We’ve gone to a million and a half beaches this week – all of them with pretty cold water, all of them very sandy. Going to the beach with kids is way more fun than going with just other adults. Vince and Donald sunburned a little bit. Jeremy managed to protect his delicate skin with enough gloopy sunscreen so he still looks like he spends all of his days inside a windowless office.
After Legoland, we drove to San Luis Obispo. Visited a place called Bubblegum Alley where people have been leaving their ABC gum for over 45 years. It’s both fun and totally disgusting. We added our own gum contributions.
Edda climbed on the jungle gym (don’t look too hard at my lovely backside)
And rode one ride, which scared the living daylights out of her.
Finally, Barack’s inauguration rendered in Lego bricks.
Sunday, we went to Griffith Park with Ruth.
We went on the train.
Griffith Park has a fully accessible playground.
In the evening, we went to Ding Tai Fung, a great dumpling house and met up with Aunt Liz and Aunt Jane and Carrie who we last saw at our wedding! She’s going to be a urologist.
We spent the weekend at Charlotte’s house. Charlotte was the officiant at our wedding so many years ago. Julia also showed up and we had a nice dinner outside in the backyard.
We got to line dry some laundry (something that I imagine I could do in real life if I had time and if it also wasn’t so rainy and humid where I normally live).
Vince and Edda had some pool time. This weekend, in Charlotte’s pool, Vince has learned to swim which means that he can breath without having to stand up on the floor of the pool. He was very proud of himself.
We are on vacation this week. Here we are near the Santa Monica pier. We are having a wonderful time at the beach, but we are totally inappropriately dressed. Jeremy’s wearing a belt and a backpack, looking like he is ready for a mountain hike. Edda’s wearing a sun dress and a fleece sweatshirt and Vince is fully clothed. What you can’t see is that I’m wearing a pair of velvet-like pants and a sweatshirt.
This first week of summer, Vince went to gymnastics camp. Today was the last day and they wanted to show off in a little performance. There was suppose to be a video – but our video camera is on the fritz – so you just get some fuzzy pictures.
After the performance, Edda got a turn on some of the trampolines and had a nice time.
We saw a rattlesnake again at the same spot as last time during our noon time walk. I went to the upper-level parking lot to get my camera in our car. But, when I came back, the snake was gone. As a side show, we saw a deer in the parking lot eating grasses.
Yesterday, we saw several whales playing along the Shell Beach, just half block away from our duplex apartment. And, of course, Mom picked more loquat fruits of our neighbor’s. They are really happy to see us show up almost every other evening to pick the fruits.
It has been kind of a mess on the Red Line this week. It’s been a few days since the accident, and they are running tests and trying to figure out what went wrong. Empty trains pass stations and full trains announce that you have to offload. It’s been slow going for me back and forth to work this week.
Today was the first day that trains were going past the point of the accident, although only on one of the two tracks. It’s slow going because like a two lane street that has one lane blocked off, the trains have to take turns going through the choke point. And everything is running slower because the trains are run manually and so the trains are spaced further apart and also, for whatever reason, a lot of the trains I’ve been on have broken down. So I’ve easily spent about 4 hours on the Metro today, mostly packed shoulder to shoulder with other of my fellow Washingtonians.
This past Sunday, Vince and I headed downtown to meet with a friend of mine from work, Jane. Jane is young, single and doesn’t spend a lot of time with little kids, I think Vince amused her with his rather manic rate of going through the Air and Space and the Natural History museum. Also, I think that it was the first time in a long time that she ate at McDonald’s (Vince’s choice for lunch).
Vince and I rode to the metro.
Yeah, baby, we rule the Mall.
It was a nice day to be at the Mall, usually during the summer, it is so hot and humid and there is practically no shade on the mall, it’s really unpleasant. But on Sunday, it was cool enough for a sweatshirt and also, they shut down a lot of the streets for a triatholon.
