it but I had to! This was my favorite day of the whole vacation. We rented a car in the morning and made the hour or so drive to Manuel Antonio National Park. Driving was a little scary because they would have these one way bridges but it wasn't like there was someone or something to tell you when to go! Last time Ryan went to Costa Rica with his friend Aaron and they stayed in Quepos which is right next to the national park so we stopped at a little breakfast place he had gone to every morning before heading into the park.

As soon as you walk in your pretty much just in the rain forest walking through paths and trails. The main path is pretty big and you don't see a ton of animals because they are a little deeper in the trees. So we decided to take this one trail that was about 2 1/2 miles long. It started out down by the beach and made its way up through the forest. Once we got onto the trail it was so pretty, we passed a few people either going the other way or in front of us but for the most part it was pretty quiet in there. Well quiet except for the rustling in the trees and bushes you would hear! Anytime we heard anything we would stop and try to find the animal making the noise. We saw some toucans, lots of other birds, and these huge disgusting rat looking things! I swear they looked just like an r.u.s (rodents of unusual size from Princess Bride!) They were running all over the floor but luckily they never got close.

Ryan looking for animals in the trees

This is where our hike started out

This was what a lot of the hike was, these huge stair type things

When we were about half way through our hike something awful happened..our battery light on our camera came on. We had to conserve our picture taking which was sad because we saw some awesome stuff and there were so many things to take pictures of. We hiked around for quite a while and even saw monkeys in a few different places. Some of them were closer, some we could just kinda see up in the trees. But then when we got to the very end of our hike we hit the jackpot! At first we saw two monkey in a tree eating fruit, but they weren't that close to us. Then when we turned around the next corner there was a monkey down pretty low right next to the trail. We were so excited! As we sat there more and more monkeys started showing up. At one point I think there were about 15 monkeys! They were wrestling, swinging on the trees, some were just lounging, others grooming each other, and they were all so close. We stayed there for about 45 minutes just watching them. A few people were feeding them fruits that had fallen on the ground until a guide yelled at them. But the monkeys would just take it right out of their hands! We got some pictures, but not as many as we would have had our stupid camera not been about to die! It was so awesome just watching them, they are such amazing animals. At one point a few howler monkeys were swinging around through the trees but they stayed up high and didn't get too close. Thats a good thing though because they are much more aggressive! We had a great time at the park but our day wasn't over yet!

This older couple from Minnesota had recommended, well actually almost insisted, that we went on the Monkey Tour while we were in Quepos. We drove down this dirt road that ended at this river that lead into the ocean. We got on a boat and they took us all around in search for animals. They told us all about the mangroves and the different birds that we saw, most of which had migrated there for the winter. We even saw a crocidile swimming around! But what we were really looking for was monkeys. We saw a few but none that would get close. Then we found them!! We pulled right up into the trees and the guides had out a banana. They were explaining what they were going to do and what we should and shouldn't do to the monkeys when all the sudden one jumped right onto the boat and onto Ryan's head! It was awesome! The guide mashed a little banana into his hand and the monkey sat there eating it off his had right on top of Ryan's head! Then all the sudden there were just monkeys everywhere. The guides took a little bit of banana and smashed it into our hands to attract the monkeys. When they would come out either behind you on the boat or on your head or shoulders you were supposed to hold your hand out in front of you so that they could eat the bananas. It was the neatest thing! And then, it happened. Our camera died. I wanted to cry!! I couldn't believe the timing, we had at least gotten a few pictures but still, we would have had so many! It still makes me mad now just talking about it, so we'll just move on from that subject!! At one point I had about four monkeys on me or right behind me. One was holding my hand and licking off the banana while sitting on my shoulder, one was on my head trying to pull out my bobby pins, and the others were just trying to get in on the action! They would jump around from person to person and back and forth from the boat to the trees. They were so cute, they would go on top of the boat and jump and hit the roof because it made such a loud noise. Then all the sudden you'd see on just poke his head down to look at us. Even after the bananas were gone (we only used about half of one for all of them so they still have to find their food and because fruit is only a small part of their diets) they stayed around and played. They didn't really come out onto us after that, but they ran around on top of the boat and stayed right next to us in the trees swinging and wresting around. It was so awesome, I couldn't believe that we had monkeys sitting on our heads and holding our hands!! I was just sad that we hadn't done it earlier in the week so that we could go do it again! When we got back to our car I was fixing my hair from the monkey pulling at it (not hard though, it didn't hurt or anything!) and it was all sticky and crunchy. I had banana in my hair!! I think had it been for any other reason I would have never been able to handle having smashed banana in my hands and then in my hair! (I hate bananas, the smell makes me gag!)

