Prepping for Open House

This is it!  We finally got some dates down and decided on an Open House date.  We had to push it back a week just because we weren't quite ready for it.  There was just so much to do still!

The "Coming Soon" signage finally came a week before listing our home the Friday before last (Friday the 13th!):

This guy said that our house will sell quickly for this area.  He puts up a lot of signs so I'm guessing he knows best! :-)

I'm glad the purple flowers are still blooming but it's making such a mess!

Our neighbor decided to put up the continuation of the side fence and it's looks quite good!  I still have to stain the horizontal fence. Maybe this Sunday, but you can't even tell from here that it isn't stained:

In the meantime, the boys are still doing some Production work.  Today, they are being fitted for another TV series:

And they are running down the hallway and I have to tell them to stop being like monkeys.  They obviously didn't realize that they are people that actually work in this building!

As per usual, we are by USC campus for dinner.  Graham and Charlie love this place.  We send them on their own to get their own dessert:

Here's the official flyer for our house.  Yikes, this is really happening!

And here is the description our realtor/friend typed up online:

Omg, how are we going to live up to these expectations when people come by to see the house!??  We better get to it!!  We decided to move moo-moo cow (our cow hide rug) from the dining area down to the sunken living room.  Let's vacuum first:

I'm guessing we are taking turns??!

Folding up our massive rug in the sunken living room. Glad I still remember how to fold these things. They are massive and so heavy!

Hmmm, not sure if moo-moo cow looks very good down here:

I did end up having Bob buy a new cheapy one at Ikea.  Ha!

Next, time to move our massive King size bed.  Glad the boys were able to help out.  And I bought these sliders too to go on the bed's feet.  Thank goodness they worked like a charm!

I'm glad we had smaller side tables so we could still open up this back door:

Okay, not looking like much at the moment but it will have to - in one week's time.  Yikes!!

The next day,... I'm digging through my chocolate (from Mother's Day) for breakfast to get me through the day. LOL!!

And I discover that we have scratched the floor while moving the coffee table around the sunken living room. NOOOOooo...!!!

I don't believe this! More scratches??!

And then, somehow I managed to hurt my thumb.  Oh, I was trying to take apart a badminton net:

And who knew that you actually used your thumb in almost everything that you do.  Ouch!

The professional house cleaners came by on Monday and wiped the entire place down, including windows.  The house is sooooo clean!  Graham and Charlie almost didn't recognize it when they walked through the front door when they came home from school.  Ha ha!

But it's only Monday and we have to keep the house clean until Open House.  That's 5 more days!!  Well, here's a preview of what the Master bedroom looked like for Open House.  See, it was possible to get it all sorted out!

I bought a couple of mirrors as well to hang on the opposite side of the windows.  And my realtor friend liked those too.  It's all coming together!! Fingers crossed!

Fire!

Almost 2 weeks ago now, there was a fire down the street.  Yikes!  It was a bit scary as the wind had started to pick up that afternoon.  It was a brush fire and I was so glad the fire crew were on it pretty quickly.  

We were wondering why there were so many helicopters circling around the area.  It was right during our dinnertime. First one, then two, and then it sounded like another.  And sure enough, it was also the fire crew circling up top dumping water on the fire!

So glad it was only a small fire but you can clearly see the smoke:

Chopper overhead and looks like Charlie isn't even too interested anymore:

You can somewhat see the chopper dump the water in this photo:

It was on the local news!

I wonder if I would have evacuated if that fire was so close to my house.  Literally right next door!

Thankfully the fire was taken care of quickly.  There was no other news on how it had started.  Weirdly enough, we never got any text about the emergency either!

I definitely won't miss these fires in California.  Thank goodness there hasn't been any big ones near us compared to last year, where we would actually get the haze and smoke by the house.  Although, supposedly there's been quite a few tornadoes/storms in Illinois and the surrounding states.  Guess you just can't win them all!

Mother's Day cont.

I had forgotten to take a photo of all the goodies that I had received for Mother's Day.  Here's the loot!

Charlie made me a really pretty card (middle) with all the hearts and lines.  Graham, on the other hand, bought a very cute 3-D pop-up card. He loves that stuff!  And as per usual, Bobby bought me a card that made me cry.  Ha!

