Weekend Adventures

The Los Angeles area has a lot of great things to do.  It's easy, though, to get wrapped up in everyday life and get caught up in grocery shopping, laundry, house keeping, running errands, etc.  Lately, we've made an effort to try and get out and see what LA has to offer.... and we did some of it in the spirit of my dad's favorite guy- Huell Howser.  Each night my Dad sits down and watched Huell and California's Gold.  We decided to go out and visit a few of the places he went and a few places we've been wanting to go, like: The Reagan Library, Franklin Canyon Park, and Donut Man.  I also threw in a few trips to Disneyland with the kids.  They hadn't been in almost two years, so it was all new to them again.

We went to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley on a beautiful day at the end of April.  We left the kids at home with a sitter and my parents, Heather, Paul, and I ventured out for an adult day.  My mom and I go through museums in much the same way, we browse, read the things that pop out at us, and move on. Heather and my Dad stop and look at EVERYTHING.  For the first part, we all stayed together, listening to our ipod tour of the place, but after the first hour and a half or so my mom and I hit fast forward and sprinted ahead.  We met up for lunch then went our separate ways again.  It was nice learning more about the first president I remember.  I didn't realize until we were there how popular a president he really was.

Dad, Ron, and Nancy... as usual, Dad is the shortest.

President Biggle

Oval Office

A while back Huell went to Franklin Canyon Park nested in the Hollywood Hills.  It was at this park that the opening scenes of the Andy Griffith show were shot.  After a very slow breakfast (not our fault) we made our way to the park and spent a few hours walking around.  Here's what we found and did...

A hut

A kid in a hut

Two kids in the hut

Jonah was a great hiker.  Cairo, ah, not so much.  While Cairo complained the whole time about having to walk, Jonah found himself a hiking 'tick (all his s's are silent at the start of words) and carried it around with him all day.

We walked around one stagnant pond (lake?).  There were areas of nice shade and ducks swimming on the surface, but the water did not look very inviting... like to even touch.  As we were finishing our loop, we came across another smaller pond and this one was pretty neat.  It was loaded with fish and turtles.  Definitely the highlight of our walk.

Turtle stack

I don't have any pictures of our trip to donut man, but it immediately followed up our trip to Franklin Park.  They have these crazy donut full of creme, stuffings, syrups etc.  Pretty impressive, and also a place Huell stopped at on his journey around California.

A few weeks later I braved Disneyland with the kids.  Erik was still recovering from back surgery, so he stayed at home.  Funny enough, when we got out of the car our first day there, friends of ours, the Sparks, were pulling into a space two down from us.  To term is Disney phrase, "It's a small world after all."  We walked in with them and went our separate ways.  The kids and I pushed our way ahead to the submarine ride and the car ride, then, we proceeded to hit up as many rides as I could before the crowds came.  Heather and Xander met up with us a few hours later and we all had a great time exploring the park and going on the rides.  We stayed to watch the water show World of Color, but after not having great seats and having tired kids, we left the show early and headed home.  Luckily, I had a ticket that let us come back three time, so we have two more chances to have fun.

Someone was not being a team player- surprise, surprise.

Jonah was one crazy driver.

Cairo was so excited to meet Cinderella

Jonah just hung out with his peeps, the dwarfs.

Checking out airplanes at California Adventure.