Our last full day in California was spent in beautiful Big Bear with my parents. We had a nice time walking around part of the lake, watching animals at the Big Bear Alpine Zoo (rehabilitation/release center) and strolling through the village shops.
I think Ada enjoyed her two weeks in California and we look forward to the next time! 🙂
My Dad has a beautiful ‘65 Mustang that he purchased last year. After months of hearing about it, Todd & I finally got to take a spin in this classic car 🙂
The kids spent another day playing outside on the slip ‘n slide. They had so much fun which you can clearly see on their faces 🙂
If you ever get a chance to visit LA, the Science Center is lots of fun and FREE! We paid $2 a person to see the Endeavour exhibit but it was a small price to pay to see a real space shuttle close-up. They have a cool aquarium tunnel with divers swimming through, lots of hands-on exhibits (like wind speed & infrared) and of course the shuttle. We did not have time to see all 3 stories, probably because we had four kids with various meltdown periods 🙂
With my brother and family we spent a couple hours one afternoon visiting a soda shop in Temecula and ending the day at a park for the kids.
We did not try anything unique like the peanut butter & jelly or buffalo wing sodas, but they did look interesting 🙂
We picked Todd up from the airport midweek and stopped at a couple tourist attractions to & from Palm Springs. I love roadside attractions and will stop for pictures any day. The Marilyn Monroe statue stood 26 feet tall on a corner in downtown Palm Springs. Heading back through Cabazon we stopped to see the dinosaurs. I have seen them many many many times but this was the first for Ada 🙂
Ada got to spend a few days playing outside with the sprinkler, bubbles and going to the park with her Grampa & Gramma.
I realized she did not smile in any of the playground pictures I took that day. She did have fun, but I just couldn’t catch it on camera 🙂
While staying at my parent’s place we headed up to Oak Glen one morning and stopped at a place to see fallow deer (native to Eurasian areas) and peacocks. Ada got to feed the deer corn kernels and was surprisingly not afraid of them eating out of her hand.
The kids had lots of fun (minus a few tiffs over sharing) playing together. On days we spent close to home, we either took them to the park or watched them play in the backyard with sprinklers and toys. Holden and Ada loved playing in the water together. Aiden enjoyed watching from the sidelines when the two older kiddos got crazy with the sprinkler and splashing (ok, so Ada was mostly the one splashing) 🙂
Ada says lots of new phrases but only a few make me smile more than others(mostly because we say them). When we ask her if she wants to do something optional sometimes she will say “not today” or “maybe later” or “maybe next week.” The best is after we ask her to do something specific, once in awhile she will say “oooone second.” Hmm, I guess we need to set better examples 🙂 It is fun to hear her speak in full sentences/thoughts and ask more questions.
She loves to sing, especially at bedtime. We sing lots of songs and just started using hand motions to go with some of them. Over the last month or so she has been singing the words more clearly along with me and it is wonderful to hear.
These were taken in my parents’ backyard, Ada enjoying the sprinkler in the warm California summer.
La Casa Blanca 