My Second Trip to California in March

Since I am going backwards, I will first post about my second trip to California in March.  I ended up spending two of the four weeks in March in California.  This was the trip that had been planned, well, for a year.  It was Mini-T's first birthday meaning it was party time.

I drove my new car down. I actually purchased the night before I left town (but since that happened before the trip, I'll have to talk about it in another post...)  The original plan was for me to pick up my baby brother's family and bring them with me. Unfortunately Cutey Patootie was in the hospital with Bronchitis and then Pneumonia.  She was released the day I drove down, but not cleared by the doctor to go on a road trip with her aunt.  So I hung out with them for a while and then drove down to the SCV to meet up with our parents.

Our first day we headed to the Getty.  Every time I head to CA I tell myself I need to go, because I never had.  Finally, I can say I have visited the museum atop the landfill. My cousin came with us too.  I can't find any photos though, my dad must have taken them all with his camera (hint, hint dad - email me the photos).  I'll post them later if my dad sends them.  We then headed to Griffith Observatory.  They'd recently done some renovating so we went to check it out. Again, photos on my dad's camera.

Driving from the museum to the observatory was entertaining to all.  We decided to drive through Hollywood instead of taking freeways.  I was pointing out different places where my friends and I would go in high school. My parents were acting shocked that I'd been to so many places.  I immediately came to the conclusion that my parents didn't pay attention to anything I did in high school.  OK, not really. But honestly, I told my parents everywhere my friends and I went when we headed to Hollywood.  I was the one with the car driving most of the time, I guess they appreciated knowing, but still, never paid much attention.

 Before we set out for the day, I went running along one of the roads where I used to run in high school, the Old Road (that really is the name of the road). I'd mentioned it on Facebook and a friend from high school texted me and in a few minutes we'd decided to go see The Hunger Games at midnight that night (opening night) and had the tickets purchased.  I don't know about you, but I love seeing old friends.  Old friends who were good friends. It's like you were never apart.  Something else about seeing old friend, it makes me grateful that I remained an active member of the Church, that in my youth, I did not stray - I stuck to my beliefs and my standards.  It makes me so happy to know that my friends, most of whom did not belong to my faith, do know what my faith is, do know what an active, obedient member of my faith believes and how we behave.  I love that they stand up for the Church.  They always had my back as a kid, and still do. Just makes me feel good.

Is there any angle from which you can take a self portrait and not suddenly grow multiple chins???

After the show, we talked to some reporters who were there to interview patrons.  We got to talking, the reporter was total EMO, but we got on topic of out of control popular book series, which moved to Stephanie Meyers - I'd mentioned we'd had classes together at BYU, the reported mentioned his aunt was here VISITING TEACHER in Arizona.  Sometimes it just catches me off guard when people start speaking "Mormon."

The next day my folks and I headed up the coast to my brother's house. Along the way,  we made a stop to get our fill of Andersen's Pea Soup (a tradition of my mother's family.)

My folks acting silly

I'm not as silly

The next few days were filled with fun birthday decoration, celebrating, and many, many tea parties.

Since Cutey Patootie couldn't make it, she sent Italian Beauty one of her tea sets.  We "drank" SOOOO much tea over the weekend. 

Mini-T loves the rocking horse Cutey Patootie gave her as well.

Here are the gnome hats that my SIL made for the party.

As modeled by a little girl

And as modeled by a little boy

Italian Beauty's party shirt her mom made

Mini-T hanging out with Papa before the festivities began. Maybe I should call her Mini-G, for mini-grandpa. They look an awful lot alike.

Here is the birthday girls cake made by her grandma

And the cupcakes made for the rest of us

The centerpieces

She loved her cake

And love all the gifts she received

When it was time to say goodbye, my parents and I went to the door and started to say our goodbyes.  Italian Beauty asked where we were going, and we told her we had to go home.  She just started to cry and ran over to my little brother and sobbed that she didn't want us to go.  So of course, I started crying, and my SIL started crying.  But we bucked up, and took one final photo before we left.

So we headed back to my baby brother's house.

First we had to give them their favors from the party.

The next day we headed to Calico Ghost Town.

She's got the whole world, well, the name of the whole town in her hand.

Bath time

They went with the $0.10 full scrub

Love this photo

And this one

There were a lot of posing photo spots

We had to take advantage

My dad had some fun with them

Well, lots of fun with them

OK, last one

I thought this house was really cool

It was made of glass bottles

Next we went to the train museum in Barstow.

We took a peek inside all the trains.

Climbed up some pretty high ladders

 And then we got to watch my baby brother and Cutey Patootie show off their skills.

My brother still has quite the skills on wheel, Cutey is learning from one of the best.

It was an awesome trip. I don't know that I'll be driving to California again anytime soon. That is quite the long drive - sort of boring on my own. But worth it to spend a week with my family.