We finally made it! All the way to Los Angeles to visit the American Girl Doll store. Jenna has been waiting patiently since February to use her birthday gift cards and since buying on-line didn't allow her to see items, we decided to go to the store. Heather had to tag along and was quite envious, but she was a good sport.
One the freeway, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a van following me with Pac Man characters on it's hood. What does this have to do with dolls? Nothing! I just thought it was funny.
Jenna purchased Julie, the 1974 historic doll, had her ears pierced, and then picked up some eye glasses and a healthy teeth set. This store is insane with all the cute little (very expensive) things you can buy. I would have loved it all when I was little, but seriously, who can afford all this stuff? I saw no movie stars, but I'm told they shop here with their daughters.
Random side note: Julie's "room" where all her things were displayed, had 70's theme music playing. I started singing along to, "Sunshine Day", the song the Brady Bunch kids sang on that one episode where they entered a contest to win money to buy something for their parents. Do you remember that episode? Heather and Jenna both said, "Mom! Please stop!". I assured them that I could find several other mothers to sing along with me for which I got double eye rolls. I had to sing happily in my head.
After our excursion, we went to the Cheesecake Factory. You are probably thinking way expensive. However, a kid's pasta with butter (my girls' go-to favorite) and a drink was $3.95. I marveled at the size of the portion when it arrived! It was at least three times the size of Corner Bakery's kids pasta that they charge $6.95 for. We did not splurge here (however, if my children were cheesecake lovers, we could have done some serious damage).
Although I've been to The Grove a few times to park and walk to So You Think You Can Dance tapings, I have never wandered through it. There are so many shops and the area is really pretty. The pond in the center was amazing with its dancing water feature and colorful Coy. It's too bad this is so far from home or we could have spent more time exploring.
We've made plans to check out Tim Burton's art at LACMA, the La Brea Tar Pits and the Natural History Museum's new dinosaur exhibit, so we'll be going back to the area soon.