About: VACATION in L.A.

Next stop, L.A. I badly wanted to go to the Grove and try a few fun new "hip" Los Angelean places - and the kids hadn't been there since Lina was a baby so they remembered nothing. The crazy thing was we went without knowing where we were staying - I probably should've been worried about this but I wasn't. The entire drive there I was on my phone trying to find out what hotels were close enough to walk so that we could avoid traffic and parking costs. There were mostly absolute flea bags, which made me extremely nervous to stay at in L.A. and many of them didn't have a parking lot! So since we decided to take a step up and drove up to The Farmer's Daughter hotel and ask if they had room for us, and they did! 

It was the best choice we could have made - it was literally directly across the street from the Original Farmer's Market which is attached to the Grove. It had a protected parking lot, and it. was. cool. Like it was definitely cooler than we are so we felt pretty fancy staying here - and it felt like a true experience!

 Yes, it was black - and that was at least 50% of why I loved it. The outdoor space was fabulous and there was even a Foosball table that the kids couldn't get enough of!

 And mayyyybe you can see on the top of that hill is the Hollywood sign - yep, this was the view from our room. It didn't suck.

Once we got settled we walked over the market and found some lunch. Ahhh, these pictures are making me so hungry. 

This child was as happy as a clam with her Mexican food (the other one, not so much).

We all did some shopping there - the highlight was experiencing the American Girl store. 

 We went back to the Farmer's Market for dinner before walking back to our hotel to rest before bed. Just look at how gorgeous!

 The next morning we slept in a bit and then packed up before walking back across the street for breakfast (ie. donuts... it was vacation after all)

 We said goodbye to the hotel... the birds...

 and the foosball...

 and the Instagram wall :)

And headed out to find some fancy coffee and do some more sight-seeing. We had Blue Bottle coffee with some richie-riches, then headed to Melrose Place so I could go to Glossier (heaven!) 

...and  decided to walk up and down the out-of-our-league shops (the kind with security guards at the front door) and got one more hipster coffee and kombucha to go at Alfred's. 

It was pretty awesome and certainly we made some good memories! 

But then we headed for DISNEYLAND!