Beverly Hillbillies

Our life in Cheyenne is far removed from the glitz and glamour of Beverly Hills. As I've written about before, though, we always enjoy a bit of the good life and we found that in abundance. I felt right at home amongst the cafes, high-end shops and boutiques but Allen was bored stiff. Therefore, he thought it would be funny to really embrace the persona of "small town folks in the big city." I was quite embarrassed. We did end up compromising later in the day with a trip to the La Brea Tar Pits because that's what makes a happy marriage - compromise. I guess no trip to Beverly Hills would be complete without discovering a little dirt, right?

Here we are in Beverly Gardens Park where we saw the iconic Beverly Hills sign and Electric Fountain.







Unfortunately for Allen, I wanted to do some shopping while we were in Beverly Hills. While we did walk up and down Rodeo Dr. (pronounced like a popular western event by Allen) I saved my shopping for later in the day. I was actually surprised to see that many of the stores on the famous shopping strip were labels that are not exactly haute couture. In fact some of them, like Juicy Couture, Coach, Guess and BeBe, are even in my closet!





Our next stop was to take Samuel to Kid's Club in the Park at The Grove shopping center. Each day I tried to plan an activity that was just for him. That way we could be sure that he was having fun too and not just along for the ride. Kid's Club in the Park featured a children's band that played silly songs and encouraged the kids to dance and act crazy. He was hesitant at first, but warmed up to music and strange people after a while. We danced to a couple of songs and he even ventured to the front to see the band up close. Allen wasn't so sure about all the kids though and referred to it as Toddler Hell. Then he was nice enough to let me do some shopping afterwards. Allen even had his 2nd near-celebrity encounter when he saw an episode of Extra being taped live.















Samuel must have been worn out because he fell asleep in my arms while we were in line to order lunch. I was able to pass him to Allen (who's arms are stronger than mine) to hold while we had our crepes. The little guy defnitely missed out because they were delicious, especially the Nutella & strawberry dessert crepe!



We did some car sightseeing down the Sunset Strip while we decided what to do next. I had planned for us to go to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is right next door to the La Brea Tar Pits, but as we drove past the museum Allen decided that he really wanted to see the tar pits instead. Um, ok. At least Samuel enjoyed running around outside and the museum portion was interesting.

























That night we kept dinner simple and ate at Shakey's Pizza, a chain that is popular in the region. It came highly recommended by our favorite California native, Sam Graham Jr. Then it was back to our room to get some rest. Every night we were in Los Angeles Allen and I fell asleep at the same time as Samuel, around 8:00 PM!