Say Cheese!

Have you ever noticed in pictures of yourself that every time you're supposed to make a "silly/funny/goofy/fun" face it turns out the exact same and you end up having 47 pictures of you making the same funny face. Well, if you don't do this, let it be known that I do this. Somehow each time this picture is taken I turn out look like this:



This face is not very cute, not at all flattering, and actually rather frightening. Am I the only one that does this? Do you have a silly picture face?

As of today I've decided I'm going to cut this face out of my picture taking repertoire. God knows this weekend there will be lots of pictures taken with all different types of faces (I mean c'mon you know when girls and digital cameras get together a ridiculous amount of picture taking ensues.) So today, as I pack, I'll be practicing my new (and hopefully much cuter) faces in the mirror.

Over It

1. The maintenance department at our apartment complex charging $7.50 for a light bulb that you can only get through them. Ridiculous.

2. Octo-Mom. I'm still over this, but it's still on the news almost every day.

3. Having to wear a coat when I go home this week. A coat?! Socks?! What is that?!

4. Job-searching. Nothing else needs to be said.

On a side (and more positive) note, I'm excited to go home this week and see my best girlfriends. Here is a really old picture of us from college spring break at my mom's house in Florida.

Resturant Review

I love eating out, especially when we can find good food for good prices. One of my favorite places to go for lunch is Hong Kong China Bistro & Sushi in Hollywood (1642 N. Cahuenga Blvd if you want to go!) They're lunch specials are huge and include a dish, salad, two wontons, a spring roll and rice all between $6.00 - $8.00! And the food is delicious. The waitress that is always there is kind of crazy and grumpy, the atmosphere is dark, with the addition of some strange aquariums filled with turtles. The reason I'm writing this post is because we get a great laugh out of the menu every time we go.

First of all, read the description below. There's no punctuation, awful grammar, and what's crrry?


Next, look at #17 (third from the bottom) on the list of dishes. What is that?!


I promise you, this place is delicious. In California each restaurant is required to put it's rating on the door and it's an A so I feel safe eating there! Crap.. now I'm craving Hong Kong. Who's with me?!

Honeymooners

Today I was dreaming of hammocks, private pools, pinacoladas, all you can eat buffets, and the nicest darn people you'll ever meet. I was dreaming of our Jamaican honeymoon. Oh how I loved our week in paradise. I know that I live in a very temperate and warm weather climate now, but it just doesn't compare to a week at the beach on the Caribbean!



After talking with a AAA travel agent we decided to go to a Sandals resort. At first we wanted to go to St. Lucia but after pricing out the flight details we figured out it would be half the price to go to Jamaica instead. I was hesitant at first because I had been to Jamaica in high school thanks to my incredible best friend and her family (they are in love with Jamaica and helped me to fall in love with the country too!) We decided it wasn't such a big deal that I had been before since we were staying at a huge resort in a different town. So we decided on a private villa with a butler at Sandals Grande Ocho Rios and it was NOT a mistake. I've never felt so pampered and taken care of in my life. The butler, her name was Trudie and we loved her, was a great addition to the trip, she would make all of our dinner and activity reservations and make sure we had the best table each night. She also stocked our fridge every day with soda, juice, bottled water, cheese, and fruit!



We loved napping in the shade at one of the many hidden hammocks. We had our own personal pool in the backyard which is where I spent most of my time laying in the sun. We enjoyed delicious dinners every night and room service breakfast every morning. We took a cruise boat (read: booze cruise) to Dunn's River Falls and climbed a humongous waterfall. Most of all we enjoyed our first vacation as a married couple.

Little Miss Sunshine

Have I mentioned my love for all things yellow? I used to be a pink girl all the way, but recently I've adopted yellow as my personal favorite. Anything yellow, I have to have it! Especially darkish yellow, also called mimosa. Did you know that every year there is a "color of year" and guess what this year's color is.. http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/pantone.aspx?pg=20634&ca=10 YES! It's mimosa!






Lately, almost everything I want to buy is yellow. Like the dress above from J.Crew.. yes, please!



Or this adorable top from Forever 21.

Ah yes, yellow, you inspire me and you make me happy. If any husbands* are reading this and thinking about a gift for their darling wife**, think mimosa.

*a.k.a. Peter
**a.k.a. Ali

It's A Brand New Day

I am the type of girl that can listen to a song and it can change my whole day. This song, by Joshua Radin, has that effect on me. It just makes me happy! Listen & enjoy.



