well, it's been awhile!! please forgive me, as a couple important things have happened in the past two months of my blogging hiatus: parker and i got married, went on our honeymoon, and are now roomies in our lovely new apartment! needless to say, but i've been just a little busy...

more photos from those events later, but for now...let's talk more about YOPLAIT!

after winning third place in the MOFilm contest to create an ad for yoplait, parks and i were awarded a budget for film equipment, which we used to buy a camera (that's called reinvesting in our careers, folks). MOFilm and the yoplait team also personally extended us the offer of flying us to NYC for the MOFilm awards events and partnered events with the TriBeCa film festival. So, after a restful 48 hours at home in LA after getting back from hawaii...we flew off to the east coast for 3 days in the big apple...



as soon as we landed, we were rushed to our hotel (the tribeca grand), where we did a quick wardrobe change into "smart casual" and popped down to a MOFilm mixer. let me tell you: for those three days they treated us right! wined and dined, meet and greets with MOFilm/Yoplait/major brand's marketing chiefs, and even a Q&A session with susan sarandon (who was there to encourage brand partnerships with important social causes.




we screened the very creative winning commercials from the NY MOFilm competition (ours was actually entered into the previous Barcelona contest, so it wasn't shown here), and we even voted on the grand prize winner out of the first places from each brand. we had a great time networking with all the marketing people and befriending the MOFilm executives (who are all super personable), and the fellow young filmmakers, who we look forward to keeping in touch with!

see the top tribeca videos here (lamasil was the overall winner):
http://www.mofilm.com/competitions/tribeca2010


the next day, we met with the yoplait marketing team, a couple of their agency's creatives, and the other 2 teams who made the 1st and 2nd place yoplait commercials. the yoplait team was so complimentary of our spot, and immediately recognized us as "jane" and "fiance," which was fun! they were so interested in hearing the back story of how we came up with the ad, our real-life relationship, the film's tiny budget, etc. they also talked about how to use all these viral ads and fresh ideas in the future for this brand and others. we feel like there's definitely a new wave of advertising/creative filmmaking/young filmmakers beginning, and this experience made us really a part of it.

that evening, MOFilm sent us to the premiere at TriBeCa of a film called "Beware the Gonzo." not my favorite new movie, but it was fun to see, and the acting was actually pretty good. the most fun part for us was the whole experience, though, because we actually walked the real red carpet, spent time in the green room, and attended the after party with the cast and MOFilm people!!! check out all the photos!!! we just ate it all up!

new york newlyweds

morgan and pia: 1st place yoplait team from australia


the paps loved us! haha:





we mingled with some of the actors at the after party...

i told jesse mccartney how i still unashamedly listen to his pop hit "beautiful soul:"


judah friendlander from 30 rock:


we're both very excited about the prospects of working with MOFilm and it's amazing brands in the near future, and are already brainstorming some new commercial ideas! so look out for those hopefully soon. it's great to have an outlet for our creativity and a product to show for it in the end!

well friends, it is FINALLY summer! as i said in the last post, there's some crazy magical LA force that changes overnight when june turns into july. and it did not waver this year. it's now sunny as can be, as i'm typing here in beautiful venice, california. i'm spending the day doing some housekeeping things and recuperating from an amazing, albeit busy weekend. i'm sure you all are in similar boats, as most of you probably had fun plans celebrating independence day!

let's have a weekend recap!

fourth of july

i love being in a place that is amply large enough to host a big party. we had about 50 of our collective friends over on the fourth, and grilled out, played games, ate waaay too much food, and then walked to venice beach to watch fireworks. it turned out to be a huge success! here are pics of my gorgeous roomies, and of parker and me:





sunday night
we had almost forgotten about our plans for sunday night, but luckily not totally! a group of friends and i went to the hollywood bowl (an incredible outdoor amphitheater venue in the heart of hollywood) to see a death cab for cutie concert. it was spectacular!! the opening bands were entertaining, and then death cab performed alone and then with the la philharmonic, which was so awesome! the best song in my opinion, was tranatlanticism (one of my favorites of theirs anyway...), but with 19,000 people outside among the hills and trees in complete silence, mesmerized by the light displays, rocking music, and even surprise fireworks--oh man, it was awesome! here are some pictures:







as always, even though things in the career realm are driving on at a regular SLOW pace...i continue to feel blessed by so many things in life. my wonderful ladies that i work/write with are still doing well, and provide enough money to pay the bills (i seriously always scrape by, by the grace of God!) and free time to enjoy the rest of this season of my life. my new home and roomies are also still such a blessing. and of course, my other friends and family are increasingly wonderful, and i still love living in la and enjoying what it has to offer--from free concerts on the santa monica pier in the summer, to the neighborhood organic coffee place, to my sunny, flower-filled back porch--i wouldn't change a thing. as for career, though, i do have an audition for an improv troupe this week, which should be fun, so we'll see! consider my fingers forever crossed...

