La Brea Tarpits, Hollywood & Chinatown

On Monday we started with La Brea Tar Pits.  David had really great memories of visiting here here as a child and had wanted to go back.

It was very cool--not like any place I had been to before. 

The tar pits are right there, in the middle of Los Angeles, and all the fossils that are in the museum have been found in those tarpits.  And there are lots of fossils.

The fossils are all from the ice age--wooly mammoths, mastodons, saber tooth cats, etc.  Not a single dinosaur in the whole place, since dinosaurs were extinct long before the ice age.

Evidently the animals would get trapped in the tar, and wouldn't be able to get out.  Here we were experiencing how difficult it would be to get out of tar. 

William absolutely loved this place.  He spent the rest of the week pretending to be a saber tooth tiger. 

 After we left the Tar Pits we drove to Hollywood.  We stopped at the Chinese theater,

 and looked at all the handprints and footprints of the stars.  Here was Julie Andrews,

 and the Harry Potter cast.

 Kate, Ben, and Sarah had to get a picture on the Harry Potter footprints.

 There were tons of characters hanging out, hoping you would tip them to pose.  We gave in once.

 This guy was just a statue, but he was pretty cool.

William gave him knuckles.

We walked around for a bit looking at the stars on the sidewalk. 

We really aren't much into Hollywood and celebrities, and the kids didn't recognize too many of the names on the stars, but we found a few we liked. 

 Kate and William found another guy they liked too.

Since the Oscars were less than a week away, they were getting all set up.  It was cool to see.

We went into the mall where they hold the Oscars, and stumbled upon the greatest candy store ever, called Sweets.  The kids thought they were in heaven. 

They had fun walking on this giant Crunch Bar, that actually made a crunching noise every time someone stepped on it.
There was a man dressed up like Willy Wonka and a whole section of the store devoted to incredible Wonka treats.  We also saw a Jelly Belly mosaic of Harry Potter, and a live candy making demonstration that enthralled the kids for quite some time. 

Everyone got to pick out a treat--which helped validate our parking. 

 We left Hollywood and drove to Chinatown. 

I love the beautiful architecture and lanterns strung everywhere.  And of course, the amazing cloudless blue sky.

 I had fun doing a little bit of shopping.  Who can resist cute hair clips for only $1?

We finished off our visit to China Town with what else...Chinese Food.  A couple at the temple the night before had recommended this restaurant, called Yang Chow, so we decided to try it, and it was delicious.  Some kids even made it the whole meal using chopsticks. 

We headed back to our hotel, and after his bath, William got to taste his lollipop.  He was one happy kid. 

It was another great day!

Our California Trip - Day 1

Every February the kids have a week off of school.  We call it February Break and we have decided it is the perfect time to get out of town--away from the cold and rain of the Pacific Northwest to somewhere (hopefully!) warmer and sunnier.

This year we took a trip to California.  We drove down to Portland and caught a plane from there to Orange County.  It cost about half if we flew out of Portland instead of Seattle, so we decided the extra couple of hours of driving was worth it.  We checked into our hotel Saturday night.

The kids loved the towel elephants waiting for us.

Sunday morning we got up and drove about 45 minutes to go to church with Sarah's friend, Ally.  Her ward meets in a very unusual church building, which I was told used to be an old Country Club.  It was a beautiful morning and since we got there a little early, we enjoyed spending some time in the morning sunshine. 

After church we visited the Getty Museum.  Being on vacation on Sundays is always tricky, and everyone has their own views on the subject, but for our family we always go to church if we can, and then try our best to do Sabbath appropriate activities.  We decided that looking at famous art at a free museum was a good activity. 

And there was some AMAZING art.

This Vermeer is currently visiting from Amsterdam and is in the U.S. for the first time.  I love Vermeer and his signature style. 

Here are some more of my favorites.

After a while I started taking pictures of the plaque next to the painting so I could remember what each one was called. 

I especially loved this original Monet:

And this is probably my favorite Van Gogh ever. 

The kids also enjoyed the museum.  David told them to go into each gallery and pick their two favorites and then read about them.  They each liked certain types of art better than others, but that is okay.  I think that being exposed to it all is important.

William lasted for a while, but eventually got to play David's phone to keep him in the stroller.  I'm hoping he absorbed some of it anyway. 

The bigger kids each got to do a sketch in the "sketching room" and then got their drawing stamped with an official Getty stamp. 

I'm continually amazed at the artistic abilities of my children since I know that absolutely none of it comes from me.

The museum also had a fun Family Room where William and Kate got to play for a while.  Here Kate is reading books on a replica of King Louis' bed, which was actually somewhere in the museum, although we didn't see it. 

The Getty is up in the hills and had fabulous views of Los Angeles. 

William had a great time running around in one of the gardens.   After being in the stroller for the last two hours he really needed to get out and run around.

After we left the Getty we drove to the LA Temple.  It is beautiful!

We got to see our friends, the Grovers, who are serving a mission in the Temple Visitor Center.

We explored the visitor center for a while, and then headed out after the sun had set to see the temple all lit up.  We got to visit two temples two Sundays in a row, since the previous Sunday we were in Salt Lake.

Day one of our California adventure was over.   We were off to a great start!