Tag Archives: bachelorette

Bachelorette Adventures (or 24 Hours In San Diego)

After all the other adventures I had done recently, one of the final adventures for my February was going to my friend Rayshell’s bachelorette party! While I had been super excited about this for a while, I was a bit stressed with all my other scheduling things I had to work with. But the closer we got to the weekend, the more excited and less stressed I got. By the time it was time to go, I couldn’t wait!

The bachelorette party was in San Diego and was from Friday night until Sunday morning. Because of my workout schedule, meeting my sister-in-law for dinner, and rush hour traffic; I made the decision not to drive down on Friday night. I wouldn’t be getting there until after midnight so I figured it would be best to drive down on Saturday morning. But since I was driving down on Saturday instead of Friday, I was able to drive down with another friend also going to the bachelorette party! She had offered to drive (which I was so grateful for!) and I was the navigator. Between some random traffic and a big freeway closure, it took a little longer than expected. But we were still in San Diego at noon on Saturday.

Rayshell’s maid of honor had found an amazing house for us to stay in while we were there. There were a ton of rooms and couches for everyone to crash on. The only downside was that you had to walk up about 2 flights of stairs to get to the front door and then another flight of stairs inside to get to the main part of the house. It was a good workout, but my hips didn’t love it. I limited how many times I walked up and down so it wasn’t too horrible.

After we arrived, there was a bit of time to get some food and relax for a minute before we headed out for our first adventure of the party. Rayshell really wanted to try out an escape room and they found one that wasn’t too far from the house we rented for the weekend. The escape room we had was a zombie theme and we had to unlock various locks to find an antidote and the code to get out of the door in under an hour. With me being claustrophobic and having issues with fainting when things jump out at me (which is ironic since I worked at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios for 3 years), I asked the employees there if I would be fine. They told me that it never gets dark inside the locked room and while there is a zombie inside the room, you always see her and there are no startle scares. So I figured it would be fine for me to be inside and I went in with the rest of the group (we had arranged for the escape room to just be for us, but typically they will add in other groups to fill the room).

In the first part of the escape room, we had to get a code to get into the main room. We had figured out that it had to do with the numbers on the periodic table. So I was leaning over to read the numbers so we could figure out the answer when the sheet on a table right in front of me started moving and making noise (I think it was supposed to be a fake dead body). I honestly freaked out. It was pretty horrible. I didn’t faint (I’m still surprised that I didn’t), but I almost fell to my knees and I burst into tears. It wasn’t my best moment and I’m not proud that it happened, but it was my honest reaction to being scared like that.

Rayshell wanted me to leave after then, but I told her that I could calm down and the employee inside the room saw how freaked out I was and told me that in the other room there wasn’t anything like that to scare me. I wish that the employee that I had asked before going in the room had warned me about that. I asked him afterward why he hadn’t, and he didn’t think it would scare me since it was fake.

After my freak out, I focused on how I could help get us out of the room. I found some locks that needed to be unlocked and focused on opening those. I worked on solving equations and other things and pretty much stayed in one section of the room where nothing scared me and the actress playing the zombie couldn’t get me (if you were tagged you had to stand off to the side in “quarantine” for a couple of minutes before you could join back in).

In the end, we didn’t get out of the room. We opened a lot of the locks we needed to and even had the code to get out of the door. But because we didn’t get one thing unlocked, we couldn’t get to the keys that unlocked the cabinet that had the antidote we needed to win the escape room. But it doesn’t matter that we didn’t win, we all had a really great time (not counting my freak out time).

Escape Room

After the escape room, we headed back to the house to relax before getting ready for dinner. We ended up on the rooftop deck playing Cards Against Humanity. We got to enjoy a gorgeous sunset and had so much fun playing the game.

Cards Against Humanity

Next we all got ready to go to dinner and we all gave Rayshell the lingerie gifts that we got her (that was the plan for all of our gifts). And of course, we had to get some pictures with the bachelorette before we went out!

Levin Sandwich

We went to dinner in Little Italy at Trattoria Fantastica and had a table on the patio (they had a heat lamp so it was nice out there).

Bachelorette Group

We got some wine for the table and everyone was able to find something yummy to eat, even with the dietary restrictions people might have (they even had gluten-free pasta!). I got short rib pasta and it was really great (I also ate it all since that was really my first real meal of the day)!

Dinner

After we all got full on pasta (and for some people, drinks), we headed out to the Altitude Sky Lounge which is on the 22nd floor of a hotel in the Gaslamp Quarter. I’m not a nightclub/lounge person, but even I was in love with the view that we saw up there!

San Diego

Some of the girls had fun dancing, but a couple of us who aren’t really dancing people found a couch that overlooked the view and had a heat lamp above us (not everyone was dressed totally weather appropriate because we wanted to look cute). We also enjoyed sitting on the couch watching the craziness going on around us. There was one couple that we were mesmerized watching. The best way to describe it was that the guy was pretty much dancing like how we would imagine a monkey would dancing and was hard not to watch. When the bouncers walked over our way and ended up blocking the view, one of the girls asked the bouncers to move because we were watching them dance. Even the bouncers were mesmerized watching them and totally got why we wanted a clear view to enjoy the show.

The next stop for the night was another club for more dancing. But 4 of us were feeling pretty tired and not up to dancing so we split up and some went out and the rest went back to the house. I’m glad I left when I did because when I was going back up the stairs to the house, my hip decided to go out and I couldn’t get it to stop hurting. So after chatting with the other 3 girls who left early with me, we all got ready to go to bed and went to sleep. Even though there were beds downstairs I could sleep in, I couldn’t get down the stairs with my hip so I ended up sleeping on a couch (it wasn’t so bad).

