3 Kids and a Rainbow: California

Last weekend was the NAMM show in Anaheim that Pete attends every year. This year I finally got to tag along! We really wanted to take the kids along, but it was quite cost prohibitive, so they stayed home with Grammie. By all accounts they had a fine time and so did we!
NAMM is the National Association of Music Merchants. There was lots of great stuff to see. Who knew there was such a need for electronic accordions?

This is the outside of the convention center. People were staying in all of the different hotels nearby, so there was lots of milling about in the sun.

On Friday Mr. Henry Rollins visited the Shure booth. I got to shake his hand and say hello to him. He was quite personable.

Here's a picture of Pete and I with our convention show badges and lots of palm trees.

Later on Friday I struck out on my own. As I walked down this sidewalk there was a fence to my right. Disneyland was right on the other side. I could smell it. I missed the kids.

I spent a few hours in Downtown Disney. This is an area that wasn't around when I frequented Disneyland as a kid. It's basically just an outdoor shopping area with many Disney stores, happy 80's music and places to sit outside in the sun with a salad and a drink.
Also...these adorable dipped apples. How cute are they?!?

This terrible photo of me was taken after a bit of shopping but before the lunch and drinks in the sun. I really enjoyed my time with this cockatoo. His name was Baby.

After Pete was done with the show on Friday we got a rental car and drove north a bit to Sun Valley to visit Aunt Jean. The traffic wasn't too terrible.

One of the first things Aunt Jean did, after chastising us for using the front door, was to show Pete this thingy. It's not a record player...what do you call it? She played Silent Night for us.

Aunt Jean cooked dinner for us Friday night and we had breakfast and a sight-seeing drive around town on Saturday morning. When she told us that Bud's had the best donuts I insisted we stop for a snack. We sat outside and the sun was almost too hot.

After a bit of sitting in the sunny backyard that afternoon we went out to Clancy's for dinner.

I don't think I've ever ordered a cup of clam chowder before, but the stuff they served was scrumptious! We heard lots more stories from Aunt Jean that night. There were laughter and tears and lots of delicious fish to eat.

The next morning we went to the golf course and had this lovely view while we ate our breakfast.

Then we drove around for a bit, past movie studios and whatnot...all to the engaging stories of Aunt Jean. We heard the one about when Nat Cole sang to her on her wedding night, and the one about playing cards with Angie Dickinson...

Then we went to the cemetery where Uncle Don is buried. We also visited Bette Davis' grave and Liberace's. We heard the story of Uncle Don introducing my great-grandma to Liberace.

We also saw this monument, which Aunt Jean and I got a little giggle out of.

Reluctantly, we already had to leave on Sunday afternoon. We really weren't hungry, but had to stop at In-n-Out anyway. This was right next to LAX and the planes flew overhead as we ate our burgers and enjoyed the last warm weather we'll get for a while.