CELEB sighting: on our way back from fireworks on the 4th. just standing on a corner in venice, we passed none other than hilarious comedian norm macdonald (my favorite role of his is as turd ferguson on snl's jeopardy!! "it's funny. it's a big hat. it's bigger than normal.") he was just chillin out, celebrating america's freedom, even though he's canadian i believe...not gonna lie, though, norm was lookin old! and scruffy! i think he was in town for his recent appearance on the tonight show with conan.



and for a final random fun couple of pics...these were just from a game night with our friends matt and alana, but if you ever want to take funny pictures just shake your head back and forth and you'll get some of these little gems! doesn't it look like we're really taking a hard punch?!? (p.s. i promise matt and alana are actually both beautiful!)





what a lovely end to a post...

hello all!

not too much to report, actually, but i just felt like it'd been far too long since i'd last posted. la has been a bit overcast in the past month, a season known to angelinos as "june gloom."

i wish i had pictures of this to show you, but i haven't gotten them yet. we had a sunny saturday this past weekend, and luckily got to go for a nice long hike up in malibu and then a picnic trip to el matador beach with friends. i've actually been on a couple hikes lately, another one that was a three hour hike at temescal canyon with my friend alana. i've always heard that many celebrities hike in the canyons for exercise, and we actually ran past sal masakela, the host of E!'s daily ten. funny enough, he was one of the first celebs i saw when i came out to la. so this was my second encounter with him.



other than that, i've been working, going to acting class, and just overall enjoying life. i've been settling into my new house, which i'm loving! having my own room is such a blessing. and my roommates are becoming quick friends. here's a picture of the beginnings of my new room (with decor help from my missouri friends when they were here for a visit):



i've had a few auditions lately, hand modeling and acting, and a couple opportunities with some agents that my acting coach recommended. i feel very grateful, as always, to be doing what i'm doing where i'm doing it. below are a couple pictures i took one day walking back from an audition. not a bad commute, right?

after a long day of shooting yesterday (look for another post very soon, with photos and behind-the-scenes details of my film, "love naturally"), i went to night church at mosaic with parker and friends. due to a celebration downtown, church was "on location" at the key club on sunset in hollywood. so, after church, we went to a little hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurant just down the street called el compadre. unbeknown to us...this restaurant must be a haunt for the actor crowd, because in our short dinner, we saw three name actors!! crazy, that might be an off-set record!

1) Leslie Bibb--The Skulls, Popular, Iron Man, Talladega Nights, Confessions of a Shopaholic



2) Sam Rockwell (also at the booth with Leslie Bibb. I recognized him, but didn't know his name. Thanks to Johnny for that!)--Charlie's Angels, Frost Nixon, etc.



3) Daniel Franzese--Mean Girls



again, these celeb sightings don't happen thaaat often. it's just right place, right time, so if you come to la in hopes of that, it doesn't always happen! maybe someday, people will say, "ooo, is that lauren parrent?!" :) here's to hoping!!

i was just about to try and come up with a catchy, clever title for this post, and as i signed into blogger, i noticed it said i had 99 posts! so that makes this very post my big ONE HUNDREDTH! i feel like that is a milestone worth noting, right? kind of a big deal. a nice, even number at least. i'll sing a song of centennial celebration and pretend that i have streamers and noisemakers and i'll even throw a little imaginary confetti in the air. woo hoo! congrats to "for your consideration" for having such a great run so far! and thanks to all you dedicated readers, of course, for making me want to keep writing :)

so...now that that's taken care of! i actually have quite a meaty post!!

the biggest news of the day was an unexpected celeb sighting! on our way to our usual tuesday night book club (see more below), karla and i were driving up wilshire through beverly hills (same ole, same ole, right?). i rolled the window down, looked out at a restaurant called "the blvd," and said to karla "i just love beverly hills..." and right at this exact moment--we were stopped at a light--i saw ryan seacrest sitting outside at one of the cafe tables!! he was in a suit and looking very tan! i've since been informed by my american idol fan friends that he must have had just left tonight's taping of the show to be there for dinner at the time we saw him. what a busy guy! but, a pretty cool sighting--pop culture relevant, at least!



