Day Two and Three

Morning! Let's all fight about breakfast! 

I decided to turn their competition into a game. I filled out six slips of paper with Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and breakfast or lunch. We drew them out of a hat and voila! Every kid got to dictate a meal. (I reserved lunch for leftovers or being out.) 

Arlo was in charge of breakfast. I hauled out our heavy duty blender and made smoothies. The kids drink Trader Joe's yogurt drinks every day for breakfast, so I thought, hey! I can make yogurt drinks and sneak in all kinds of healthy stuff in there!

No dice. For the love of God, there were SEEDS in there. I was the only one who drank our homemade smoothies.

There was some TV, some tooth brushing, some fighting. I eventually go them all in the car and we drove downtown to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum.

Flat Stanley gets intimate with the local flora.

It's a gorgeous building. They are in the middle of a huge revamp. In New Jersey (or New York for that matter) they would let the building rot. In California they care about their infrastructure and their culture.

Flat Stanley will leave us tomorrow. I hope we've shown him a good time. I feel bad that he hasn't seen the Hollywood sign.

This is just on the entrance of the NHM. Their new landscaping is gorgeous.

Flat Stanley and Oscar run from the polar bear.

We spent a lot of time in the lab. There was lots of bugs, lots of taxidermied animals, and this: a dinosaur skeleton with removable bones that you could put together as a puzzle.

 

Arlo could have spent hours here. 

This was the T-Rex puppet that is the center of their kids' program. We caught the early show which feature an actress playing Mary, an English lady who found fossils in the cliffs but was never recognized as a scientist since she was female. I don't have pictures of it the show but she interacted with a giant puppet of a baby triceritops. My children were so charmed that we needed to stay for the next show when the T-Rex would show up.

 

Oscar is chatting with "Mary" and touching a couple fossils. 

Flat Stanley under the microscope.

Just have to mention: while I'm writing this I am watching the Grammys. The Foo Fighters should win everything.

The girl finds something shiny.

A selection of Hopi fetishes.

Godzilla!

We needed a break from the museum after lunch so we trekked across the street to a playground.

This kid is so handsome. He is more Evan than me, The body structure, the floppy hair, the sharp chin. I can only take credit for the flashing dark eyes and the you-left-the-car-doors-open ears (from my dad - I managed to get my mom's ears).

There was chasing of pigeons.

There was an adorable Goose.

She has Evan's forehead but I think she has my nose.

My Goose is a strong woman. She is also so stinkin' cute. Wait until I post video of her ballet/tap recital.

That's my crew.

Lunch at the Museum.

This is the baby-T-Rex puppet show. Literally, it is worth the price of admission.
I have a brief video of the puppet which I can't seem to load to this post but I will directly after.

Running from the bones.

After the museum we hit up Yummy Cupcakes. We had a gift card from The Goose's birthday.

It was Oscar's turn to pick dinner.

I made some sushi rice (I need a rice maker) and cooked some salmon -- half plain, half with teriyaki sauce. Steamed a little broccoli and some dumpings. Dinner was a rice bowl. This was Arlo's bowl: plain rice, plain salmon, broccoli, and a tomato thrown in there.

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My bowl: rice, teriyaki salmon, topped by crumpled up seaweed. It was divine.

Jebus, Dave Grohl. He couldn't be more awesome.

The next day, I woke up with a cuddly Arlo snuggled up next to me. (First, I woke up at 5:15, found Oscar watching TV, and told him to go to bed until it was light out; Eventually sweet Goose crawled in too. The kids watched lots and lots of bad TV and the we made out for the Burbank cinema. We saw Journey 2 Mysterious Island, and we loved it. Afterwards, we went to our favorite library and checked out the Dinotopia books (we had watched the Dinotopia miniseries Saturday night for family movie night) and the prequel to Journey. We hit Costco for ravioli and a chicken and headed home, where I forced the kids to clean up their rooms, made a ton of raviloi, and setled down to watch Journey to the Center of the Earth. 

Man, I am pooped.  When does Evan come back again?

Thursday. Sigh. 

(be sure to go back to the homepage and look for the video of the t-rex puppet in the following post!)