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!