so back to life before seacrest...as you may already know, i meet weekly in a small group with my girlfriends that we fondly call "book club." we all go to church together, and our little gathering has morphed from just a group of friends to now a sort of bible study. tonight, however, we had two members missing, so the four remaining girls decided to meet up for dinner at a restaurant in hollywood called "toast." it's a trendy little bakery that's evidently been featured on shows like the hills, and often a hot spot hit up by some celebs. the food was yum (which i love! do i post about food too much? lol). i even had a mini red velvet cupcake (one of their specialties) for dessert. it was tasty, with mmm mmm good cream cheese icing (although, not even in the same league as my grandmom's red velvet cake!). here are mj, karla, ali, and me at toast.





after dinner at toast, we decided to head to the grove--an outdoor shopping area that's super cute, and often a prime location for celeb-spotting. we've been having a heat wave in southern cal the past few days, so the nights have been retaining some of the warmth, which made it a lovely evening to stroll along outside with the gals. we decided it couldn't be a legitimate book club meeting without a book, so naturally we stopped in at barnes and noble to pick one out. i know it's a slight departure from our usual read, but it was clearly endorsed by "parker," so...



that's all for now. check back for an update soon about my role as darlene in the student film. i've been collecting photos from on the set, so hopefully after this weekend, i'll have a lot to blog about...shooting is going well so far!!

alright, bedtime. parrent, out!

hello faithful readers! i have a good friend, ali, here in la, who is also a fellow blogger. although she's not in the industry, she's a transplant from the midwest, too, and so she often writes about her experiences of living in la.

she's going out of town this coming weekend, and asked me to be a guest blogger on her blog, fun!! so...check out her site, and i think my post (which is pretty fun--it's about seeing celebs at church...) will be up this thursday!

her blog is: http://ali-in-la.blogspot.com/

enjoy!!

i've been very fortunate to learn about many new musical artists since moving to la. i have friends who are pretty tuned into the indie scenes of many genres, and i'm learning a lot. along with funny concerts like hanson, i've gotten to see bands like mates of state (love 'em!), anathallo, gavin degraw, and of montreal. i'm forewarning you that this post is a sappy homage to an new favorite artist of mine...so if you're a music connoisseur, enjoy. otherwise, read at your own risk.




i'm completely taken by andrew bird. (a musician i saw in concert last night) i was just recently introduced to his music, and luckily listened to some of it during the week before the show, so i felt somewhat familiar. but, i had no true idea what i was in for.

we arrived in downtown la, at the orpheum theater. it was spectacularly ornate, and i was immediately nostalgic for days when they actually built theaters like this.




a band called loney deer (yes, loney) opened, and they were great. i'd recommend checking them out. then andrew came on, and i was blown away. i was enthralled, captivated. i just sat there, letting the music surround me, and basked in it. he is the definition of reaching potential. nothing i could write even comes close to describing it. it was by far one of the best concerts i've ever been to, if not performances as a whole. andrew bird's voice was flawless. the harmonies between him and his band made me ache. he whistled like no one i've ever heard, and played the guitar, violin, and incorporated looping, which was so organic and fantastic.

stringed instruments have always been my favorite. i played the violin as a child, and i suppose i feel a certain emotional connection to the strings. to see the amber hued light illuminating the broken hair of the bow, the bursts of rosin clouding the warm golden air--UH!!! so much passion.

it was inspirational. i wanted to write love letters and travel and experience life. i felt spurred to create something beautiful--something that matters. isn't it funny that music can move a person to feel such things? :) it was just a phenomenal evening.

a less mushy sidenote: tally up two more celeb sightings at the show.

1) james spader--80s heartthrob, boston legal star. i saw him in the lobby before the show.



2) jake mcdorman--"evan chambers" from the tv show greek--saw him after the show, just chillin outside with a group of his friends...



it seems i always spot male celebrities, never the women...what's that about...? oh well, i guess all of us la chicas look so similar with out over-sized glasses, they'd be hard to spot...

ok, have a great day, take care, and check out andrew bird--you won't be disappointed!

i had the greatest v-day, how was yours?! this post is probably going to end up being one big brag on my boyfriend, parker, which is sort of rare (not the bragging-i gush about him all the time!), since i don't like to post a ton about my really personal life on here, and make it, well, less "personal." but i suppose valentine's day is a good excuse as any to gush, right? :)

parks and i had tossed ideas back and forth about what to do for v-day, and never really landed on anything. we both felt like we didn't want to buy into the over-the-top, ridiculously expensive and extravagant consumerized version of v-day. it seems so silly and frivolous to spend three times as much money on going out to dinner one night when you could do the same thing the next day for so much less. ok, i'll stop preaching. anyway, so we decided on getting up and going to breakfast, with no other plans for the day.

