oh, i'm seeing stars...

matt and i just returned from what seemed like the longest weekend of our lives. i suppose that is because we spent the last four days and three nights wandering around Los Angeles. why were we wandering L.A. for a little less than a week? hopefully the following story will clear up any questions...and as for documentation? well, the few pictures i was able to take were done with my cell phone and a cheap disposable camera (because i forgot my digital!!), so please forgive the quality.

our story begins with matt attending a dental conference, bidding at a silent auction benefiting children's dental care in L.A., and winning a day on the set of Nip/Tuck. now Nip/Tuck happens to be one of the few cable shows that we both follow and it is currently filming it's final season. this show is sexy, daring, at times confusing, and most often gruesome. WE LOVE IT. it's one of those shows that you can't really believe, but you can't stop watching. so we called the contact person in production and set up a day/time to visit the set. we put our date with the stars on the calendar, we made sure we were off from work, and then the day before we were to leave they canceled! thankfully they were able to reschedule us at a later date that still worked for us. ...which brings us to this past thursday.

this photo was snapped right before we headed out the door to the airport. i just had to have him show off the certificate he received stating that we were invited to the Nip/Tuck set for the day. right after taking this picture i set the camera on the counter and we left. why i didn't put it in my bag i'll never know. i am still kicking myself for that mistake.

we were delayed an hour leaving phoenix and arrived in L.A. very hungry. after checking into our hotel we headed to Casa Vega, a mexican restaurant that was recommended to us by matt's dental assistant. sad that i had forgotten my camera, but excited by the start of our fun weekend, i made use of my cell phone camera and started documenting our trip. i took a few pictures of matt outside the restaurant (he's a good sport!), then proceeded into a place darker than Friar Tucks. though blind, we followed our hostess to a table where we shared a booth-like seat with several other patrons. the patron directly to my right was a former playboy bunny. boo-yeah!

Kendra Wilkinson was sitting right next to me. cool cool cool. very stealth-like i was able to get the above right shot...added the arrow for those of you that don't believe me and proof that it was me sitting next to her, i added an arrow to my purse. ha!! looking back i probably should have introduced myself and we could have become BFFs, riiiight?! we left the restaurant on a high and then got a call from our Nip/Tuck contact postponing our set visit to sunday. it was only thursday night, we were supposed to have been on the set friday and then back home saturday morning. we were now stuck in L.A. for another night and basically two more full days. what were we going to do? just then, as matt was giving me the bad news, i spotted David Anders and realized what we would be doing. star gazing.

friday morning we woke up to no plans and rain clouds in the sky. we weighed (priced) our options and decided to head to some sort of amusement park. we had several to choose from: Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farms, Six Flags, and Universal Studios. sticking with the hollywood theme of the trip we decided on Universal Studios. it was, in nutshell, awesome. we got to see the ins and outs of film making, rode roller coasters, took a studio tour, matt participated on a sound stage for a small audience, and i literally got chased by demons in the house of horrors. matt thought the house of horrors was hilarious, probably because all the live actors chased me, but i hate hate hated it...i hate horror films and still don't know why i agreed to go in there. note to readers: don't go in there ever.

saturday was spent at the Farmers Market, at Venice Beach, and in Santa Monica. the Farmers Market was hosting a classic car show and i took forty pictures of old cars with my cell phone for my dad. i won't bore everyone with those pictures here but i will post them on shutterfly. Venice Beach was a classic circus gone bad on the ocean front walk. matt had never been there and really wanted to check it out so after parking a half mile away (because it was free), we spent only about twenty minutes wandering around before he had had enough. i mean who wants to hang out on a beach where three-fourths of the people were in some sore of drug-induced coma? so we headed just a bit north of Venice Beach to Santa Monica where the beaches are pretty and the food looked safe to eat. after walking along the third street promenade for a while we then took our time driving back to the hotel, exploring all the well to do neighborhoods in L.A. along the way.

finally sunday, the day we had both been waiting for and the one and only reason for the trip to L.A. in the first place, Nip/Tuck set here we come!! we arrived at Paramount Studios by eight thirty am and the place looked deserted. we found out later that no one usually films on sundays and that our set was the only one open due to a deadline. so much for getting lost among the studio buildings in hopes of running into famous people. our host took us on a tour of the different sets that Nip/Tuck uses (i got to stand in christian's bedroom!!), taught us how filming works, the tricks of the camera, sound effects, props, etc. we got to watch a few scenes get taped and met most of the behind the camera crew. of the actors, only Roma Maffia came over to say hi, but we did see Julian McMahon and Dylan Walsh and Famke Janssen. we met with the director and matt tried to sell him on a scene involving a dentist, no luck there.

we also met George Newbern who will be appearing in some upcoming Nip/Tuck episodes, you may remember him from Father of the Bride. he was shadowing the director that day and after we spoke i got the shot on the right with my cell phone camera. we talked shop with our host, who was so nice and answered all of my probably idiotic questions, he drove us all around Paramount Studios in a golf cart and showed us where everything in the past has been taped and what is currently being taped now, and took pictures of us on several of the Nip/Tuck sets to help document our visit...those pictures are on the disposable camera so hopefully they will turn out. all in all it was a really fun day and we were both glad that it didn't get postponed again. i don't know how much longer i could have hung out in L.A. as it is one exhausting city.