The Adventure Continues...

So a couple of weeks ago my sister and brother were in town so we headed to the Getty Museum. It was cool and great hanging out with the fam, but not really a kid place. They did have a small kids area plus an amazing rolling hill, but the security guard kept having to come tell me to keep my kids away from the water. What can I say we love fountains. Plus, we have discovered the Janns Mall Fountains which you can run through-not quite as spectacular as Gateway's fountains (SLC), but pretty good!

My mom took us to the Sylmar Wildlife Learning Center last week and the kids had a blast. The macaws said hello to us, we were introduced to Walter the porcupine (who modeled for Over the Hedge), and the kids touched four year old tortoises which were smaller than our hands and pretty cute actually. Overall, fun trip and we all learned something:)

Still on my list of things to do before the kids go back to school are:

Temescal Gateway Park, and Bennet Honey Farm

Stay tuned for more adventures.

Birthdays

June 21st we celebrated Ian's 5th birthday. I still can't believe he is 5. We had a Pokemon theme and he had a big party. He had cousins, aunts and uncles and mema and tutu man. This smile pretty much says everything about Ian. He is a crazy ball of energy, but he is so cuddly and lovable too. He plays hard sometimes, but he is also very protective of his family.

June 29th Lani turned 3 years old. We had a Care Bear party with a princess cake and celebrated with different cousins, a different set of aunts and uncles, and mema and tutu man. We love parties! I have a tradition of taking diapers away when my kids turn 3 years old (with some training beforehand). I was a little unsure of how this would go since I tried it with her a couple months ago and it didn't quite work. I guess she just needed more time because she is doing great now! She is such a doll. She loves to help mommy, sometimes even disciplining her brothers.

Today, July 5, Melina turned 8months. I haven't blogged about her in awhile so I wanted to give a little update. Melina has been crawling for a couple weeks now. Currently, she not only crawls pretty fast, but she is pulling herself up on chairs. We keep looking for a walker for her, but by the time we find one she'll probably be walking. She's 2-3 months ahead of the rest of my kids. She's definitely trying to keep up. Either that or she is trying to catch me to pick her back up. She's been through a lot of changes with moving and meeting new people so she's a little nervous around people and wants to be held by me most of the time. She grabs at everything and gets the best smile and little laugh in anticipation of food. It's the cutest!

California Adventure

I call this the California Adventure because even though we live here now, it still seems like we are on vacation (especially with the amount of family coming and going and well, Brad working from home). I told Brad that since we live here we are actually going to go out and explore this state of his. So we've been doing alot of exploring.

.I guess Mondos isn't really exploring since we end up here every year, but I did realize I've got to get a little bit better at my "get ready for the beach routine" since apparently we will be going alot. And, maybe I'll have to get over the don't get sand on everything mentality.

We also hiked to Paradise Falls. It wasn't exactly Paradise, but good job kids for walking about 3 miles and good job Dakota (our friend/cousin) for carrying Lani a good bit of the time.

Last week we joined Callie and her kids on their fieldtrip to Leo Carillo. This was very cool and a perfect day for a trip to the beach (sadly, we didn't take bathing suits). The kids saw all kinds of sea creatures and had a blast. Owen's ability to touch anything has really encouraged my kids to be a little braver.

Today we went to the Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade. I didn't take pictures, but imagine my kids in front of a pier with a ferris wheel in the background or crowded around a bunch of street performers. Aaron actually won an overpriced game and I got a sincere "thank you for bringing me here mommy." This was preceded by a "why did you bring me here to the beach without my bathing suit and why do I have to wear a sweatshirt that is too big for me?"

All in all, I think that is a good start for our adventure. Hopefully, we can take a day off before we check out Silverstrand Beach on Thursday:)