Saturday in California

Saturday morning we woke up, packed up our hotel room and headed to Culver City where we found a cool little place to eat called the S&W Country Diner. We waited a bit, but had a lot of excellent food. 

 Then we drove up to La Brea to check out the tar pits. The LACMA is on the same campus as the tar pits and Page Museum.

This huge, suspended boulder is one of their outside exhibits. Look how super strong our kids are.

 The LACMA also had this outdoor installation. I don't know if it's permanent or what, but it's pretty cool.

The kids liked chasing each other around the poles.

I like how this picture looks like a giant baby being photographed by a very tiny woman.

This one is just sweet.

Less sweet is the dramatic life-size diorama of a mother mammoth being trapped in the tar while her  tiny little baby trumpets at her. It made me feel sad.

And I don't know what this is.

Later that day we drove up to Point Dume state beach. We timed it so we would get there at low tide. The light also happened to be quite nice. 

The baby didn't like it down on the beach, as it was chilly and fairly windy. Pete ended up taking him back up the hundreds of steep steps to hang out in the car. The kids and Mom and I continued to do a little exploring. 

Tide pools are one of my all time favorite natural phenomena. 

I asked the kids if they would give me a hugging picture. They were a little goofy about getting each other sandy. They are such siblings. 

After the beach we headed up to Aunt Jean's house. It was, obviously, her first time meeting Frederick. She had seen several pictures of him, though, and they were both looking forward to the meeting. I think they were quite fond of each other.

NAMM

 

On Friday we got up early to go get our badges so we could check out the NAMM show with Pete.  NAMM is National Association of Music Merchants. It's a pretty big trade show and isn't open to the public, so it wasn't easy or cheap to get us in. We had fun though!! I think Pete was a little anxious because of the crowd and the kids wanting to touch everything and the fact that he was technically working and supposed to be professional. I was glad the kids and Mom got to experience it though. (I've been able to go to the show before.) 
Mostly Henry just wanted to play some drums. 

 I would not be surprised at all if percussion is the musical path that our children take.

 Here's Clara by the Daisy Guitar (guitars for girls!) booth. I have mixed feelings about this gender-typing, but mostly I just love the guitars shaped like flowers and butterflies.

 After walking the show floor for a bit we left Pete to work and we took off for Downtown Disney, which is basically a big outdoor mall area with lots of Disney shops. I've always enjoyed this parrot outside the Rainforest Cafe, and the kids liked him too. My favorite is when the girl asks what his favorite animal is and the parrot says "crocodile!" You can tell, by the hoodies, that the weather was a little cooler and drizzly this day. Again- we made the right choice about Disneyland. (In case I didn't mention it before- I can't believe what a perfect day we had at Disneyland. There was absolutely no arguing or whining or "I'm tired!" or anything. We had so much fun. Yay.)

 We had lunch at a place called Tortilla Joe's (I think?) and the kids got fun balloon animals. Mom and I had margaritas, which were also fun. Frederick was a little cranky while we were there, but the restaurant staff were all very friendly and understanding.

 After shopping around the Disney shops and maybe buying a couple of things (Henry: giant pencil, Clara: flashing light bubble-gun) Clara wanted to check out the Build-a-Bear store. I told her we could go in, but we weren't going to get anything. I kind of lied. They had so many more options than the store we've been to here, and this dragon totally caught my eye. Since Frederick was born in the year of the dragon, and one of my favorite things Pete has said recently about Frederick is "it sounds like we're raising a baby dragon in here!" I had to get this guy for him. We named him Walter for Walt Disney. I don't quite understand his removable wings, but he's really quite adorable. Obviously Frederick loves him.

 The Lego store also had a really cool dragon up on top. This thing was huge.

 I also loved the Beauty and the Beast display outside.

 Inside we found Gandalf.

 And this is one of the new Lego Friends characters. Clara got a set with her (Olivia?) in it for Christmas. Again- gender typing...but they do it so well!

Friday afternoon the kids had asked and asked and asked if they could go swimming in the (outdoor) hotel pool. The weather was still cool and drizzly, but finally Mom relented and took them down to try out the hot tub. Of course it was too hot for Clara, and the pool was too cool for Henry, but I think they had fun anyway. There was already a band playing outside down there and people were starting to get back from being at the convention all day. When they got back, Pete and I went out by ourselves for dinner. We went to Roy's which is our favorite spot near the convention center. Sushi, Mai Tai's and hot lava cake for dessert. It was very nice to have some solo time...and to think about how one year ago I had just taken a pregnancy test and was, therefore, having virgin drinks and only cooked sushi. 

