Last weekend was the start of spring break. Now that I'm back to work full time, these breaks mean a whole lot more to me again. Saturday morning we all got up really early so Pete could drive Frederick, Mom and I to the airport...
...where we got on a plane for LA!
The flight was fine, then we caught the Fly-Away bus to Van Nuys, where Aunt Joyce and Great Aunt Jean picked us up. Our first stop was an In-N-Out Burger.
The weather was sunny and a wonderful break from our terrible Polar Vortex midwest winter. Frederick and I enjoyed watching the little lizards and Frederick learned to stick out his tongue when asked 'what's the lizard do?'
Grammie found this big exercise ball in the 'big room' (the separate antique room) and Frederick loved playing with it.
He just liked being outside in general, as did I!
Here he is rocking in the duck.
I made sure to read up on Earthquake preparedness for motorists, though it turns out the small earthquakes were on either side of our visit.
The next morning Frederick enjoyed perusing the LA Times at Aunt Jean's table.
We took a walk with Aunt Joyce. There are a lot of animals in her Sun Valley neighborhood, as it was designed with horses in mind. Uncle Don was a horse riding stunt man, so they lived near the old Hollywood ranches, which are mostly gone now. Anyway, some neighbor have these goats which were cracking us up with their antics.
A walk in the other direction took us past a stable which had lots of peacocks.
On Sunday we went to
Descanso Gardens, which was lovely. Frederick and Grammie checked out the fish.
I call this photo "where's the waterfall?"
There were 2 areas that were camellia forests, where the camellias grew under the large California Live Oaks. They were lovely.
We had a wheelchair for Aunt Jean, which also got us in at the front of a very long line. There happened to be a cherry blossom festival happening, so it was a busy day. I guess when the Japanese Americans were all being put into internment camps, Mr. Boddy, a newspaperman and owner of the original property, bought up a lot of inventory from the Japanese greenhouses. There are parts of the garden that are now dedicated to those Japanese Americans, and there were several Asian (and, I'm assuming, Japanese) visitors there that day. (This is not a fabulous picture of me, but I'm trying to get past the idea of only sharing flattering photos. You can see I still feel the need to be self-depricating.)
We did stroll over the pretty Japanese bridge and had a little snack and a yummy sake-peach cocktail in the Japanese garden before we hit the gift shop and headed home. We also walked through the lilac garden. It's no secrets that lilacs are a favorite of the women in this family.
Back at Aunt Jean's, Frederick and I got to sleep in the guest room (thanks, Aunt Joyce, for couching it for a few days!) and this is one of my favorite little things in that room. It hangs on the wall near the light switch.
We had dinner at A place called Joselito's in Tujunga. It was very very good. Frederick was a bit of a pistol. The waiter finally brought him a pink balloon to play with, which he fervently batted around. This caused Aunt Jean, who was sitting across the table from him, to say something like "who's idea was it to give a balloon to the baby?"
I saw this car in the parking lot, and it just seemed so very California to me.
On Monday Aunt Jean had an appointment in Burbank, so Frederick and I got dropped off in town to bum around a bit. We looked up independent book stores and found this cluttered, dusty gem. It was called Book Castle's movie world and we spent a bit of time in there, before doing some shopping at the Gap outlet and then getting an iced coffee (Chobani for Frederick) and getting picked up again.
That afternoon was spent perusing some of Aunt Jean's old photos.
Here's one I particularly liked. Look at the scampy look on my mother's face!
Frederick tried out his new outfit from our shopping trip. Blue is this boy's color.
We had dinner that night at Chili John's, an amazing place I had wanted to try for a few years. Check them out on
Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. My mom's cousin Pat loves this place. The story is that he was there when they first opened, as an infant in a carrier, and he still goes there every time he's in town. The lady in the video was the one who served us and she knew who Pat was when Aunt Jean mentioned him. I had my chili on spaghetti with onions and sour cream. Frederick had a tiny bit of my chili, and lots of oyster crackers.
I bought Pete a t-shirt.
Frederick loved all of the little creatures around Aunt Jean's yard. One time we looked up to see him off in the corner grunting at a cement pig.
On our last day there we left Aunt Jean at home and went to the LA Farmer's Market. If you haven't been, it reminded me of Pike's Place Market in Seattle. This spot commemorates the origins of the market, where the owner of the land rented out spots for local farmers to bring their trucks and sell out of the backs of them.
We didn't eat at Fritzi Dog, but I had to get a photo...and a hat. Actually, Mom went back and got a corn dog there later and said it was the best she'd ever had. All organic etc.
Joyce and I ate from the Brazilian (?) barbecue place.
Later we had ice cream. I had salted carmel with hot fudge. Oh man. It was good.
Here I am modeling my new hat, which came pre-distressed. I had to check with Pete to make sure he wasn't going to make fun of me too much for that. (So far I've only gotten about 4 sarcastic comments from him.)
I also got some new shades.
Frederick had a couple of baths in Aunt Jean's pink tub. Running around barefoot in the yard and eating all that good food made him a little dirty.
Our final morning we had a quick breakfast and Frederick got himself really comfortable before we had to say our goodbyes.
Mom and Aunt Joyce dropped us off at the Van Nuys bus stop and Frederick waved as we headed back to the airport.
It's always sad to go, but I'm so glad we had the time out there again. And, of course, it's always nice to return home to Pete and my big kids.
