Field Trip To L.A. Fabric District

Today Queen Debbie, Carol N, and Joy are making our annual field trip to the L.A. Fashion/Fabric District to purchase yards and yards of colorful fleece to make into blankets for Boy's Republic.  Making these blankets is one of our outreach projects, and we really enjoy taking this trip to L.A. each year and then getting together on another day with the rest of the ladies to cut and tie the fleece into blankets.  The boys will receive these blankets at Christmastime, and they are a lasting symbol that people love and care about them.  

We drove directly to our favorite store . . .

Fleece Time, located at 839 S. Wall St.

Inside the store, there are so many wonderful prints to choose from, it always takes us a really long time to pick the very best ones for the boys . . .

So many to choose from . . . . it's overwhelming

The young guy who works in the store is so patient with us, and
he carefully cuts and folds our selections

Do we have enough?

After he bagged everything up,
he even toted it all to the car for us.

All loaded up!

Picking out fleece makes girls hungry, so we walked over to . . .

El Pollo Loco for a quick lunch

Soon we will all get together for a work party to cut and tie our beautiful pieces of fleece into wonderful, soft and warm blankets for the boys.  Hope to see you there!

Pageant of Our Lord - 2016

We loved this performance so much the first two times we saw it, we were really excited when Queen Carol N invited us to see it again.  So we headed to Rolling Hills Covenant Church in Rolling Hills Estates to see this years' edition.  One of the best parts of the day is to go into the "make-up room" to watch some of the performers getting ready . . .  

The "Make-Up Room"

It's so interesting to get a little peak behind the scenes

And as always, everyone is so welcoming and gracious, ready to pose for pictures and talk about how their make-up is applied . . .

Joy, Debbie, Queen Carol N, Seema & Chris
making a few new friends

And a few more

Leslie made a friend too

The Devil!
Just before the performance, it was really
cool to witness "the devil" leading the rest
of the actors in prayer

This little girl was so sweet,
you could just feel her excitement
and how much fun she was having

His eyes are actually closed, and the
eyeballs are painted on his eyelids . . .
that way he can hold his eyes open
for the whole time his art piece is on display

So much fun to learn a few "tricks of the trade".  There is a lot of skill and artistry that goes into this production - no wonder it is so amazing.

It was almost time for the performance to start, so we hurried inside to find our seats . . .

Joy, Queen Carol N. Seema, Debbie, Carol L, Dixie, Leslie & Chris
Ready and eager for the show to begin

Pageant of Our Lord

The whole performance is totally amazing.  There is a full orchestra, a 60+ voice choir, two narrators, and countless actors who blend seamlessly into the various art pieces that are depicted - all are scenes from the Bible, and most depict portions of Jesus' life.  This year they asked that no photographs be taken during the performance, and we totally respected that request.  (Check out the blog post from March 17, 2013, to see some of the art pieces - we were allowed to take photos back then). Believe me when I say it is totally awesome, inspirational, spectacular, and something everyone should see, at least once . . . . two or three times is even better.

We weren't the only Red Hat group that loves this show . . . . we found some Red Hat sisters who were only too happy to take photos with us . . .

We just love finding Red Hat sisters when we are out and about

We had to take one more
in front of the beautiful bell tower

We found this really cool stone in front of the church

After the show we drove over to TGI Fridays for a delicious lunch and some great conversation and laughter.

Lunch at TGI Friday's

Another really fun and uplifting day.  Thank you, Queen Carol N, for a wonderful experience.