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Dress the kids in costume and come on over to the Mar Vista Farmers’ Market for the Halloween Festival. You can enjoy some gluten-free goodies while you watch the costume contest and family dance jam (i don’t know what this, but it sounds quite exciting). The market, on Grandview and Venice, starts at 9am and ends at 2. I’ll see you there!
I’ve never been on a studio lot before, so I was thrilled to be invited to the “Got Milk” Halloween party at Paramount Studios. And I could bring my kids, an extra coup because it happened on Tuesday, the day we struggle for activities because my kindergartener gets out early.
We braved the off and on rain (which in L.A. people treat like a hurricane) to get to Paramount. After driving in the wrong gate (why did you go the wrong way mom? Why mom? Why?) we checked in. I quickly changed my boys from mild mannered school children into Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader then we walked past the giant fake sky to find the party.<
And what a party it was. A giant spider made of balloons was fastened to the entrance. Fall trees that looked like they came right out of When Harry Met Sally graced in the inside of the tent, which was decorated with hay barrels and pumpkin balloons. The kids trick or treated down a street lined with brownstones (soundstages inside, I think), which were done up like Martha Stewart designed them herself. There were kids in costume and mom bloggers everywhere. Oh, and Angie Harmon.
Which brings me to why we were there. Angie Harmon is the new Got Milk? Mom and her new ad was pretty cute. It’s a shot by Annie Liebowitz (I hope they paid her lots of money! Get your pictures back, woman) of Harmon with her three girls. I was a little worried about my boys ability to listen quietly long enough for the presentation.
Angie Harmon (who is stunningly beautiful by the way) started talking just as my older boy droped his white chocolate covered brownie-on-a-stick on the floor covered with hay. He looked at me and his lip started quivering and he said “Mommy! Mommy!” Hold it together, I told him. Hold it together while the famous
lady is talking. Tears started welling in his eyes. Finally, I told him I would get him another one and he wiped his tears away and nodded that he would be ok.
After the presentation we took pictures, ate junk food, and stocked up on milk products. Chocolate milk is the official (according to the Got Milk? campaign) drink of Halloween. The only disappointing thing was that my son picked up a four pack of Nestle 100 calorie chocolate milk with no sugar added (they drank and loved the sugar chocolate milk minutes after we arrived). Instead of sugar it had sucralose and acesulfame potassium, artificial sweeteners that I don’t let my 4 and 5 year old consume. It was gluten-free, the bottle said, but why would it have gluten in it anyway? (Don’t get me started on the wheat starch in the Trader Joe’s Halloween Gummy Candy.)
All in all it was a really fun day and my kids were asking to go back tomorrow. And to add to my brush with Hollywood I did see another semi-famous person walking to his car. I don’t know who it was, but I’ve seen him do a guest spot on Entourage. You see famous people at Starbucks here in Los Angeles, but for some reason it was pretty exciting to see one at a studio. I’m a dork.