On a completely different note, is anyone else watching Dancing With The Stars? We mostly watch it because Peter has a crush on Julianne Hough and we saw her a few weeks ago at The Grove (of course!) It's okay that he has a crush on Julianne because he's very aware of my crush on Kris Allen. Has anyone ever seen the friend's episode where they discuss having a celebrity "top five"? Yea, we go by those rules.

Girl's Guide to Movies

On Saturday we saw I Love You, Man (the same Saturday we saw JT!) I was a little worried that it would be raunchy like Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which I thought was funny, but a little too raunchy) but I was mistaken and impressed. I thought it was hilarious and heart-felt! I'm crazy about Paul Rudd, I think he's one of the funniest men on screen right now (and he also kind of reminds me of my hubby!) I loved the story, and especially loved the scenery - the movie was set and filmed all over LA from Venice to Santa Monica to Hollywood and there's even a scene at The Grove (my favorite place in the world!) So if you're wondering where I live, go see that movie and you'll get a good taste of LaLa Land!

There are some amazing and funny quotes from the movie that I've been quoting to Peter all weekend "slapping the base, mon" and I just loved the awkward humor that was Paul Rudd in this movie. I can see myself watching and laughing at this movie over and over. If you like funny movies, funny guys, and want to see a taste of LA - go see this movie!!

Girls Grade - A

Celeb-Alert!

Last night we saw the one celeb we've been waiting to see since we moved to LA. We decided to go see a movie last night at the Pacific Grove Theater, which is walking distance from our apartment. We headed in a little early which was also the perfect time for this most recent celeb sighting. I walked in ahead of Peter and paused at the door to ask him where he wanted to buy tickets, as I paused JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE walked in next to us. He was so close I could have reached out and touched him! Justin Timberlake, people, Justin Timberlake. He is cute in real life but shorter than I expected, he was probably less than 6'' tall. He was also with his girly, Jessica Biel, who is super cute and skinny (of course). I really wanted to get a picture with him, but he seemed to be in a hurry to get to his movie (Knowing, if you were wondering) and walked ahead of us with his head down. Also, nobody else was stopping him and being ridiculous (like I would have been) so I had to hold myself together. I immediately texted a few friends because I mean, c'mon who doesn't love a good JT sighting and swooned the rest of the evening. This is the best celeb-alert yet, don't you agree?



So cute.



The photo above makes me squeal like a 13 year old. OMG!

Warner Bro's

On Thursday I experienced an awesome afternoon on the WB lot. Thanks to my friend (the same one who got me tickets for Ellen -- she has an awesome job!) Lauren, Holland, and I got onto the lot, walked around, looked for celebs, and visited the WB museum where there are a ton of awesome props and costumes from movies and an entire floor of the museum is devoted to the Harry Potter movies!



This is Lauren, Holland, and myself on the soundstage where all the Oceans movies (and a ton other movies) were filmed. George, Brad, and Matt were all here!




This is the set for ER!



Me, Lauren, and MJ enjoying some Jamba Juice after a long hot walk around the lot. This was my first Jamba experience and I loved it, such a healthy and delicious treat! While we were getting our Jamba in the store we saw Laura Innes who has been on ER forever shopping with her daughter!



(all photo's courtesy of Lauren's iPhone since you are not allowed to bring cameras, or take pictures for that matter, on the lot)

Christian the lion

This video touched my heart today. Please ignore the corny music.

What's in a name?

The title of my blog is Ali in LaLa Land which you can clearly see at the top. This may be pretty straight-forward to you, like it's Ali blogging from LaLa Land. It actually has a second meaning which I'm not sure many people other than a few family members and close friends may know.

When I was a little girl I loved the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland and for a long time I thought my name was actually Ali in Wonderland! How cute is that? When people would ask my name that is what I would reply! I even kind of looked like Alice with my long blond hair.



I decided to make a blog shortly after Christmas when my mom was visiting LA and she and Peter encouraged me to start writing about my experiences. While we were brainstorming names we came up with Ali in LaLa Land which sounds similar to Ali in Wonderland! And so with a little help from my techy hubby the blog was born. And in the past few months, I can truly tell you I've fallen a little in love with blogging and reading blogs!

Idol's and Ryan

Ok, now comes the time on the blog where I profess my love for the reality TV show of the moment. A month or so ago it was the Bachelor and now that it's over I've moved my little heart on to.. American Idol! I've been watching it all along but now is when it get's good and I get really into the contestants and start to fall in love.




First, let me just tell you all that I have an intense dislike for Paula on Idol. I loved her in the mid-nineties, I mean who can forget the video with the animated cat? But truly, her Idol days are just plain awful, I don't know what kinds of drugs/alcohol/whatever this woman is on but I wish she'd just stay quiet during the show. We have a tendency to fast forward when she's talking at the LaLaLand house.