When we got back to the hotel it was a party everywhere. The pool bar was rocking and the indoor bar was crowded as well. We didn't see anyone we knew, but later- after I had gone to bed- Pete went back down to celebrate a bit with some coworkers. Shure won some tech award for best wireless sound system or something. I guess there was champagne and much revelry. I was fine in my bed, though. 

Next post: beach and Aunt Jean's house. 

Frederick Earns His Ears

So, last Wednesday Pete and I flew to California with Mom, Henry, Clara and Frederick. Pete goes out every January for NAMM and the last couple of years I've gone out with him to hang out and also to sneak in a visit with Great Aunt Jean. It was last year, on such a trip, that Pete and I found out we were going to have a third baby. It was also when we started talking about taking the whole family this year, mostly to see Aunt Jean who will turn 90 this year. 

The flight went well, with 3 adults to handle all of the bags and the 3 kids. Henry and Clara were very excited to be staying in a hotel. Our room was on the 8th floor and looked towards Disneyland, where we knew we were headed. The kids were prepared with their ears from DisneyWorld. 

The weather was not awesome, but we knew we had to choose either Thursday or Friday to head to Disneyland. Friday was our first choice, but upon waking on Thursday morning and watching the weather on the t.v. we decided Thursday looked a little drier. We made the right choice. Mom and I took the kids while Pete went to the trade show. He came to meet us later. 

We got to Disneyland right when they opened at 10AM, which also happened to be when the rain stopped. The first thing we did was to get Frederick his ears. 

 We then hurried outside to catch Donald Duck, who signed the kids' book, posed for a picture and then tucked Frederick in and gave him kisses.

 Our first ride was Dumbo. I put Frederick in the Baby Bjorn so we could all ride.

 Henry and Grammie went on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, but Clara got spooked by the lightning she saw coming from within Toad Hall, so she and I had to back out of the line.
Henry was really really into wanting to go on the Matterhorn. After a ride on the carousel, and maybe the Peter Pan ride, he and I finally got in line for it. Henry sat in the very front and I sat behind him trying not to yell in his ear. The abominable snowmen were a little scary. As soon as we were off the ride Henry wanted to get back on and go around the other side. He had to wait until we met up with Pete, but he did get to go again. He still says it was his favorite part of the day.

There's a part of Disneyland that's new since I was there last (1986?) that's called ToonTown. That's where we met up with Minnie and got to visit her house. 

 Here are the kids sitting in Minnie's kitchen!

 In Mickey's car outside...

 Here's another ride that Clara wasn't sure of. It was the storybook land boat. She did NOT like the looks of that whale. I finally got her to agree to go on when we were able to walk over and see that you could see all the way through the whale to the other side. Mom suggested, and I agreed, that this may have been Eleanor's favorite if she had been with us. There were sweet little mini villages from various Disney stories.

 After taking a ride on the submarine, the train and the Jungle Cruise, my phone died after taking a picture of the kids with Jessie (from Toy Story 2).

 

 Fortunately we had already made a plan about where to meet up with Pete, and Mom's phone was still charged...what did we all do before iPhones!??! With Pete we went on the Pirates ride, had some dinner and visited the Tiki Room! The kids loved it!! And so did Pete, I think. I was surprised he'd never been in the Tiki Room before.

 Here we are lined up for the parade. Our day was perfect. The threat of rain was enough in the morning that I think it kept some people away, and it was already the least crowded time of year. But the rain stayed away and we even had some sunshine in the afternoon. I think Pete was the best dressed guy at Disneyland!

 The parade was fun with all sorts of wacky costumes. Check out the tights on these dancing butterflies. Mom and I agreed that we'd love to see the costume room at Disneyland.

 So, I think Frederick truly earned his ears on our first family trip to Disneyland. I know he won't remember a bit of it, but he'll have the pictures and he'll just have to trust us that we all had a great time! I already can't wait until we get to go again!

After the parade we did ride on the Tomorowland rockets and took a spin on the teacups. We also go ice cream on our way out of the park. We didn't leave until we were practically kicked out at 8, which was closing time that day. I could have stuck around another couple of hours. The kids were about sleeping on their feet by the time we caught the shuttle back to the hotel.

 See you next time, Minnie!!