We stopped at a restaurant on our way back to Los Suenos that Ryan had eaten at when he was there the first time. It was called the monkey restaurant, where they claimed there were more monkeys than people. Sadly we didn't see any there, but we had just spent the day with them so we weren't too upset about it! But there was a sloth in the tree right next to us that we sat and watched until it got too dark to see him. It was so cool that we saw one awake, they sleep for like 18-20 hours a day and usually are only out at night. It was so neat watching how he moved, especially after watching the monkeys. He was so slow and tedius. He planned out each move and only moved on arm or leg at a time. It was so fun to watch his cute smiling face while we ate dinner! The drive back was pretty scary because it was dark and there were no lights anywhere or reflectors on the street to help you see where it was turning or where there was a cliff. And yet people were still riding their bikes right along the edge and standing on the side of the street talking, but so far out that you had to kinda move over a little so you didn't hit them. It was interesting!

Sunday we enjoyed our last day there, which was luckily sunny. We laid out and swam before heading out and driving to San Jose for our flight. We had such an awesome trip, I recommend Costa Rica to anyone planning a trip anytime soon!

Playing Dirty

FRIDAY
Thursday night they called to let us know that all of the tours for the next day were going to be canceled due to rain. We weren’t really sure why though because when we woke up it had FINALLY stopped raining, and we could even see the sun!! Since we had no plans for the day, and didn’t want to just hang out around the hotel, we decided to go into Jaco and see if we could find something there to do. We found an ATV tour that was still running so we signed up. Ryan wouldn’t let me drive my own (and I’m pretty sure that there was no way that I would have been able to figure it out anyway!!) so we got a little two-seater buggy.

It was just the guide and us so it was pretty neat. We first went up into the mountains where it started raining and the dirt roads were pretty bad. We were splashing through puddles and getting covered in mud! We got up a little farther and found that a huge tree had completely been ripped out of the ground and was laying in middle of the street. Our guide thought about trying to squeeze under the branch but finally we just ended up turning around.




No worries though, there were plenty of more back roads and puddles for us to discover! He took us up above the city for an awesome view. The ocean right now looks pretty nasty because of all the rain washing into it. I was pretty excited about how dirty I got…but it was just the beginning!!

We then went over to Hermosa Beach where the 2009 national surf competition is being held. We went along a few miles right next to the beach on this little road that was completely flooded in several spots. It was fun though, we were racing around and trying to not get stuck in the sand and getting so dirty! I was stoked to walk out onto the black sand beach; it was so pretty even with all the driftwood washed up along the beach. Our guide found this little rock type thing as we were walking off the beach and gave it to us. It was called an Ox eye, and his Grandmother had always given them to him for good luck. Its really cool looking, I think I’m going to try to make a necklace out of it when I get back home.

Ryan was pretty excited about the ride back down the road to get off the beach, until all the sudden we were off in the bushes! It turned out that some little piece controlling the steering had snapped off so he lost all control.


We were so lucky that it happened when we were there as opposed to next to a cliff. I think it was because the little rock really was good luck! After waiting a little while (and getting bitten a few times by flies) they came to pick us up. Only issue was that we had to drive back on an ATV, which had a warning on the back that said “DO NOT RIDE AS A PASSENGER, INJURY WILL OCCUR”. I was pretty happy to read that since I was going to be the passenger!! But Ryan drove slowly and we made it back to the store in one very dirty piece!

They recommended this awesome little taco bar place for lunch and even though we were covered in dirt we stopped in for a bite to eat. The seats for the bar were swings! It was great, the food was so good and it was way fun swinging while we ate!


