Welcome Back Kathy!

Continuing the post about our summer visitors . . . 

Natalie left early on Saturday morning (July 7th), the day after Matt and Amy's wedding.  It was sad to see her go; it was the most time we'd spent with her since last summer.  We sure had fun having her stay for two weeks!

On Sunday afternoon, Matt brought Kathy to our apartment after taking Rick to the airport.  

Welcome back Kathy!

At 5:45 a.m. the next morning Matt and Amy picked Kathy and I up on their way to the airport to leave for their honeymoon.  We were very thankful that we didn't have to rent a car.  Kathy was a pro driving the stick shift;  I'm not as much of a pro with driving directions; we got lost on our way back to the apartment.  Little did we know that it was a start to a very interesting day and long day.

Our first stop:  Graystone Mansion in Beverly Hills

Here's a list of all the movies that have been filmed there:

Our next stop was The Grove to see Extra being taped.

Mario Lopez

Maria Menounos

We then walked over to The Farmers' Market for lunch and enjoyed some delicious mediterranean food.

We returned to see the interview with George Hamilton.

We drove by The Ivy in Beverly Hills, a spot known for star spotting but for some reason we decided not to stop- maybe it was the unavailable street parking.  We returned home to tend to Walter and relax a bit.

We had already eaten a light dinner, but just wanted to get out so we decided to go to The Ivy in Santa Monica.  Again, there was no street parking anywhere and we were unwilling to pay for valet parking.   I remembered that I had a Groupon for a restaurant in Beverly Hills, so that's where we went.  I texted Steve to let him know where we were and this is the response I received:

Steve:  Ok.  Police helicopter has been circling for hours
Me:  How are you?
Steve:  A gunman is loose in the Oakwood complex.  Police told everyone to stay in their apartments.  Call when you are finished.
Me:  Oh my.  Be safe.  Keep me posted.
Steve:  Ok

Kathy and I got so tickled, but it doesn't take much for us to laugh.  We asked our waiter how long we could stay and told him what was going on.  He looked at us like we were crazy.  I forgot that we were in L.A. and this probably happens all the time.  We weren't very hungry either; we had already eaten so we had a lot of time to spare.

Later  at 9:45 . . .

Me:  Any news?  We are done if we can come home.
Steve:  We are in lock down.  No one in and no one out.  Police have not advised when anyone can come in.  Maybe you and Kathy should go to a movie.
Me:  Hmmm

The thought of going to a movie was exhausting, remember we had been up since 5:30 a.m.  We didn't have any other options other than to get a hotel room (since Kathy was unwilling to sleep in Matt's car) so we found a movie theater.  Before parking, I called Steve who said that the police were letting people in and out with ID's.  We were quite relieved that we could go home and thankful that Steve would meet us in the parking garage.

We never did hear anything about it on the news.  The talk around the apartment was that there had been a confrontation in a restaurant nearby and a man pulled a gun.   He then took off and jumped the secure gate into our apartment complex.  No one was ever apprehended- he probably lives here : )