it was great. i put on a hoodie and no makeup and we headed down to main street in santa monica for delish omelettes at the omelette parlor. the weather was sunny and crisp, which we got to enjoy from the back, ivy-covered patio. having no schedule at all, we decided to go for a walk on the venice canals, which are so quaint with an eclectic variety of houses, gondolas, beautiful flowers, and footbridges. it was lovely. then we made a couple pit-stops before hopping in the car to head up the coast and attempt to go to the getty villa (a museum by the same guy as "the getty"). they were filled to capacity, i guess all the valentine's lovahs had beat us there. since we were on a spontaneous kick, though, we just hit the PCH again, going north, enjoying time for conversation and the gorgeous sunny day on the coast. we stopped off at point dume, a rocky beach north of malibu, where we got out an hiked lightly for a bit. then we settled on the rocks for awhile and watched the sunset.







with the sun gone, the chill night air prompted us to head back to the car. as we made our way back down the dirt trail, we happened to have another little celeb sighting! we passed emilio estevez (and his either fiance or wife, i'm not sure)!! i was so tempted to start chanting "quack, quack, quack!" but, i didn't want to ruin their peaceful valentine's date ;)



by this point, our stomachs were growling, so we decided to head back south to grab burgers at this restaurant called father's office. i'd heard of their amazingness, but had never eaten there. it's a casual place, so it wasn't busy due to the holiday. we got right in, and i experienced literally the best burger of my life. please make the trip here just to have this burger. i'm not kidding. my mouth is watering just thinking about it right now. ok i'll move on...after you see this picture (see, this place is so good, someone else had posted this online--i didn't take this)



oh i forgot to mention, that parker brought me flowers and an adorable stuffed bear that he had dressed like him, all the way down to his little chucks! so cute. he's such a catch, may i just broadcast that for a second?! not because of the gifts or anything, just he's amazing :)

after dinner, we got pinkberry--yum as always--and then rented a movie. unfortunately, this was the one negative thing about the day (but the day was so amazing, it definitely didn't even leave a tarnish at all). we watched nick and norah's infinite playlist, which i do NOT recommend. just didn't really like it. but eh, you can't love 'em all, i suppose.

anyway...it was the perfect valentine's day for me. low-key, spontaneous, active, and of course, with parker. i would have gladly just sat around with him all day, done nothing, and been just as happy :)

hope yours was equally as good, and i'd love to hear your gushes too!

i've decided i'm going to blog more. a lot of times i feel like i wait around for something really exciting to happen before i write a post, then it ends up being very rare that i blog. i'm not saying i'm going to scrap all quality for the sake of quantity, but i think there are little overlooked tidbits from my life that might actually be interesting to read!

with that in mind...let's talk celebrity sightings! when people talk to me about living in la, they often ask about what celebrities i see around town. they're usually surprised to discover that real life is not like the tabloids, where celebs are seen all over the place, 24/7. i mean, i've seen a few--some on set (tom selleck, josh duhamel, christina applegate), some in real life (rachel dratch, ellen pompeo, tom arnold)-- however, in the past two weeks, i actually had a couple legitimate celebrity sightings!

probably my best sighting yet was this sunday night. i was leaving the 3rd street promenade, walking back to my car, and i crossed a crosswalk with only one other person in it. guess who it was! only one of my very favorite actors--tom hanks! yeah, really! pretty sweet, right? we made eye contact, and i was very tempted to say "you're a great actor; i love your work!" slyly, under my breath. anyway, i was thrilled; i mean, he's a big movie star!!



a few nights earlier, my roomie and i went to blockbuster to rent a movie. as we were waiting in line, in walks devon sawa. now, if you're not a girl about my age, this may not mean much to you. if you ARE...you may be slightly freaking out right now. devon sawa was a 90s heartthrob, who acted in movies like now and then, casper, little giants, and final destination. let me just say--he looked exactly the same as he did back then! it was truly a blast from the past!



this one isn't quite as recent, but a month or so ago, i saw emile hirsch in pinkberry. he looked the same as on the big screen, except he was a lot shorter than i expected. just a little bit taller than me, actually. (devon was pretty short, too. they always are...)




speaking of emile hirsch...this week i got to watch milk (which he's in) and the reader. i saw the curious case of benjamin button and slumdog millionaire in theaters, so now i'm just one frost/nixon short of seeing all the academy award nominees for best picture this year. i don't think i've gotten to see so many of the nominees before, and i'm really grateful that i did this year, because i found them all to be inspiring. it would be tough to vote on a winner. of the four i've seen, i think i liked the reader and slumdog millionaire the best. but, i recommend all of them!

ok, that's all for now. check back for more hopefully sooner than later!