Our Thanksgiving plans were… well we didn’t really have any.  We thought maybe we would be in Redwoods National Park or maybe the Oregon coast.  We weren’t really sure how or if we were going to be cooking a turkey.  After we decided to head south to LA to visit friends we knew Thanksgiving would now be celebrated there.  But what we didn’t know was that we were going to be invited to my friend’s brother’s house for the big meal.

Thank you to John and Renu for opening up your beautiful home(of 2 weeks) to us for a Thanksgiving feast.  And to my dear friend and Jersey girl Sherry for cooking. What a day?

Can you tell these kids had some fun?

    

           

 

We got to hold a one hundred trillion dollar bill… yes please!

    

 

And take a picture with an Emmy Award.

 

And be reminded how thankful we are for good friendships!

 

11/27/2014

We figured since we were in the Santa Monica area that we would reach out to our friend Alex who lives there.  He was excited to hear from us and just as excited to offer to take us out to lunch in Malibu…. he didn’t have to twist our arms, we were excited to see him and be treated to lunch.

It was great to see our friend and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with you Alex.  Thank you!

Hanging outside the restaurant.  Note Makenzie, she is reading.

 

Walking on the beach. Note Makenzie in the background, reading.

 

A little bit of cliff jumping.  I love these pictures.  Note Makenzie, you guessed it, she is still reading.

              

 

Dipping our toes in the Pacific and Makenzie is still reading.

 

In every picture I have from this day Makenzie is reading but there were moments she took in the view and felt the frigid pacific ocean waters splash on her toes.  This kid… I’m so in love with her.

11/26/2014

Much of this tour was focused on how hard Jelly Belly works to perfect the flavor of their jelly beans.  We were told that there are scientists on site that extract flavors from, say an orange and work diligently to give an accurate, as most exact possible flavor of an orange in a jelly bean.  So when I saw these flavors, I questioned how this was entirely possible.

 

 

We also learned that these jelly beans go through a long process and only make the cut if they are perfect.  If they are not perfect they are considered a belly flop and get rerouted and then bagged to only be sold at a Jelly Belly factory.

 

They also have artists that take pictures and recreate the picture with jelly beans.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed this tour and left with jelly belly ache from all the free jelly beans we ate.

 

And yes, we were required to wear these hats.

 

11/20/2014

The original idea was that we would spend two days here, those 2 days were scaled back to one when a friend called to tell us she and her family were in L.A. (but that is a post for another day).  And since we sat in traffic a long while trying to cross the Bay Bridge, our time here was short but sweet. 

First stop: Lafayette Park- I had shown Koah a picture I had taken of this park a year prior.  This was one of the spots that he requested we stop at.

Second stop: Mosaic Steps

Third Stop: Lunch and Dessert on Fillmore Ave.

Fourth and Final Stop: Randall Museum.  This museum had the perfect mix of activities for our family.

For the animal lover: An area of the museum dedicated to the animals.

 

For the hiker: A short trail just outside the museum doors.  The top offered some killer views of the city.

 

For the engineer:  Build a skyscraper and see if it can withstand the shaking of the board it is built on, like an earthquake.  This was tons of fun for all.

Construction Fail

More lessons on plate tectonics.

 

For the my model:

 

I loved this little place.  For a majority of the time we were the only people there.  I don’t know San Francisco very well but this place seemed to be tucked away in a little place that not many people knew existed.  I highly recommend this place especially on a clear day.

 

11/19/2014