Tag Archives: 4th of July

4th Of July (or Hot Dogs, Fireworks, And Rooftops)

I spent my afternoon and evening of 4th of July over at my friends Chris and Marie‘s house. They really do throw the best parties and this was the first time I’d be over there for 4th of July.

I’m always a little wary about driving on 4th of July (or any holiday where there is a lot of drinking) so I tried to time my drives for when there wouldn’t be a ton of traffic. So I headed over there around 5pm and got to their house pretty quickly.

Everyone was hanging out in the backyard and just relaxing and catching up. Definitely my type of party (I’m not a fan of crazy parties). After being there for a while, the sprinklers came on in the backyard. Marie and Chris just got new grass for their yard and they had to water it a lot so the grass would grow properly.

Since it was pretty hot out, I decided that I wanted to run through the sprinklers. I wasn’t really wearing the best outfit for that (I wore jeans), but I didn’t care. And I didn’t want to run through the sprinklers alone, so I decided to recruit some other people to join in.

Marie was the first person to say yes, and then 2 other party goers saw what we were going to do and they took off their shoes to join us.

I have to admit, even though I didn’t like that my jeans got soaking wet, running through the sprinklers was pretty awesome and a perfect activity for the party.

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After the sprinkler adventure, Chris got the grill fired up and started taking orders for hot dogs. Ordering was necessary because he and Marie and gotten 7 or 8 different types of hot dogs for the party! I wish I had taken a picture of the sign they made because they gave all the hot dogs really clever names.

I ordered a cheddar dog mainly because I had never had one before and it sounded good. And it was! Sadly, no photos were taken of the food because I was too busy eating it (I was hungry after my workout earlier that day).

We all spent time just relaxing and enjoying each other’s company while waiting for the sun to set. Even though having fireworks is illegal in Los Angeles County (unless it is a professional show), Marie and Chris said that last year plenty of people near their house set off fireworks.

So once the sun was down, a bunch of us climbed a ladder to hang out on the roof of their house to watch the fireworks. And since they were being set off so close to us, the fireworks were huge in the sky!

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We were up there for a while until someone complained that they were just hit by a piece of fireworks shrapnel. We didn’t know what had happened until we used the lights from our phones to look on the roof. We found a marble sized hard ball that must have been part of one of the fireworks (maybe it held some sort of propellant to make the fireworks go into the sky?).

After that, we all got a little nervous about being on the roof, so we headed down to watch the rest of the fireworks safely in the backyard (where I guess technically something could still hit us but we had the overhang from the roof to protect us).

I hung out at the party until about 11pm. I had figured that 11pm was a pretty safe time to leave. People who went to firework shows had already left and bars were still open so a lot of people were hanging out there. Thankfully, my plan worked and not only did I get home safely, I got home very quickly as there was no traffic on the freeways.

Even though this was a pretty low-key 4th of July, it was really a perfect way to spend a day off. I was around great friends, great food, and great conversation. What more could you want?

4th Of July Recap (or It Was All About Vine Videos and Fireworks)

I had a pretty amazing day yesterday. And considering that 48 hours before I had no idea what I would be doing, I’d say I made some awesome plans.

My day started in spin class. I ended up going much earlier than I wanted to, but in all the later classes the bike I wanted was already reserved. It was an instructor that I hadn’t had before. His class was tough, but it wasn’t totally my style. I think I might try to stick with some of my favorites if I can.

After I got home from class, I had some free time so I just relaxed at home. I did some cleaning, I watched some tv, and I read a book. Then it was time for me to head over to Studio City for the 4th of July event there.

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It was held at the CBS Radford lot, which I’ve been to before for a couple of auditions. But I’ve never really spent a ton of time on the lot wandering around. So this was my chance to do so.

I met up with my friend Robert there. The first thing we did was walk all around the lot. Most of the lot are soundstages, but there is one New York style street there.

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I’ll come back to our adventure on that street in a minute.

A few soundstages had events going on inside. We sat down at one stage that had a bunch of model airplanes to check out the program for the day (and we wanted to enjoy the air conditioning). We realized that there was a magic show being done by The Magic Castle! So we headed over there and got front row seats for the show. It was a pretty great show! There were two magicians performing and they had some fun tricks (they kept it family friendly since there were so many kids there).

Next, Robert and I got some dinner. There was a huge line at the food court area, so we headed to the back of the lot where there was BBQ.

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You ordered your food and then waited for your name to be called by a very entertaining guy (he kept cheering and high fiving people when they picked up their food).

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After enjoying a nice tri-tip sandwich, we headed back over to the New York street. We wanted to shoot some video back there, and Robert decided (or maybe I convinced him) to download the Vine app. If you don’t know what Vine is, it is a like a video tweet. You get to make a 6 second video on your phone. You hold your finger to the screen when you want to film, and take it away when you don’t (so you edit your video inside the app). We took some pretty funny videos of us being crazy actors on a backlot.

After our video fun, it was time to claim our spot for the fireworks. For those of us who didn’t get $100 tickets (mine was $20), we had to claim a spot on the ground near the parking structure. Those who had expensive tickets had seats on the roof of the parking structure.

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While we waited for the fireworks to start, Robert and I decided to take some fun photos (since there wasn’t enough lighting to do another Vine video).

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(I feel like I look like I only have one front tooth in that bottom picture. As you can see from all my other photos, I have all my teeth.)

Finally, the fireworks started and we had an amazing viewpoint!

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After the fireworks ended, Robert and I waited about 20 minutes for the crowd to clear out of the parking structure before we headed back to our cars. And since we waited, I had almost no trouble getting out of there and getting home!

All in all, I had a pretty amazing day. It’s so nice to get to go out and enjoy a holiday with a friend (and on a backlot which is one of my favorite places to be). I hope that you all had as great of a day yesterday as I did! Now it’s time to go back to reality.

Happy 4th Of July (or Feeling Like A Lady Of Leisure)

Happy 4th of July readers!

I know a lot of my friends are working today (hazards of working day jobs that are convenient for leaving for auditions), but I’m lucky enough to get today off. It’s not really a great day to try to make sales over the phone.

Normally on my days off, I’m pretty heavily scheduled. I have a lot to get done and only one day to do them. But since this is a bonus day off, I’m planning on enjoying it.

As of right now, all I have planned is to go to CBS Radford in Studio City to see the fireworks. I’m also planning on going to spin class, but I haven’t reserved my bike for one yet (still figuring out when I want to go).

It’s nice to have the day off (and I’m trying to keep in mind the reason we are so lucky to have a day like today). And somehow now, I’m able to appreciate the time off much more than I was when I was unemployed. Maybe I’m more grateful for something that I don’t get to do as often?

This is going to be a short post today because I hope you all get to go out and do something fun today (like see some fireworks!). Besides working out and seeing fireworks today, I’m not planning anything else. I’m going to enjoy my time and perhaps watch some bad tv. That sounds like the perfect day off to me!