Moving on.. last night's show was Country Night which usually is, awful, but I thought a few of the singers really did great. My favorite Idol this year is Kris Allen because I might (and when I say might I mean I definitely do) have a huge crush on him, I'm pretty sure Peter is sick of hearing me gush over him whenever he's on screen. Last night I might or might not have yelled at him for fast-forwarding when Kris was talking to Ryan. Oops.



I liked Megan's performance and I all around love her voice and her look, but is it just me or was her last name Corkey last week and this week it's Joy, um.. ok. I also think Anoop did amazing. Last week was terrible and I thought he would for sure get kicked off, but his song was, in the words of Randy, "off the chain dawg!" Peter's favorite is Matt Giraud and last night he did amazing too, he really reminds me of Justin Timberlake so I obviously love him!

Ok, one more thing.. I love Ryan. If he had a show called Ryan's BFF I would try out for it. I really would like to be friends with him. That's all folks.

Basketball & Celebrities

Last week we decided at 6:30 pm that we were going to go to the LA Clippers vs. Cleveland Cavaliers game. If you live in LA you may be thinking, that is absolutely ridiculous, there is no way you could make it there in time. I thought the same thing. By the grace of the traffic God's we made it to the ATM and to the Staples Center in record time, scalped four tickets, and made our way in. Peter is the king of finding good seats and will never sit in the 300 level even if that's the number on his ticket. So he scoped out some good seats about 10 rows up and low and behold we sat there the entire second half of the game and nobody ever made us move!

The basketball game was pretty exciting but even more exciting for me were all the celebs at the game! Apparently Billy Crystal is a Clippers regular so he was there of course. We also spotted Keisha Cole, Lupe Fiasco, and a random assortment of athletes that I didn't recognize but Peter was pretty excited about. The coolest celeb of the bunch was.... wait for it.... Penelope Cruz! She is gorgeous and spent the entire game flipping her hair around while everyone stared at her. Sadly, I didn't get a good picture of her. In the picture below you can see the back of her head.



I would definitely attend another game at the Staples center (preferably a Lakers game!) Peter get's to watch a game and I get to watch the stars!

hey unemployment... YOU SUCK!

I haven't posted much (at all) about my lack of a job on here, but here it goes.. I am sick of being jobless. At first it was kind of exciting, new city, endless options, time to decide my dreams, but now..

It. Is. Not. Fun.

Now that I know what I want to do, I want to do it and I want to do it now. I want to get my hands into the entertainment industry; I want to be painfully busy at work, I want to have projects, I want to be tired from hard work.. not from boredom. And also, I want extra money! It is not fun to be a newlywed living from paycheck to paycheck and worrying if we're going to make it in LA. If I had a decent paying job we would be all "no worries, man" but we're not there yet.

So if any of you SoCal readers know anyone hiring an entry-level job for a girl who loves entertainment and people, let me know!

Girl's Guide to Movies

I see a lot of movies with Peter. So I decided I'm going to start a new "segment" if you will on the blog. The first movie I'm going to review is one I saw last Sunday, "The Watchmen." I didn't have big expectations going into this movie. I usually enjoy the superhero movies (i.e. Spiderman, Iron Man, Dark Knight) so I thought I'd feel similar about The Watchmen. Peter gave me a quick re-cap that it's basically about real people that are act as superhero's. Other than the big naked blue guy (that's what I'll call him) none of them had any real super powers other than being good at fighting. The first scene is a musical montage introducing you to the Watchmen through the years was pretty awesome, I really enjoyed this part. The next 2 hours of the film, I did not enjoy quite as much. The love story between Ms. Jupiter and the big naked blue guy was awkward. And I mean, c'mon, does he really have to be naked? I never really understood who killed who and why. There was so much gore, parts that I wouldn't even want to type because thinking of it makes me queasy! Peter tells me this is a graphic novel so it's supposed to be kind of ridiculous, but it was too much! This was definitely my least favorite super hero movie of them all and doesn't compare to the ones I mentioned before.

