California 2017: Days 3 and 4

We arrived in LA well before the wedding activities so that we would have plenty of time to explore on our own. Our third day (Friday) was all about the Getty! We visited both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa. The Getty Center, which opened 20 years ago while I was taking museum studies classes, has been on my to-visit list ever since. I was so excited to visit and it did not disappoint.

The architecture is amazing!

And of course, the art is incredible too! One of the guards saw our boys in a gallery and told them to come with him. He led them over to an alcove and told them to look up -- and we saw this incredible ceiling painting, A Musical Group on a Balcony by Gerrit von Honthorst.  

It was a smoggy day, but on a clear day, the view from the Getty would be incredible!

Cactus Garden

Fountains everywhere 

The Getty is also well known for its beautiful gardens. 

Calder sculpture

After lunch, we decided to add a visit to the Getty Villa. Both the museum and villa are free, but parking is $15. If you visit both on the same day, you only have to pay the parking fee once!

The villa was inspired by the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, and because Gene had just finished a novel set at that villa, we knew we had to fit in a visit to the Getty Villa. The villa displays Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities, and it is incredible! 

Grape vines 

Fruit trees

Daily beach time 

On Saturday, we decided to drive to Griffith Park, home to the Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory. We arrived before the observatory opened, but the park was packed and the parking lot was full. We ended up parking about a mile away and hiked up to the observatory. Can you see it in the middle of the photo below?

The highlight of the observatory visit was seeing a Tesla coil!

 Hollywood sign in the distance

After seeing all the crowds in the park, we decided to call it a day and head back to Venice for an afternoon at the beach. Then we met up with Nana, Pop, and Uncle Mikey, who were all in town for the wedding, at a local pizza joint. Will brought along his new book, The Book of General Ignorance, and spent half of dinner questioning Pop!

LA's museums are definitely worth exploring, and we're so glad we had a few extra days at the start of our trip to visit a few. 

California 2017: Days 1 and 2

We have been talking about visiting Sequoia National Park for several years. Ever since we read Jason Chin's Redwoods, Henry in particular has been fascinated by the giant trees (both redwoods and sequoias), so when Gene's cousin announced that she'd be getting married in LA this summer, we decided to combine a family wedding with a national park adventure and a few extra days to explore LA's museums. At the very end of June, we packed for a wedding, beach time, museums, and hiking in the mountains and jetted off to southern California for a grand adventure!

Our first travel day was full of mishaps -- our plane was delayed, meaning we had a high likelihood of missing our connecting flight, so we re-booked on another flight, which was also delayed.  We ended up spending over 6 hours at the airport before we even boarded a plane, but we had free passes to the United lounge and we were all in good spirits.  

Guess who also had a pass to the United lounge? We didn't expect to see Pop, but he and Nana were traveling to San Diego for a family visit prior to the wedding, and with our delay, our time at the airport overlapped.

By the time we arrived in LA, checked into our Airbnb apartment in Venice, and went grocery shopping, we were ready to collapse!

On day two of our vacation (our first full day in LA), we headed to La Brea Tar Pits, which made a big impression on me as a kid. The tar pits formed around 50,000 years ago as natural asphalt seeped up from the ground. Animals that became trapped in the tar pits are preserved, and there are literally thousands of fossils with excavations still underway. Mammoths, dire wolves, bears, sloths and saber-tooth cats are among the fossils found in the pits.  

Tar pit

The tar lake behind Will is what I remember from my visit as a kid. 

The museum

The tar pits were fascinating for all of us; it is a remarkable place and a highlight of our trip!

Located right next to La Brea Tar Pits is the LA County Museum of Art, but we didn't have time for a visit beyond this outdoor sculpture called  Urban Light by Chris Burden. There are over 200 restored street lamps here!

Across the street is the Petersen Auto Museum, which we knew would be a hit with Henry, who has become obsessed with cars of late. 

There are over 100 cars on display throughout the museum, including cars from movies like The Great Gatsby,

Batman, 

and Back to the Future. 

We saw idea cars

lots of Ferraris,

and Bugattis. Henry was in heaven! 

 

Henry is now trying to figure out how to get back there with Grampa and Uncle Tom, as they are both obsessed with cars too!

After lunch, we visited Children's Book World, an indie book store devoted to books for kids!

And in the late afternoon, we walked one block from our rental apartment to the beach. 

