Friday, January 25, 2013

Los Angeles Museums - Free for All (Jan. 26th & 27th)

In a joint effort to present the arts and culture to the diverse and myriad communities in Southern California, the Museum Marketing Roundtable announces the eighth annual ‘Museums Free-For-All’ Saturday January 26th and Sunday January 27th. The museums—presenting art, cultural heritage, natural history, and science—will open their doors and invite visitors free of charge.*

Annenberg Space for Photography - Both Days
The Autry - Both Days
California African American Museum - Both Days
California Science Center** - Both Days
Craft and Folk Art Museum - Sunday, January 27th ONLY
Fowler Museum at UCLA - Both Days
Hammer Museum - Both Days
The Getty Center - Both Days
The Getty Villa*** - Both Days
Los Angeles County Museum of Art**** - Sunday, January 27th ONLY
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) - Both Days
Museum of Latin American Art - Both Days
The Museum of Tolerance***** - Sunday, January 27th ONLY
Pacific Asia Museum - Sunday, January 27th ONLY
The Paley Center for Media - Both Days
Pasadena Museum of California Art - Sunday, January 27th ONLY
Santa Monica Museum of Art - Saturday, January 26th ONLY
Skirball Cultural Center****** - Both Days
University Art Museum, CSULB - Both Days*******


*Regular parking fees apply. General museum admission only. May not apply to ticketed exhibitions.
**Timed tickets are required to see the Endeavour exhibition. Please visit www.californiasciencecenter.org.
***Timed tickets are required. Visit www.getty.edu.
****Offer valid for general admission only. Does not apply to specially ticketed exhibitions Caravaggio and His Legacy and Stanley Kubrick.
***** Advance reservations are recommended as capacity is limited. Please see www.museumoftolerance.com for hours and ticket information.
******Timed-entry tickets to the Noah’s Ark at the SkirballTM galleries will be on a walk-up, first-come, first-served basis on these dates, subject to availability.
*******The University Art Museum will only be open for an opening reception from 6-8pm on Saturday, January 26.

When: Saturday, January 26th and/or Sunday, January 27th (see exact dates per institution above)
Public information: www.museumsla.org

The Museum Marketing Roundtable (MMR) brings together the diverse museum marketing community of Los Angeles to raise awareness, increase visitation, and membership in museums in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The MMR provides opportunities to leverage our collective strengths, using institutional cooperation as a means to expand our reach to potential visitors. The MMR provides individual members opportunities for learning and personal interaction to enhance communication and marketing skills.   

Monday, January 21, 2013

Papa John's FREE Pizza



 
 
Through February 2nd, vote heads or tails to win a FREE pizza in the Papa John's Super Bowl coin toss. If you made the right call during the Super Bowl XLVII Coin Toss, you win a FREE 1-Large Topping Pizza! Code will be emailed to winners on 2/4/13.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

LACMA - Free Family Day

We went to the LACMA Museum to participate in the free Andell Family Sundays program.  We arrived just a few minutes before a family friendly museum tour was about to start.  The tour was on French ceramics and was really engaging for children.  Our guide was very friendly and asked each of the children to talk about what French ceramic pieces they liked the best and why.  He told them what different pieces were used for, how it was made and about the designs of them.  The 20 min. tour concluded with some sketch paper to draw your favorite piece.

After the tour, we found a couple art projects to make, such as your own pottery made from magic modeling clay and a paper vase to make a collage from magazine cut outs and pastels.  They also had this hanging plastic noodle type exhibit that the kids enjoyed playing in.  The kids learned some interesting things about French ceramic art and had fun making their own.


 

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Community Center and Shoplifting at the Goodwill

Our local community center had its grand opening today; so we checked it out.  The girls got to paint  tiles that will be used to make tile art on the wall of the center.  They also had a fun giant sized game that covered the wall.  When it flashed lights, kids in teams would take turns hitting the lights to get points.  Different rounds were played to hit lights with their hands, a Styrofoam noodle, and a basketball.  The girls really enjoyed this game and would like to come back to play more. 

We then went to the local library to read to dogs.  Since my youngest LOVES dogs, she likes to visit and read to them.  When we got there, all the slots were taken to read to them; so we left and continued with the rest of our errands.  The Read to the Dog program happens almost every weekend; so there is always an opportunity to read to them.

My oldest is doing a book report where she has to dress up as the person she is doing the report on.  Now I have to spend money on some costume that she will never wear again. Her report character is Marie Curie; so all I needed to really find is a long sleeved black dress that came down to the ankles.  We checked out a few places including a Goodwill; but it was either to expensive or they didn't have what we were looking for.  We went to the 2nd Goodwill that just opened up and found a long, long sleeved black dress in size 8.  My daughter tried it on and it fit perfect!  It was only $4! We were so excited. While she was trying on the dress, my youngest got a bloody nose in the store.  It was like a faucet leak and hubby didn't have any tissues or know where the bathroom was.  He just grabbed whatever piece of clothing was next to him to stop the bleeding and clean up my daughter.  He then took her to the car with the clothing article without paying.  He told me this after we got home.  Do we take a bloody $1 shirt back to the Goodwill to pay for it or just let it slide? 