Girl's Grade: D
Boy's Grade (courtesy of Peter): B-

Ellen Show Re-Cap

Ok, first things first.. I am a terrible, lazy, boring blogger right now! Here is my long-awaited re-cap of the Ellen show. Second thing.. Ellen is awesome! I can't wait to go back and see her again next season. Thanks to my friend MJ, who works for Ellen, we got VIP tickets to the show. We weren't sure what that meant but basically, we got priority seating, we were one of the first one's on set, and I don't know if this is one of the normal things VIP's get but we were on camera a lot! You can see me at least four times on the episode. There was a lot of dancing, yelling, and clapping.. by the end of the episode I was tired! The guests weren't all that great, I wish I would have known more about Carol Burnett, but I didn't know anything about her or her show (sorry!) Taylor Hicks sang his new song, and we saw a special taping of Anderson Cooper, I'm not sure when that one will air. We received a few gifts from Ellen; the "Rachel Getting Married" DVD and Taylor Hick's new CD. All in all, I had a great time at the Ellen show!

Oh yea, and if you've been wondering. I didn't win the trip to Hawaii. Bummer.

Ellen

I am going here today. The show will air tomorrow so make sure to set your DVR's! I am determined to win a trip to Hawaii so cross your fingers. I will post a full re-cap soon and you can feel like YOU went to Ellen too. Sadly, no cameras are allowed in the theater so no live pictures. Watch me on Wednesday!

Gettyin'

Saturday afternoon we visited the most beautiful place I've visited so far in Los Angeles, The Getty Museum. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but my friend Holland planned a picnic so Peter and I joined the group. (Which actually turned out to be quite a few people, so fun!) We parked in a parking structure and were then ushered to a line (much like at an amusement park) to wait for a tram. After waiting a few minutes we boarded the tram which took us to the top of a mountain and we were there. The view, oh my goodness, the view.

It. Is. Incredible.

You can see all the way to the snow capped mountains in the east, to downtown LA, Beverly Hills, all the way to the ocean! Not to mention, the weather on this particular Saturday was a clear, sunny, perfect, 75 degree February day. (Oh how I love you SoCal..) We enjoyed lunch, relaxing on a hill in the sun, climbing to the top of the museum to take in the view, and exploring famous paintings. As you can tell, I loved the Getty and I can't wait to go again!


My friend Parker took the photo below of the whole group that went to the Getty! (I'm not sure why I look so prego in this photo, don't worry.. I'm not!)

We Weren't Crazy

I'm not a huge fan of country music, but I do enjoy it sometimes! I heard this song yesterday (Thanks Alex!) and I had to share it with you. I love music and I always find myself reading lyrics and getting all sentimental and sappy but I swear, this song is written for me!

"We Weren't Crazy" - Josh Gracin (a former American Idol woo hoo!)

We headed out to California
everybody tried to warn us
said we wouldn’t make it any further
than that worn out Chevy would

we broke down a time or two
thought “maybe we didn’t think it through”
we were all we had to turn to
when it wasn’t lookin’ good

we’re lookin’ back laughin’
‘cause they called us crazy

we were young, we were wild, we were restless
had to go, had to fly - had to get away
took a chance on that feelin’ - baby
we were lovin’ blind - borderline reckless
we were livin’ for the minute we were spinnin’ in
maybe we were a lot of things
but we weren't crazy

911

We had a pretty crazy Friday night (Peter's birthday party) then Saturday we spent the entire day at the Getty Museum (more on that later) so Saturday night we were pretty spent and decided to stay in and have a few friends over for a cook-out. We have a brand new charcoal grill (thanks Matt & Jake!) that the boys went out to light. The boys congregated outside while Karla and I chatted on the couch. A few minutes went by when we heard a.. BAM! CRASH! Then some nervous laughter coming from all the boys. Karla and I weren't sure what happened so we ventured out to the back porch where I found my husband had been scorched by the fire.

Apparently, he opened the grill and at that time came shooting out onto Peter's hair, face, and right arm! He was pretty shaken up about it, and luckily not badly burned. After I realized that he was okay we all got a good laugh about Peter being burned by the grill. I don't know if he'll be cooking out any time too soon.

He's probably going to be pretty embarrassed that I shared this story, so I'll apologize in advance.. sorry!

I'm Baaaaack

My readers (read: my mom) has been complaining about my lack of blog posts. I just wanted to post that I'm alive and well and I will blog again tomorrow. I think I have a case of the writers block or the posting blah's or something along those lines. So I'll leave you with some thoughts..

1. I'm over the Bachelor drama.

2. I love American Idol this season and I'm excited to know who the top 12 are THIS week!

3. On that note, I really want to figure out where they all (read:Kris Allen) hang out and find it!

4. Our good friends Nick & Shannon are coming this weekend and I'm very excited.

5. We went to The Getty Museum on Saturday and it was amazing

6. Saturday night Peter caught on fire (don't worry, he's okay, it's a great story though!)

More on these topics later this week. (Sorry Mom!)