We got back to the hotel and had to take advantage of the sun (and wash off the dirt) so we went down by the pool to enjoy another beautiful day in Costa Rica.

Stay tuned for the post about Saturday-It was my favorite day!!

It Is Called A RAINforest!!

WEDNESDAY
It started raining Tuesday night and basically hasn’t stopped since. We woke up Wednesday morning ready for our cruise to Tortuga Island only to get to the tour office to hear the words “Tropical Depression”. Every other tour that day had been canceled, but the captain was insisting that the rain wasn’t going to stop us. We tried to reschedule for another day, but they wouldn’t let us without charging us for the one we were canceling. So we got on the bus amid a torrential downpour for a VERY scary ride. We made it about 45 minutes into the trip and stopped for breakfast where we found out that they had indeed canceled the tour. So when we got back to the hotel we rescheduled it for Friday and are just keeping our fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate!
With a full day ahead of us, and a lot of rain we decided to head into Jaco for the day. We had a good time just walking through all the little shops checking out the souvenirs. It never stopped raining!! We walked down to the beach, which is brown right now from all the rivers flowing into it, to check it out. When the rain really picked up we stopped at a little restaurant for some lunch and watched it pour on the streets. It was a good day to spend in the city since there wasn’t much else to do!
That night we went back into Jaco for dinner and went to Aberdeen’s Steak House. It’s an Argentine restaurant but sadly they were out of beef from Argentina! We were wondering if that was the one that you had gone to Dad? It was pretty good, but I think the other beef would have been better! At dinner this guy came in and made us a Toucan out of a Palm leaf. It was pretty cool how he did it, but he was a total creeper!!
We managed to keep ourselves entertained and still had a good day despite the weather.

At the beach in Jaco

After we got back to the hotel we walked the back holes on the golf coarse to see if we could find any monkeys. Sadly we didn't, but it was awesome back there!

THURSDAY
This morning was pretty much the same as yesterday morning. We woke up from the rain outside because it was so loud! We had been hoping that it wouldn’t be quite as bad today but that wasn’t the case! Luckily though, we had planned the only tour you can do in the rain for today. We did the Tranopy tour, which involved going up in the middle of the rainforest about 30 minutes on a tram and then zip lining back down. I was really only doing this because Ryan really wanted to, I didn’t have the best experience in Mexico so I wasn’t that excited about doing it again! Especially when I found out that the rain wasn’t dangerous at all, it just made you go faster!
The tram part was awesome, we saw monkeys swinging in the trees eating, and a Toucan on a branch, and a Sloth curled up sleeping. It was so pretty, and there were tons of waterfalls from all the rain they’ve been getting the last two days. When we got to the top I was a bit nervous, to say the least! The first one wasn’t too bad. I braked a little to hard in the beginning so I just had to pull myself a little at the end. But then the second one, which was much longer, I almost made it in and then all the sudden started flying back! I totally forgot what to do and didn’t know if I was supposed to grab in front or behind so I made it all the way back to the middle of the line! I then had to turn backwards and pull myself the rest of the way back it was quite a workout!! After that one they didn’t let me brake and had me hold onto a different spot so I wouldn’t be tempted!
After that I was good, they just would pull on the brake they had on the other end right before I got in and I didn’t have to do anything! The views while you were up there were beautiful, it was amazing how green everything was. Ryan had a great time; he curled his legs up into a ball to go faster on all of the lines! About half way through going down the zip lines the rain really pick up! And it was of coarse right before the longest and steepest line! The rain didn’t affect it though, it hit you in the face a little but if you just looked out to the sides it was perfect. When we were done we looked like we had just jumped in the pool with all of our clothes on, we were soaked! We got to walk around and look at the snakes (luckily in cages) and learn about how many poisons ones there really are here! It’s a good thing that they are so well camouflaged because I’m sure we’ve been closer than I would like to some!
It felt so good to get out of our wet clothes, but the rain still hasn’t stopped. Its definitely much lighter now and we are hoping that by tomorrow its better. One of the “Ticos” told us that it usually lasts about 48 hours and then clears up, which would be perfect for the rest of our plans! Dad- we can definitely see if you were planning on golfing and fishing the whole time why you wouldn’t want to come back again in October!

