Grandma's Last Weekend: Observatory and Beach

We are busy making sure that Grandma's visit to Los Angeles ends with a bang, so we started off the day with Griffith Observatory. I know that the parking lot is small, but several spots were available when we arrived (10am) and when we left (around noon). We were excited to see the planetarium show, and kids under 5 are only allowed into the first show (10:45 today), which was about searching for water in our solar system. I would recommend the show, and I found out that this show is not generally crowded on weekends. I was looking forward to checking out the recently renovated museum--it was closed for renovations when we were here 5 years ago. Much of the astronomy exhibits upstairs was similar to what I remember from when I was here for graduate school, but the new exhibit downstairs, Depths of Space was spectacular. The kids loved seeing the models of the planets, looking through telescopes at a representative "night sky", and touching space rocks that fell to earth as meteors. Before leaving Griffith Park, we thought that it would be nice to have a picnic lunch, but it ended abruptly because the bees were just as hungry as we were.

Our next stop was the LA Fire Department Museum in Hollywood. It houses lots of old fire equipment on the bottom floor and a play area for kids on the top floor. The exhibits were really interesting, and the kids loved playing with the fire engines and fire station on the second floor (though the room contained fewer toys now than it did 5 years ago). However, Smokey the Bear was still there! In the afternoon, Dave and Grandma took the kids to La Pintoresca Park to play in the water.

(Dave here) - I have to comment on Joshua's 'victory' at Skip-Bo yesterday. Evidently he pulled the wool over Grandma's eyes successfully, because he only 'won' by cleverly selecting the three cards that he needed from the draw pile, which I saw but no one else noticed. I have mixed feelings about it, but it was funny.

On Sunday Dave decided that he wanted a family hike and a beach outing. We started off with a hike in Griffith Park in the park. We parked in the upper merry-go-round parking lot and picked a nice wide trail uphill trail. We went far enough to get a nice view of Los Angeles, but when the trail started to slope downhill, we decided that the kids had probably gone far enough. The Shane's Inspiration playground is closest to the lower merry-go-round parking lot, and it didn't seem horribly crowded when we drove by.

In the afternoon we went to Santa Monica to experience the beach. We parked in Santa Monica Place (an indoor shopping mall with free parking for 3 hours during the day) and walked to the beach (the pier parking was full, so I am glad that we didn't even try it). I insisted that we check out the Santa Monica Pier aquarium. It was very small, but the kids enjoyed the shark tank, the touch tank and the shark puppet craft. Then we headed out to the beach where the kids enjoyed swimming in the water for a while and playing in the sand. Joshua was disappointed that we didn't find another sand crab. Santa Monica doesn't have nearly as many shells as the Boca Chica beach, but Benjamin still managed to collect some. We enjoyed the cool ocean breeze for a while, but then left when the kids got too cold. On the way home, Grandma treated the kids to chocolate dipped ice cream cones at McDonalds. That evening, we said tearful goodbyes to Grandma, and Dave took her to the airport. In spite of tragedy of Grandma's departure, Laura was excited about starting camp on Monday!