LA/Emmys Trip, Day Two

Okay, moving right along to the second day of our whirlwind trip to LA for the Emmys! You can catch up on the first day here! 

SMOGGY... but still fabulous! 

Outfit of the day was a slight variation of the day before - same bag and shades! 

Day 1 - Under Skies dress from Golden Tote, Phillip Lim for Target crossbody, Ray Ban for J.Crew rose lens aviators, Steve Madden studded flats.  

Day 2 - Lov Posh dress from Golden Tote, different Steve Madden blinged out flats! ;)

Our host for the weekend was the talented Conrad Bachmann, a very humble - and very connected - man who calls himself the "most popular unknown actor in Hollywood." One of his most well known screen moments is getting eaten by a worm in Tremors! Haha! He's doing wonderful things with the education system in his hometown of Louisville and he's been instrumental in the establishment of the growing annual Louisville International Film Festival. It's coming up very soon and we can't wait!! 

We met Conrad for breakfast at the Sportsman's Lodge, our hotel for the next couple of nights. Um... we aren't in Beverly Hills anymore, folks! LOL! Conrad gave us a quick run through of the Emmys schedule for the next day and gave us our tickets and passes. Then we were on our way, free to spend the day exploring LA! 

We went straight to the legendary Rainbow Bar for some pizza but - FAIL - they are closed for lunch on Saturdays. Boo. We wound up next door at Frankie and Johnnie's New York Pizza and the stuff was amazing. There were some things on the walls about Road Rules and "Johnnie" being on Temptation Island? Idk... The reviews of the place on Yelp are kind of horrible and I don't have any pictures of our actual food, but all of this can be explained by the pitcher of beer that was involved! LOL!

We went from there to The Getty Museum. The place sits high up on a cliff and has awesome views of the city. Everything is free and the collection is massive, housed in airy white architecture that was so open and inviting! We saw such a small portion of the overall collection and were disappointed that the photography wing was closed for maintenance. It's always so ridiculous to just walk right up to such an iconic and priceless piece of art like Van Gogh's Irises! 

Happy on the tram! You have to take a tram to get up to the museum from the parking lots and garage. 

 

All of this priceless breakable stuff just sitting around made me nervous - and glad the girls weren't with us!! LOL! 

I was super sleep deprived and thought this looked like a prop from Beauty and the Beast... hahaha

This is reasonable for our master bedroom makeover, right?? 

After so much culture, we needed "culture" of a different kind, so we cabbed it to the massive Guitar Center store on Sunset. This place... ZOMG. The Rock Walk out front has tons of handprints from all kinds of famous rockers and there's really cool memorabilia on display. 

Inside, it's a musicians DREAM. Huge and stuffed to the rafters with goodies. Hubs could have stayed in here all day! We ran into Danny Trejo in the vintage room (so nice, so so nice) while he was there prepping his son to go on tour. When we were leaving, we saw Jaden Smith and his posse, which included the kid who plays Jerry on Kickin' It (our girls would have flipped). There were a couple of other musicians picking up custom instruments that were obviously somebody, we are just bad at recognizing anyone! LOL! Seriously, there's prob no better place to star watch than here! 

Happy to let anyone "pet" the cheapies! LOL!

A whole wall full of guitars in the $25k-$50k each range! 

We ended the night with dinner at a place on Hollywood and then a bit of a walk goofing around with some of the characters and street performers. Such a fun day again! Stay tuned for the final day of our adventure - EMMYS day!! 

I love the chaos! 

Don't sweat my robot moves ;)

He's a pretty good SLJ, right?? 

Hubs was disturbed by the Smurfs... hahahaha

Los Angeles/Emmys Trip, Day One

Such a crazy whirlwind trip to LA last weekend for the 2013 Emmys!! We got to LA on Friday and checked into the fab Sofitel Hotel in Beverly Hills! Ahhh... OMG. This place was WONDERFUL. Lanvin toiletries? Check! Even the lobby has big thick plush carpets that hubs commented made him want to kick off his shoes and walk barefoot on! LOL! Our room was on the 9th floor and overlooked the super fun Beverly Center across the street! Drop the bags, it's time to shop! :D

Sculptural lobby!

We walked across the street and hit the stores! Sadly, so much of what was out was kind of in between seasons and truly uninspiring... until we strolled into Henri Bendel. They were hosting a trunk show for Canadian jewelry designer Alan Anderson and I was instantly in LOVE. Everything he was showing was huge and sparkly and over the top. When Liz Taylor's jewelry collection went on auction at Christie's a couple of years ago, even she had one of his bracelets! I tried on tons of things and decided to go with this gorgeous necklace made of all things sparkly and vintage jade Swarovski crystals. 

So fun that they were all up for putting on jewels and having a goofy photo shoot - the designer, too! 

The kids are big fans! ;)

I also picked up an AMAZING pair of MiH jeans at Kitson. OMG. Love. I've seen this brand around and in J.Crew catalogs but had never tried them on. Can't wait to wear them! 

Our hotel was just around the corner from Guy Hepner's art gallery, a place that we have shopped remotely several times but have never had the chance to visit in person! It was fun to check it out and we discovered a Mr. Brainwash gallery next door, which was also interesting! We have one of his pieces and hubs was impressed by his studio space in NYC a couple of years ago! 

After shopping, we headed down to the craziness of Hollywood Blvd. OMG, I love the energy of the crowds and the nutty people in costume and just the wildness of it all. Kind of like Times Square with a tan! LOL! 

We happened upon Iguana Vintage and, holy cow, I was blown away. I have shopped thrift/vintage since I was a kid and I've NEVER seen anything like this. It was immaculate and organized to a degree that only the truly Type A could appreciate! LOL! There were three floors and, honestly, I couldn't even focus on shopping, I was just obsessed with the ORGANIZATION. There was staff EVERYWHERE straightening and helping and generally keeping things perfect. It doesn't even SMELL like a thrift store in there! I talked to the owner about how often costumers start their search and wardrobe in there - ALL the time. OMG... I was fascinated and took a million pictures! 

We finished up the night with awesome burgers from Juicy Burger and headed back to our big cushy Beverly Hills bed to get a perfect night's sleep! Fun first day!! Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 - including the Emmys and Governor's Ball recap!! :D

Why do veggie burgers always end up looking like this??? LOL