On the zip line tour

Look at me go!!

Since I couldn't get pictures to load last time here are just a few from the past couple of days...

MONDAY PICTURES

Ryan TRYING to be sexy


Relaxing in the pool


Posing for the camera


The windows here are awesome, they are totally open.

TUESDAY PICTURES

Proof that it really was sunny!!

An Iguana on top of the pool bar, I thought you'd like this mom!

COSTA RICA!!

MONDAY
We made it down to Costa Rica in the morning after flying all night. The flight wasn’t bad at all, I slept basically the whole time and Ryan got a little less than me because he watched a movie while I slept. We did get to sit together though (which we weren’t sure if we would be able to) and we even got the exit row so Ryan was really excited about that. Once we got here it was about a 2 hour drive by van to Los Suenos. The drive was a little scary just because you are going along these narrow roads right next to the edge and it was raining off and on the whole time. We got to the hotel and had a little time before we could check in so we just sat out in the patio area and played some cards, ate some lunch and watched the rain.
We decided that even though it was raining a little we would go out into the pool and check out the resort. The weather really didn’t bother us, it rained off and on, mostly lightly and wouldn’t last for too long. We thought that if it was like this the whole time we would be fine! The pool here is awesome, it is like 8 pools that are all linked together and the surrounding area is so pretty. We had a great time swimming and relaxing. That night we went to The Hook Up, a sports bar just around the corner. The food was so good!

TUESDAY
We woke up to the sun shinning so thought we better go out to the pool to enjoy the sun while it was out. While we were laying out a water aerobics class started so I made Ryan join in with me. It was fun and surprisingly it was also a pretty good workout! It started raining so we went and had lunch and then to our surprise it stopped raining and still hasn’t really started again! The day was beautiful, the sky was blue and the sun was out. It was so hot! We were going to go into Jaco today but decided to wait until Thursday because who knows if we will get another day like today. Another day of laying out, swimming and relaxing.
We’ve been having a great time. I can’t believe how humid it is here! But we definitely can’t complain about the weather, we were preparing for the worst so we’ve been so excited with how it has been so far. Tomorrow we’re going over to Tortuga Island for the day which sounds like it should be pretty neat. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it will be another day like today! Now we’re off to Jaco for dinner, we’ll try to post more later!

I tried to put some pictures on but couldn't get the loaded on! I'll try again next time...

Summer '08 Part 3

THE TRAIN RIDE
While Mandy was here with the girls we decided to do a little train trip down to San Jaun Capistrano. It was supposed to be a quick 45 minute ride there, lunch and walking around, and then back home. It however, did not turn out that way! First we missed the train we were planning on taking when we got there and realized that you had to have your ID (who knew?) so had to drive back home to get Mandy's license. Then about 20 minutes into our train ride something happened to the brakes or something so we pulled off and were stuck for like 40 minutes!! When we finally got down to San Juan we had a quick lunch and had to get back on the train (which by that point none of us were looking forward to it!)

Trying to keep Emma and Sophie entertained while we were stuck on the train-a trip to the snack bar to get some candy seemed to work perfect!

At the Capistrano Depot waiting for our train

Waving bye to the train back at the Fullerton station after our exciting day

KERSHAW FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT

While everyone was home in August we got to debut the new outdoor movie screen. This thing is awesome! Its got the sound system, screen, and even a blue-ray player. Me and Ryan love watching movies outside now. Its a good thing we live in California and will be able to use this all winter!

The Trouble with Angels was our first movie screening, but we seem to pick more action films when its not my mom's choice!


After the movie, everyone was a little tired!!


Bugging Ryan because I was still wide awake


Trying to figure out how to take down the screen, we've got it figured out now though!!

RANDOM SUMMER PICTURES

At the pool...I think this was during the Olympics so we were all playing Michael Phelps!


We stayed at my aunts house for the weekend while they were gone and had lots of fun in the pool. I did not encourage this...but I am putting the pictures up so hopefully no one gets in trouble!!


Jumping off the roof


Me and Trixie at the concert in the park


Playing with our underwater camera-it works great!