For dinner, we found Wurstkuche, which is a German sausage restaurant with craft beers. With everything from bratwurst and kielbasa to rabbit and rattlesnake sausages, this place was incredible!

Dinner was delicious!

More California adventures to follow! 

Good Reads {June 2017}

"A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it." -- Samuel Johnson

I read ten books in June. Here are my favorite reads of the month:

Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

This YA novel about the Tulsa race riot of 1921 explores racial tensions both in the past and in the present. The story begins when seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds remains in the garage behind the house, and then alternates between Rowan's modern day search for the truth and Will Latham's story leading up to to the race riot in 1921. I could not put down this fascinating tale!

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy

I read this nonfiction work for June book club. Ghettoside is an in-depth study of murder in the ghettos of LA, and why it happens. I wouldn't have picked this up on my own, but I'm so glad I read it.  

Windfall by Jennifer Smith

Windfall is a light but well-written YA novel about a trio of friends. When Teddy turns 18, Alice buys him a lottery ticket and he wins $140 million. The story explores their friendship and how it changes with this huge windfall. I loved this story; it's a great summer read.

A Bridge Across the Ocean by Susan Meissner

I don't read a lot of ghost stories, but A Bridge Across the Ocean was the first of two ghost stories I read this month (the other was A Million Junes by Emily Henry). This work of historical fiction alternates between the past and present, telling three different stories. Annaliese Lange is a German girl trying to escape a brutal past at the end of WWII, Simone Deveraux is a war bride with passage book on the RMS Queen Mary, and Brett is a modern-day woman who sees ghosts. I found this novel utterly enjoyable!

Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett

This was one of my favorite books of the month. Rabbit Cake is a story of a disfunctional family. The narrator, young Elvis Babbitt, has just lost her mother after she drowned after sleepwalking into a lake. Elvis has such a unique voice and this is just a fantastic story!

$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn Edin

This nonfiction works examines the desperately poor in America, and how these families survive on virtually nothing. This work dovetails perfectly with Evicted, which I read last month. $2.00 a Day is both fascinating and devastating; a must-read. 

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn

Will and I both read this epistolary novel and it is a must-read for anyone who loves language and wordplay. Ella Minnow Pea is a teenager living on the fictional island of Nollop, named after Nevin Nollop who created the pangram, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Once the letters from this phrase on the memorial statue of Nollop begin to fall down, the government officials begin banning the letters from use in written and spoken language, and the letters leave the book. It is both humorous and frightening and absolutely worth reading.

Beartown by Frederik Backman

I have been a huge fan of the Swedish author Frederik Backman since I read A Man Called Ove last fall. Beartown is quite a departure from his more whimsical previous works and explores some tough topics, but Backman is an incredibly talented writer. This book is brilliant.

What have you been reading lately? 

Summer Break: Weeks Four and Five

This summer, we have been exploring and reading up a storm. The boys only chose to attend one camp, during our fourth week of summer break. Will attended a Boy Scout camp called "Digital World" while Henry went to a Webelos camp covering five electives, both at the science museum. The boys had a blast!  

Because the boys were at camp, I was able to attend a Books Between Kids event at the new Snooze eatery location in Town and Country Village. BBK is one of my favorite local nonprofits! Their mission is to build kids' home libraries and I was honored to help spread the world about their fantastic organization by hosting a table during Snooze's soft opening. Plus, the food is pretty darn tasty!

More tasty food: we had ice cream at Amy's Ice Cream after camp one day but before Henry's orthodontist appointment. (Note Will's book -- we can't go anywhere without books!)

More ice cream and books -- there's a theme this summer! We stopped by Brazos Bookstore on Saturday for their ice cream social and left with a stack of new books for everyone.

Gene and I spend Saturday evening at Evelyn's Park celebrating two dear friends' 50th birthdays! What a fantastic birthday bash!

Wiffle ball in the backyard. 

And did you know that the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was on June 19? Henry finished the seventh book of the series that same day! He first read Harry Potter in first grade, and made it halfway through book five before abandoning it. After second grade, he made it 100 pages into book six before giving up. As soon as school let out this year, Henry decided he wanted to reread Harry Potter, so he started back with book one, and finally read through all seven books! The books get so dark as the series progresses, so I'm glad he waited til he was ready to finish the series. 

I hope your summer has been full of fantastic books and creamy ice cream too!