Sunday morning everyone kind of got up around the same time. Most of the girls were going to go out for breakfast, but the friend I drove with and I wanted to leave by 9am because we wanted to beat the traffic and I had the Oscar party to get to! So we said goodbye to everyone and headed back to LA.

It was a crazy quick trip (we left LA at 9am Saturday and got back 11am Sunday), but it was full of so much fun stuff and awesome adventures! I really haven’t been to San Diego outside of family stuff, so it was great to explore the city with some friends and doing things that aren’t usually what I get to do down there.

The bachelorette party was the last event leading up to Rayshell’s wedding. I’m hoping that she and I can hang out for a happy hour before her wedding (we are overdue for one), but I’m really looking forward to the wedding. I know it’s going to be gorgeous and it’s another opportunity for me to celebrate my amazing friend!

It’s a Stripper Penguin! (or The Best Bachelorette Party Ever!)

First of all, I managed to survive Carmageddon with all the driving I had to do around town. The only time that I was caught in awful traffic was trying to get from Culver City to the Valley on Saturday evening. It took me over 2 hours to get there. But it was worth it, because I was on my way to my friend Marie’s bachelorette party!

I’ve been to a few bachelorette parties in the past, but they have all been pretty tame. Sometimes just dinner and dessert with the girls. But I knew that this party was going to be a bit more outrageous than that, and I was right!

(sorry that this post has so many pictures and is so long)

The evening started out with some drinks and appetizers at the apartment of one of the girls hosting the night. It was a very chill part of the night, but we were all just so happy to be celebrating the upcoming wedding of Marie (19 more days to go)!

Then, the entertainment arrived. If you don’t know Marie, you just need to know that she LOVES penguins. When she first got engaged, I wanted to get her a penguin cake topper, but I couldn’t decide on which one to get her (I got her a wedding planning guide instead). And the starter entertainment for the night was a stripper penguin!

I guess technically he wasn’t a stripper, he wore a sweat suit over the penguin costume and took that off, but then he danced the rest of the time in the penguin outfit. This was seriously the funniest thing I’ve ever seen! I was laughing so hard I was crying! Everyone loved the penguin.

After that craziness, we were off to dinner. Marie arranged for a Cadillac limo to drive us all around. That was so nice. If we didn’t have that, we would have taken 4 cars to get everywhere. And the limo had 3, yes 3, bars inside.

Also, the mood lighting inside was pretty fun too.

Our dinner stop was at Lala’s Grill. I had never been there before, but it was so delicious! The steaks were wonderful and I wanted to drink the chimichurri sauce! I was enjoying my meal so much that I didn’t get any pictures of that part of the evening.

After dinner, we had the driver drive us around the valley a bit so we could enjoy some drinks in the limo (all of the locations we were going to were very close together). And then we ended up at Oil Can Harry’s. I had never been there before either, but it was great! Saturday nights are disco nights. Downstairs there is dancing and upstairs there is karaoke.

We did some dancing.

And the bride to be did some karaoke (sorry for the blurry pic, all I had was my phone).

And eventually, it was the end of the night and we headed back into the limo to go back to the apartment to enjoy some dessert.

After then, it was getting close to 3am and I had to be up early the next day (and still drive all the way back home). I said goodbye to everyone, and laughed about the stripper penguin for the entire drive back.

I had the most fabulous night. I want to thank Jacole and Kelly for planning such an awesome event and inviting me. And thank you Marie for getting married so this party could be thrown for you! I’m so happy that Marie is getting married and I’m getting excited for my adventure in Texas for the wedding soon!

Oh, and an extra special thank you to our limo driver, Mike, who put up with all of our craziness all night.

And, he let us call him Magic Mike.

Carmageddon 2 (or I’ll Be The Idiot Driving All Over Town This Weekend)

For those of you not in LA, this weekend is the second, and hopefully last, Carmageddon. Carmaggedon is when the 405 freeway is shut down from the 10 to the 101. If you want to know more, you can read about it here.

Last Carmageddon, I was good and stayed in my neighborhood all weekend. I only drove a bit locally because I had some errands to run. This Carmageddon, I’m going to be all over town.

I have work on Saturday. I have to take the 10 freeway to get there, but I go right over the 405 on ramps, so that might be a total mess. I’m staying at my work to see a show that afternoon, just so put off driving home a little bit.

Then on Saturday night, it’s my friend Marie’s bachelorette party. Her party is in the valley, which will be a tough drive from where I live on the westside. I’m making sure my iPhone is loaded up with podcasts to listen to just in case the drive takes a really really long time. But I’d never miss Marie’s bachelorette party. Marie and I met in an acting class in 2002 and she was the one who introduced me to my acting coach, Kip King, who I studied with until he passed away. She was one of my first friends I met in LA outside of LMU, and I couldn’t be happier that she’s getting married!

 

And then on Sunday, I’ve got two events. First is a blogger meet up organized by Lynn from The Actor’s Diet. That’s going to be near the Farmer’s Market, so at least I won’t be needing a freeway to get there. Then it’s the LMU Alumni BBQ. I volunteered to help out before I realized that it would be a driving disaster weekend. My hope is that this Carmageddon will be done early like the one last year so maybe the freeways will be open by the time I’m leaving the BBQ.

If not, it’s a good thing that I love my car. I’ll be spending a lot of time in it for the next few days.