There was also a little picnic at Charlie's school - which he totally forgot to tell me about.  Well, I knew about the day but he didn't tell me that it was a picnic and I was suppose to bring food and a book as we were suppose to read some poems together. It was a good thing I was just at the supermarket so I had a red bean bun for him and also some grapes!

We decided not to wait in line to take a photo in front of the balloons, so here it is :-) 

Charlie also created a book of poems for me and he created a portrait of me on the front cover.  I thought I had taken a photo of it but somehow I guess I didn't.  I'll have to share that once I can find the book again.  I've packed a lot of stuff away and can't seem to figure out where I've put anything.  I can't even find my watch!! And that says a lot because I LOVE my watch and would have been a lot more careful with it. Needless to say, I'm so glad that our Open House is over and done with!

Happy Mother's Day

Finally having a chance to post about Mother's Day.  It's already the end of the month!  This month is going by so quickly, especially with the house going up for sale.  It's been so hectic!

I'm glad we were able to celebrate Mother's Day prior to all the craziness.  Bob actually booked a brunch at a city club that was located in downtown Los Angeles.  It is affiliated to the golf course that we recently joined in IL.  Very fancy!

Speaking of fancy, a good friend of mine drove over to the house and dropped off some flowers for me.  So sweet! 

And also speaking of fancy, we all got to dress up and I got to wear my fancy shoes.  Ha ha! 

Gloomy day driving into downtown.  May Gray as they say:

It took us a few extra turns around the building, but we finally did find the correct entry for the underground parking of the Club.  Thank goodness we know where to go once we got up to the escalators :-)

By the way, another new pair of shoes for each boy.  Don't say we don't spoil these boys. Sheesh!

This place is so fancy!

Opportunity for a family we-fie!  I don't remember what floor we are on now.  Hmmmm....

Found our table!

Although, it's right next to the stage and the speaker was blaring quite loudly.  Yikes!

We did tell the manager and the band's manager just turned the speaker slightly away from us.  I was really hoping they would turn down the volume.  In any case, we were still able to have a nice meal:

Although, this complimentary photoshoot was probably my favorite souvenir out of the entire outing.  Love these photos!

Oh wait, the dessert were pretty yummy too so that's probably my 2nd favorite part :-D

We definitely tried to eat our monies worth at the dessert table:

Yummmm....!

The boys did get me a bar of Hersheys chocolate as they know how much I really love that stuff.  NOT!!  Seems to be the trend now for any of these occasions.  Little stinkers!

And still more dessert eating:

Time for coffee.  I love this mug somehow - it has 3 corners to drink from :-)

Another favorite photo!

Although I think they were squinting their eyes for whatever reason.

Here's a view of the skyline:

And a photo of me and Bobby while boys were playing at the Bouncy house.  Ya, they had one of those too!

And check out this wine storage area.  Yikes!

I've never seen one of these before... wine dispenser??!  And you can dispense by the glass or half or what not:

Okay, all done with brunch.  Everyone is leaving with a happy belly :-D  We decided to drive around to Rodeo Drive and see what all the fuss was about that street.  

An art deco building along the way:

They put a Denny's at another interesting art-deco building:

This one was super cool but no idea what it was:

The Academy's building!  So flashy gold!

Here we are... Rodeo Drive!

People are lining up outside the stores as only a certain number of people are allowed at a time. Sheesh, I don't think I would ever do that.  Then again, I don't think I have that amount of money to spend in a fancy store like that. LOL!!

The famous Beverly Hills hotel!  I think it's like $1,000 a night:

There's a park across the street.  That was actually our destination as we wanted to stretch our legs before the drive home:

Come to find out it's actually named after Will Rogers:

And part of this park was originally the entrance into the hotel.  

I love this photo of Graham and Charlie:

Found a raspberry bush on the way out??!

And we bought some fancy dessert too before heading home:

Oh, there was a little hiccup where Daddy thought he had lost his phone.  But it was actually in the car.  Phew!  Looks like Daddy is getting O... L...D...??

Always a success when the boys fall asleep in the car:

Even Graham, and he almost never falls asleep in the car!

What a fun Mother's Day!  It's always great when we can venture out and do something new.  Especially when we're not going to be in LA much longer.  This is probably going to be my toughest move yet!