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Sky City and The Autry Museum

Sky City bounce house had their 1st annual kids day event where the kids got to bounce for free.  We got there 30 min after they opened there and there was already a waiting list to bounce.  We waited about 20 min in a small room with a bunch a rug rats before it was time to go in.  Since it was free, there were several families with 4 or 5 kids waiting to get in as free entrance for all those kids was like gold.  The girls had fun bouncing for about 45 min. when we decided to leave to go to the Autry Museum.

We went home, quickly made some lunch to go and left for the Autry.  On the 1st Sunday of each month is Family Day and Indian Heritage day.  Since my oldest is very interested in Indians from learning about them in school, I thought this would be a fun "field trip" for her.  And if you have a Bank of America credit card, show it to the cashier and each person  who has the card gets free admission.  So, hubby and I got free admission and the girls were $4 each.  We spent 3 hours there playing an Indian game with moccasin shoes and a large marble type ball, listening to an Indian play music, listening to a Chumash Indian tell stories, making an Indian necklace and learning about different artifacts.  The museum also has a special play area for kids to pretend play in a Japanese house which then goes to a pretend Japanese restaurant.  The girls had a lot of fun "cooking" and serving with some other kids.  Hubby and I were the guests and ate some delicious cuisine from our little chefs.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Snow Day

The girls had enjoyed going up to the snow last year; so we planned to take them to Wrightwood again today.  I am not a big fan of the snow.  In fact, I dread going; but the girls love it, so we go.  We checked the snow stats on their local blog and it looked like a good day to go.  A storm was coming the next day; so we took our chances of the area being crowded today.  We got up there and the crowds were in their usual terrible spots off the road.  We always go to the campground at the top where there is a lot more space, is less crowded and nice slopes for the kids to sled down.  We got our $5 parking pass at the local store and stopped at the camp site to play. 

The girls took turns going down the small slope on their sled, attempted to make a snowman and had a snowball fight with daddy.  They know better to not throw snow balls at me.  We are there for 30 min. and my feet are already frozen and I'm ready to go.  We then moved on to a bigger slope and I was able to stick it out in the freezing weather for another 45 min.  By this time my feet were numb regardless of the 2 pairs of socks and boots I was wearing. 

 I took notice of another family who was there adapting to the cold.  It looked like they had been there the whole day. They had made a bunch of top Ramon noodles and stored it in a large cardboard box that was so hot, steam was coming out. How I wished I could have thawed out with some hot soup or hot chocolate. They also made a snow tower to use as an ice chest where they had stored their drinks.  As if the cold weather didn't keep it cold enough.  Hubby and I were turning into icicles and one of the girls was hungry so it was time to go home. The girls had fun and I had fun watching them have fun.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Free Bowling

Since we participated in the free kids bowling program in the summer, we received an email for free bowling during Christmas break.  We took advantage of that promotion today and took the girls to play 2 free games.  We just paid for their shoe rental which was $3.75 each.  My 5 year old really improved since summer as she got scores that were close to my 8 year old's scores.  She even won one of the games which made her so happy.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy New Year 2013!

Hello 2013!

The to do list for today was clean house and put away Christmas decorations.  My oldest was very sad to see Christmas go and really wanted to have at least the tree to stay up just until New Year's was over, so I agreed.  I did enough cleaning, I didn't have time to do the tree anyway.

We also went to see Wreck It Ralph at the cheap movie theatre, The Regency, in North Hollywood.  On Sundays and Tuesdays, tickets are $1.50 each. The line was going around the theatre and didn't think there would be enough seats for us.  Everyone was going to see this movie.  We were next and they didn't turn us away.  We got all of our tickets for just $6!  We entered the theatre and it was packed.  I have never seen this theatre this full before.  We found some seats toward the front; but was not so bad you had to look straight up and have a neck injury after the movie.  My girls got intrigued by the trailers because it has a candy land in the movie.  We told them, they would probably see that for about 5 min. then it would done.  We were wrong.  The candy land part was for almost half the movie and the girls LOVED it.  It was a really good movie.

After the movies, we went to Red Robin for dinner.  It's my oldest favorite place and we took advantage of the $5 bonus gift card when you buy a $25 gift card or more promotion.  We got there at 6:45 and read the hours on their sign that said they would be closing at 7:00.  Pretty strange they would close during dinner hour. We didn't think they would seat us; but they did.  It was pretty crowded in there too.  Our server was super friendly and even asked if my daughter wanted more mac and cheese dinner.  She gave her another dinner and more apple slices to my youngest.  I'm not sure if they do that all the time as we never had been asked if we wanted more dinner at any place before.  I just think they were trying to get rid of there food since they were closing.  My daughter didn't finish the second helping and got to take it home for lunch.