Santa Monica
We arrived in Santa Monica and headed for the Pier. As we were walking down to the beach, a fog was rolling in. So these first couple pictures we took weren’t very clear. It was cool, but felt good on a hot day.
Keira loved the water!
Route 66 souvenirs, Santa Monica is where it ends
Next we walked over to the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium. It’s pretty small, but it’s cheap and there are hands on tanks where you can feel the sea creatures. Really cool for the kids. Ok and the adults. 🙂
In the small aquarium, this small shark in the corner was poking his head out of the water
Violet touching some sea creatures
This thing felt like velvet, it was so soft around the edge
Next, we headed back up on the pier to take a walk around, and we saw these really pretty birds just sitting there hanging out.
The bird guy just comes over and hands Violet this bird to hold like a baby
Keira didn’t like it very much, not too sure the bird did either
Turns out the birds name was also Violet, the guy was happy to finally meet a little girl with the same name
Her happiness in this pic lasted about 5 seconds, then she started crying. She does not like her hair being messed with.
The bird was hanging on the guys tooth. This is the bird guy, can you tell?
Petting another pretty bird
Down the pier a bit is the Pacific Park. It’s a tiny amusement park on the Pier. Micah, Rachel and Violet took a ride on the ferris wheel.
View from the ferris wheel
View of the end of the pier from the park
After we walked around on the pier the fog had cleared off, so we headed back down to the water. Violet loved it! She was having fun running back and forth in and out of the water.
After playing for a bit in the sand and water, we ate at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurant. Yummy food right on the pier, perfect.
From the movie, Forrest Gump. Great movie, fun restaurant.
Next we drove over to Third Street Promenade. They have the street closed off to cars, and its a fun cute place to walk down. There are a bunch of shops and restaurants and there are usually lots of performers, trying to make some money.
Keira loves coffee too!
Then we ended the night with some coffee! A good day!
Endeavour
In case you didn’t hear in the news lately, the Space Shuttle Endeavour made its way 12 miles, along the streets of LA, from the LA airport to the California Space Center. Here’s the link. People weren’t allowed on the sidewalks, but there were certain spots the shuttle made a few stops for a short period of time. Rachel and I decided to head down to LA to one of the spots it was going to sit at for about half an hour, so they said.
Well, we arrived in the area, no problem. There was no traffic and we found a great free close parking spot. We headed on foot with a lot of other people wanting to see the shuttle too.
This was around 2pm
Keira was with us and found a friend
Not sure, but a line of cops making their way through the crowd
They even had a stage set up in the area with a big screen. After the show that they put on, which was some dance group, they took a short break. There was no space shuttle in sight. It was about an hour after they had said the shuttle was going to get there. Finally we heard people talking and we asked some around us where it was. Turns out, it was waaay down the road yet. And this thing was only moving 2 mph. Very slowly.
People started sitting down on the street
Kids were getting tired
And it was pretty hot out there, just standing in the sun. Right beside us was a mall, so we decided we would head inside for a short time, cool off then come back out. Inside the mall, anytime we heard an update it was supposedly just going to be another hour. We kept hearing that. We were able to watch some news on the tv that was playing in the walmart. It was about 6 or so and we went back outside.
Ahead of us
Behind us
Around 7 we finally noticed some lights down the street. It looked like something was finally headed our way. Now with the sun down, it was getting chilly out and I didn’t bring Keira’s bottle or formula with us either. So we thought we would go into Walmart quick, grab some stuff for Keira, get us some hoodies and run back out in time to see the shuttle coming down the road. We get our stuff and as we are checking out the checkout girl mentions something about how they let her out to see the shuttle. I said, oh they will? No, they did already. She was already out and saw it! What??? We didn’t know what was going on. There is no way! We were just out there!! So we ran out of the store, around the corner, down the street a bit and there it was…
It made its way to that corner finally around 8 pm. It was supposed to be there at 2 pm! I guess there were some spots in the road where it didn’t quite fit. So they needed to cut some trees down or move things. We were happy we just witnessed this thing in person. It was huge! And really cool. After October 30 it will be on display for everyone to see at the California Science Center in LA.
Here are some really cool pictures I found on the internet, to show you the size of this thing.
Reagan Library
One of the things to do here in Simi Valley is to go and visit the Ronald Reagan Library. They recently renovated it in 2010 and also added Air Force One a few years back. It was definitely a site to see, we had a great time even with the kids. And the best part was, a friend gave us free passes!
Outside the Library
Rachel as the first woman president?
Or me?
Maybe Micah will be the next president
What the oval office looked like when Reagan was president
Some of Nancy Reagan’s clothing
great picture of her
Air Force One
Under its belly
Jelly Bean Mosaic
Presidential Chopper
Part of the Berlin Wall
Remnant of the World Trade Center
Love this pic of them
Six Sandowiches 