A Universal Walk of Fame

This was my first time ever going to Universal Sudios, and it was amazing! The weather was perfect yet again (even warmer than the day before, but colder once the sun set). We had a pretty nice walk from the car to the actual park full of shops to see (we didn't go in any of them, we were too exited)



This picture was taken for the sole purpose of showing the gorrilla in the background... do you see it?

As it turns out, they film the show EXTRA Monday through Friday right outside of Universal Studios so we got to be on TV for a little while (no you wont see us, we were on the the begging part the "Coming up on Extra". They don't have clips of that on their website

They wouldn't let us go around the front to take pictures around the front, so this is best I could do. SIDE NOTE: turns out Mario Lopez is super coincided and refers to himself as "chiseled". As in, "Chiseled is ready to do this, let's go". Yeah I know...

So this is where things take a turn for the sad.... (just a little bit). I guess I should set the story up by saying that Julie accidentally forgot to print off the tickets before we left. So we had to wait to get into the park while they got that all taken care off. Well as it turns out... Sean and Catherine (The Bachelor) were there during an interview from Extra! The saddest thing is that we didn't find out until we had been home for about a week and were looking through clips to see if we could try to find ourselves on the show. Check out the video below, do you see Megatron in the background? They were filming a commercial for Universal Studios and that is what we were watching at that moment. Don't worry though, both Julie and I have gone through a very healthy grieving process and we are over it now (or maybe we just realized that life can sometimes be really cruel and got over it)

SpongeBob was just leaving but Nathan asked if he could take a picture with him, when he saw us, he pulled us all in. He just a nice guy

I took this picture solely for my mom. Bettlejuice is one of her favorite movies

One of the coolest things about Universal Studios is the Hollywood Back lot Tour. It is so cool to actually see the places where everything is filmed. It is kind of hard to see in this picture but do you see the water tower in the background? That's the WB water tower... yeah, it actually exits. Julie was super happy when I pointed out to her that is where they film all her favorite CW shows. I think her exact words were "I'm so close to Vampires"

I love him

Grandma Julie always had a sucker ready for him. He loves them almost as much as I hate him to have them. He just gets so messy! But once he has one, you might as well set off a nuclear warhead before taking it away.

They call this there "New York" set. They can turn it into any city street they want

They are actually filming an episode of NCSI right there

Going into "Skull Island" from King Kong. They have a super cool feature of the tour that they call 360 3D. It is super cool (but I wont spoil it)

Biff's car from Back to the Future!

The actual boat from Jurassic Park III. It definitely looks a lot bigger in the movie. By the way... Jurassic Park 4 is coming soon

As soon as I saw this, I recognized it from Big Fat Liar. It is there "flash-flood" set

and it actually flooded for us

This is their "western set"

This is the ship from King Kong. It was really cool because first they showed us a clip of the movie with the finished product and then what it actually looked like as they were filming it

The actual "ocean" and actual shark from Jaws

This is Whoville from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Bates Motel from Psycho. If you look closely at the car, you can actually see Norman Bates stuffing his latest victim in the trunk

The guide told us that if you look closely you can actual see the "Mother" on the house window, but I couldn't find her (or him I guess)

This is the plane wreck from War of the Wolds. Julie was pretty happy when I pointed out that Tom Cruise had walked through here (I love making my mother-in-law happy with random facts)

So the Simpson's Ride was the last ride of the day (this picture was taken ealier that day). It was just a let down for everybody. It was the longest line of the entire park (made possible by the fact that it actually had a line. We walked into everything else). Julie and I stayed with the Little Guy to do rider switch and it took FOREVER and it was freezing! We seriously waited for over 45 minutes. By the time the rest came out, the park was already closed. So we didn't get to ride it, but everyone said it was not worth it anyways (espicially after how awesome the other rides were).

We had lunch at a cafe next to the Jurassic Park ride (which was actually my favorite at Universal Studios). It was pricey, but no where near as expensive as Disneyland

Meeting Megraton. It was really cool because they actually talked and interacted with us. This is him telling me that he doesn't like me because I look like I would be good. He came around after I told him I thought he was super cool and even ended up saying that I would be a better servant than Starscream... that's right... I have an in with the Decepticons

Adam doesn't though, Megatron just did not like him

But really who cares about Megatron... Optimus Prime was there too! The Little Guy didn't know what to make of him. Specially when he was calling him by name

They told us on the Studio Tour that a Despicable Me III is coming soon

Maybe if I stand very still... he wont notice me

I lied in the Disney post... THIS is my favorite picture of the trip

Universal Studios was a blast. I think what made it even more exiting was the fact that no one really knew much about it (Julie and Mark remembered some of the shows but that was it) and so everything was a surprise (specially since all the rides are indoors so you don't even know what is going on from the outside (Jussaric Park is outside, but you still can't see it)). As I said before, my favorite ride was Jurassic Park, Spencer's was the new Transformers ride. In fact, he said that was his favorite of all the parks. I won't spoil the surprise of any of the rides by going into detail, but just those two rides and the Mummy ride alone make Universal Studios worth it... everything else is a bonus. Oh and SIDE NOTE: A Wizarding Wold of Harry Potter is coming 2015! We'll definitely have to go back for that!

When the trip was originally planned, we had set Friday aside as the day we were going to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and also the World Record Museum; (which we actually decided not to go to before the trip after discovering it was actually really lame) but because Julinnana, Mark and Julie went to Disneyland on Friday, we ended up doing the Walk of Fame after Universal Studios (it worked out pretty perfectly since Universal Studios closed at five).

Spencer's favorite actor

Mark teased Spencer and I about sitting on the casting couch together

We had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. Delicious. How crazy is it that we traveled over 600 miles to eat at a restaurant that is about 6 minutes away from my house? One thing's for sure, we will definetly be taking advantage of our close one from now on

After dinner we set out to look at stars. With Julie having down research on it already, we knew we would have to be alert and make sure we all stayed together (let's just say Hollywood Blvd is less than glamorous) We stared heading down to try to see the Neil Patrick Harris star (Adam's favorite) but we the further we went, the yuckier it it all got. We knew we still a couple of blocks away so we decided to turn back (it turns out, we were more actually more than a mile away still, I'm sure glad we didn't walk to it)

Thankfully, my reason for wanting to go to see the Walk of Fame was right next to our car!

And of course we had to take a picture with Stan Lee's star

We were more than a little tired when we got home. It was been a super fun day.