A Weekend of Fun, Fun, Fun!

What a weekend we have had. It started on Friday (of course), which happened to also be Valentine's Day. We packed up our suite cases and headed to L.A. Tracy had a conference to attend. It was just a short conference with an opening social Friday night, presentations all day Saturday and a field trip Sunday. James and I just came along as well.

Friday night we all were able to go to the opening social. James struggled a bit because he didn't want to be there. We were able to find something that they had there as snacks for him to eat. Tracy met a lot of them people attending the conference. It was a small one, so it was an easy task. Then we checked in to our hotel and went out to find some dinner.

Saturday, Tracy left early for the day to attend the conference. James and I took our sweet little time getting ready. We found Wall-E on T.V. and instantly he was hooked. We finally (around 10) started heading to the Page Museum where Tracy was at.

If you haven't ever been or aren't familiar with the Page Museum, I'll give a little description (and the link). It is located at the site of the La Brea Tar Pits. The Page Museum is where they house all the finds from the Tar Pits. L.A. has take the area around the Tar Pits and turned it into a grassy park called Hancock Park. It is also the location of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Now back to the fun stuff. ;) We have been to the Hancock Park before so I knew a few places we could play at before meeting Tracy for lunch. Our first stop was the outdoor art piece call the Levitated Mass. James loved it.

He looks so tiny.

Looking up at the rock.

Being cute.

We then headed over to the next outdoor art piece called Urban Light. The Urban Light is near the main ticket booth for the Museum of Art. On our way there we were stopped by on of the security guys and he told us about the NEXGEN membership. Kids with the pass get into the museum for free, plus one adult gets in free too. And the cost of the membership? $0, that's right FREE! How could I pass that up? So we signed James up and got my free ticket for the museum. But first photo shoot at the lights.

I kept missing him.
Got a hand this time.

His back!

He's completely gone.

Finally got him peeking around a light.

 It was getting close to lunch, so we went over to the Page Museum to wait for Tracy.

He chased the pigeons.

In front of the Tar Pit. Ah, he has horns! 

Then learned how to roll down hills.
We had a bit of an accident, involving me taking my turn rolling down
and James with out me seeing moved right into my path.
He went down with me on top of his feet and ended up with a bit of a sore ankle.
He wouldn't put any weight on it for a while and limped most of the rest of the day.
Opps. Sorry, Bud.

Had lunch then headed over the art museum for the afternoon. They have a children's area where kids can make their own painting, so that's where I took him first. He had no interest and wouldn't even let me take him out of his stroller. So we immediately went to explore another part of the museum. One of the workers at the Children's area told me about a display called Metropolis II that James would probably really enjoy. But we had to wait till 2:30 (an hour away) to see it in action. Meant we had time to kill. I found the Greek, Roman Art hall and we walked around there. I totally geeked out. Definitely will have to go back san kid and enjoy it more. Plus see more of the museum. James the whole time kept reminding me that we needed to find Metropolis II. We did make it over to the building where it was and found the awesomeness around 2:00. James was in love. I then told convinced him to go outside for a snack and we'd come back to see it on. They only run it for an hour at a time a few times through out the day. Once it turned on James was in complete heaven. Cars racing around on tracks and several electric trains going around; how could a kid not love that. I got several pictures of it, but here's a few.

James had to stay for the full hour it ran. Then we walked back to the hotel and waited for Tracy to finish with his day. One sec James was playing, the next he passed out on the floor wrapped in his blankie.

Once Tracy came back to the hotel, we started decided what to do for dinner. We had settled on the Cheesecake Factory, but once we got there and learned of the 1 1/2 hour wait we changed our mind. Luckily it was in a outdoor shopping mall area, so we had other choices. Tracy choose the place closest to the Cheesecake Factory, called The Fat Cow. Totally had some of the best food ever. I'm still dreaming of the burger we shared and the pizza was just excellent. Oh, and James' Mac 'n Cheese was just as delicious. He even ate almost the whole thing. (He's pretty picky about his mac n' cheese, same as I.) Afterwards, Tracy looked up The Fat Cow and learned it was one of Gordon Ramsey's restaurants. Wow! No wonder it was sooo good!

Sunday, Tracy decided to skip the field trip part of the conference, since they were just checking out mammal stuff at a Cal State in Fullerton. He's not that interested in mammals. So we made it a beach day, but first we had to decide what beach we wanted to go to. We did decide to check out a light house, Point Vincent Lighthouse. So cool!

We drove past LA's shipping yard and Long Beach. Saw the Queen Mary and kept on heading south. Tracy was thinking about going to Hunting Beach, but then decided to just keep on going to our regular place, the Balboa Pier in Newport Beach. We have a restaurant we've been eyeing on Balboa Island. The easiest way to get there from the beach was to take the ferry. The restaurant is just a block off the ferry dock. We made it a new adventure and walked onto the ferry instead of driving. Once we got over there, we discovered that the restaurant was closed for remodeling. :( We ended up taking the ferry back across, then walking around a bit looking for a place to eat. James suddenly had a request to eat on the bridge (the pier) which meant we'd be eating at our regular place Ruby's. Still Delicious and Fun!

On the Ferry!

We played for a bit on the beach then headed home.

Monday, we packed an overnight bag for my Valentine's Surprise. (I know it seems a bit over kill with the fun we already had so far in the weekend.) But Tracy still needed a break. So I guess he planned it just about has much for himself as for me. I had no clue as to where we were going until about an hour before we left when I started getting things together to go.
So my surprise? Was a night at the Beachcomber Motel in San Clemente. We had been eyeing the place, since we first stepped foot in San Clemente. It looked like such a nice place to stay. Needless to say I was excited to go on our mini Valentine's Day vacation.

James checking out the view.
The ocean is seriously right down the cliff.
(This picture doesn't show it too well.)

Playing at the beach before dinner.

We had a delicious dinner at Fisherman's Restaurant, right on the pier just as the sun was setting. Of course it was a cloudy day, so there wasn't a nice sunset. Still loved eating right above the water. We didn't have our nice camera at dinner and our cell phone don't work too well in low light.

The next morning, Tracy got us breakfast from The Beach Garden Cafe and brought it back to our room. We ate breakfast on the porch and enjoyed the view of the ocean. Then packed up our room and headed down to the beach to play. We played and played and played, had clam chowder from the Beach Garden Cafe for lunch (best clam chowder ever!) and then headed home.

Inside of the room.
One the right next to the sofa (fold out bed) there's a small kitchen, fully furnished.
Perfect for making your own meals.
You can see me getting our snack out of the fridge. ;)
The door on the left is the bathroom. Small but sufficient.

The porch with James playing on it.

View from the porch.

View from the porch.

Tracy and James playing together.

James adding water to our moat  around the sand castle.

Capturing sweet moments.

So there's a bit of a funny story behind this picture.
James has this small basket ball that he found on one of our beach trips awhile ago.
We keep it with our beach stuff, so he has his own little beach ball to play with.
Today, Tracy was tossing it around.
Soon he had some seagulls tried to pick it up/eat it, thinking it was food.
This lasted probably a good 15 min before they gave up. Silly birds.

So I feel like I got pretty spoiled this past weekend, with spending so much time with my boys. Definitely made lots of new memories. Hope you all had a good Valentine's Day!