Hooray for Hollywood

As I mentioned, we recently made a quick trip to LA. While we were there we stayed at the Hollywood Celebrity Hotel. This hotel was highly recommended to us by Simone and Tim and it did not let us down. The rooms were basic, but provided all we needed after a long day of touring. The staff were extremely helpful and a basic breakfast was included. Oh, did I mention the location - FANTASTIC!!! The hotel is located right behind the Kodak Theater.... All for only $132/night!

Anyway, it so happened that on the day we arrived, it was the premiere of The Bourne Ultimatum. We wandered down to the theater and started the celebrity spotting.... Now, I don't know if I'd call him a celebrity but look it's Larry Birkhead (father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby).

Ok, you should know who this guy is... Mmmmm, Matt Damon!

And finally a close up of Julia Stiles.

I'm not sure if Brad was convinced it was worth standing in 85 degree heat for an hour, but I think a one second glimpse of Matt was well worth it!

The following day we headed down to one of my favourite places in LA - Santa Monica! While we were there, we got some great shopping done on 3rd Street Promenade before wetting our feet in the Pacific Ocean.

Friday morning we were up bright and early to get our tickets for The Tonight Show. We received our tickets at NBC at 8am, then headed over to Universal Studios for a few hours.

While we were there we took the Studio tour and got to see movie and tv sets from some of my favourites!




It's the city hall from Back to the Future (minus the clock tower)




Where's Terri Hatcher? On Wisteria Lane of course (they were actually filming that day)!

Don't go in... to the Bates Motel from Psycho!

The wreckage from War of the Worlds...

After a few hours at Universal, we headed back to NBC for the taping of the Tonight Show. It was a great show with Kevin James (King of Queens) and the guy who swam in the Arctic Circle as guests. Once again, we left NBC and headed back to Universal to finish our day. Needless to say, we were exhausted!

It worked out well that on our final day, we had booked a tour of the movie stars homes (we needed to give our feet a break)! A few of the highlights included....

Elton John's new house in Bel Air - shaped like a piano of course!

Jack Nicholson's house - Love the tennis court on stilts!

Leonardo di Caprio's house - unfortunately we didn't get an invite in!

All in all, we had a great time in LA - a great place to visit, but I don't think I could ever live there!

It’s official…. We’re coming home!

Yep, the tickets are booked and we arrive back in Melbourne on the 21st of September. I can’t believe it – only 6 weeks!

After some waiting (as previously mentioned) I was fortunate enough to line up a position with my previous job and start work on the 1st of October. Although I’ve worked with a great bunch of people over here in Albuquerque, I’m looking forward to getting back into engineering.

Needless to say, things have been very hectic for us during the last couple of months. Brad is extremely busy at work trying to finish up his experiments while I have been trying to sort through all of our stuff and deciding what to bring back with us. It’s amazing how much you can accumulate in 2 ½ years!

We’ve also been trying to fit in a few last trips before we head home. We recently went back to LA for a few days. Although we had been there before, there were several attractions we missed. While we were there we went to Universal Studios, The Tonight Show and Santa Monica Beach. We also saw Matt Damon at the premiere of the Bourne Ultimatum and went on a tour of the movie stars homes. It was the true LA experience! I will post some photos soon...

Next week Brad is heading off to Milwaukee (Wisconsin) for a conference. While he is there, I am heading off on a trip of my own! I’m flying to Tucson, Arizona to visit our Aussie friends (Pete and Maree) one last time before we head home. Hopefully I will be able to survive the heat since they typically average in the high 30’s or low 40’s every day (and I thought Albuquerque was bad)!

In other news, we made a trip up to Santa Fe a couple of weeks ago. Seeing as though it was our last trip there, I bought some beautiful turquoise jewelry and ate some great chicken enchiladas (getting into the New Mexico spirit). We also went to the movies to see the latest Harry Potter, which I really enjoyed. I’m re-reading the 6th Harry Potter book before I go out and buy the final one which I’m planning to read on our flight home (I should get a good portion read in 18 hours)!

Anyway, that’s all the news from Albuquerque. I will try and keep you posted on our movements over the next couple of months, though I'm sure things will get pretty crazy!

Cheers,
Rebecca

Washington - Day 4 and 5

So finally (it was almost a month ago), I'm posting about the last two days of our trip to Washington D.C!

Day 4 was spent at the zoo (which is free) before heading to our hotel on Dupont Circle. I won't bore you with the endless animal photos, but thought I'd give you an animal I'd never seen before we came to the U.S.

What a cute little Prairie Dog!

After the zoo, we headed on down to Jury's Washington Hotel which we got at a great rate of $139/night. Here's a peak at the room:

It was located right on Dupont Circle, a great location to jump on the Metro early on Day 5 to head to the Capitol Building for a tour. We had been told we would need to be there at 7am to get tickets for that day (first come, first served) but by the time we arrived, it was almost 9am. We decided to see what tours were still available and found that by the time we got to the front of the line we were scheduled for a 10:30am tour - perfect! We strolled around The Mall while we waited and passed by the Smithsonian:

Unfortunately we missed out on visiting the National Air and Space Museum but the Capitol was well worth it.

