Day at the Beach and All That Trash

Sunday, July 19 we finally met up with Ben, Betsy and cute little Will, who is now 21 months. Now that both our families are living in NY, about 100 miles apart, we need to travel 3000 miles to get together. Betsy claimed that they came to Southern California to eat at their favorite Indian restaurant, Kamal's Palace in Long Beach.

We met up with them at the restaurant, then we spent the rest of the afternoon at Bolsa Chica State Beach, south of Long Beach. It is an awesome beach with tons of shells and waves strong enough to carry the kids out to sea! Will wasn't so fond of the water, but he enjoyed playing in the sand with Laura (see picture). Benjamin loved picking up every shell and shell fragment he saw. Joshua was fascinated by a dead sand crab that we found, and he eventually discovered and picked up a live one before it disappeared into the sand. Joshua also found an empty crab shell of some kind. Dave insists that it is a horseshoe crab, but I am certain that it is not. We got home in time for supper with Grandma, who is leaving for her cruise tomorrow (Monday). She carefully explained to Laura that she is not going on the airplane yet--she will be back to spend more time with us. I promised Laura that she will go to camp after Grandma leaves on an airplane.

Monday, July 20, we started off by seeing a show called "All That Trash" by Razzle Bam Boom, which the kids thought was hilarious. In the afternoon we went to a LACMA art program for families at the Los Felix branch library. The kids etched a design in a piece of foam and then "printed" it on paper using colored markers. Benjamin, of course, drew a spaceship and Joshua created a neat underwater scene. Laura was upset that printing did not involve printing a fun coloring page from the computer. Then we played for a bit in the library in a circular kids lounge filled with stuffed animals. Finally, on the way home, we stopped at Cerritos Park in Glendale which was lots of fun. Joshua loved getting doused by the tipping buckets of water, and Benjamin loves the spaceship-shaped play structure.