The Dome - Outside

The Dome - Inside

Me and George!

This last shot is the point where Washington is divided into the four quadrants (NE, NW, SE and SW). Directly above is the Rotunda while below is a tomb that was initially designed for George Washington (who was later buried in Virginia instead).

Our final stop was at Union Station which, when built in 1907 was the largest train station in the world!

So there you go - A guided tour of Washington D.C!

I hope you enjoyed it!

Washington - Day 2 and 3

It seems like ages ago since we were there, but here is what we got up to on day 2 and 3 of our trip to DC.

Friday morning we left early and caught the metro out to Arlington National Cemetary. It's a worthwhile trip if you ever head to DC and leaves you with one of those feelings that can't really be described....

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

After we left we took the 15 minute walk around to the Iwa Jima statue - another worthwhile trip! The statue was so much bigger than I had expected (not that you can really tell by the photo).

Saturday was spent exploring Bethesda and Georgetown which were both gogeous. While we were in Georgetown we stopped at the Old House which was built in 1766. It is hard to believe that I was standing in a house that was built before English settlers had even arrived in Australia!
I'll end Day 3 of our Washington tour with some more photos of the beautiful area around Georgetown:

The Kennedy Center

Washington - Day 1

Well, we're back from D.C. and we had an awesome time! We were both surprised at what a beautiful city it is and spent our first day checking out all the monuments - here are a few photos:

The Einstein Monument (I think a lot of people miss this one) but definitely worthwhile to see (or perhaps that's just the scientist in me).

The Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool (this one reminds me of Forrest Gump)!

The Lincoln Monument (which was much bigger than I had expected).

The World War II Memorial

The White House

Ford's Theatre - The actual seat where Lincoln sat when he was shot!

By the way, Happy Mother's Day Mum! Now that the gift has been received here is what I made:

Pattern: Hooray for Me Gloves

Yarn: Online Supersocke 100

Needles: Knitpicks US #1 DPN's

Started: 9th April, 2007

Finished: 23rd April, 2007

Modifications: As can be seen from the pattern, the only modification made was knitting full length fingers.

I hope you like them mum!

Cranberries & Cherries

The gift has been received, and the receiver is very happy. In fact they've already been worn...

These are the Monkey socks I made for my sisters birthday. They were very, very hard to give away, I think they're my favourite so far.

Pattern: Monkey Socks from the winter issue of Knitty.com
Yarn: Lonesome Stone Mountain Feat
Colour: Shades of Cranberry
Needles: Knit Picks Size US #1
Started: 19th March, 2007
Finished: 7th April, 2007

I've also mailed off mum's Mother's Day present and will post some photos when she receives it.
I had a girls afternoon on Sunday and watched one of my all time favourite movies - 10 Things I Hate About You. I know it's corny but I love it (especially Heath Ledger). I also made some snacks - Artichoke dip and cherry turnovers, which were both delish even if the cherry turnovers did explode a little! Anyway, here is a photo of my cherry turnovers (I tried to maneuver them so you can't see the exploded ones).

Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the dip - we ate it instead!

Finally we are off to D.C. this week. I have my plane knitting packed and hope to have lots of photos when I return!

Hello?

Hi,

Is anyone still out there? I've been such a bad blogger lately and I don't even have a good excuse. Things have been fairly quiet for us lately although we did make a trip to Tucson a few weeks ago to visit Pete, Maree, Brendon and their new little arrival Joshua. We had a great time catching up and while we were there went to visit Old Tucson Studios where they have filmed a bunch of movies and tv shows including Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza, Wild Wild West and The Three Amigos. Here's a few snaps from our trip!

Love me a Cowboy!

This set was used in The Three Amigos.

Apart from that, I've been knitting like a crazy woman. I have quite a few finished projects that I haven't got around to posting. The first are my Jaywalker socks:

I love them, they are so bright and HAPPY! Details....

Pattern: Jaywalkers from Magknits
Yarn: Regia Stretch Colour
Needles: KnitPicks US Size #1
Started: 22nd December, 2006
Finished: 17th February, 2007

I also finished a scarf for mum's birthday. I didn't get a photo but it is the same as the scarf I knit for my nana for Christmas (shown below):

Pattern: Spit Leaf Scarf from Interweave Knits (Insert, Fall '06)
Yarn: Cascade 220 - The Heathers (Colour 4006)
Needles: US Size #8
Started: 4th March, 2007
Finished: 15th March, 2007

I'm currently in the process of making a vest for myself, as well as a birthday present for my sister. Photos to follow soon....

In kind of knitting news, a few weeks ago I went to the movies and saw "Music and Lyrics". I really enjoyed it - pretty much what you expect for a Hugh Grant film (and I've got to admit that he's not too hard on the eyes either). I thought that Drew Barrymore wore some really cute clothes too, especially a grey lace cardigan which you can kind of see here and here. I might have to try and find a similar pattern somewhere!

Finally the past few weeks of baking have consisted of:

Week 9: Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies". This is a recipe I've been using for a while now and one of the easiest!
Week 10: Nothing (hey, I was in Tucson)
Week 11: Banana Choc Chip Muffins
Week 12: Orange Macadamia Nut Cookies

Enjoy!