More from the Audubon

Most Saturday mornings J.'s responsible for taking care of the kids. Their ritual is to go the Audubon Center at Deb's Park. There are endless things to explore and adventures to be had there.

THIS... is summer

We have had the most wonderful and temperate summer in LA this year, but all good things must come to an end and the late summer heat wave has set in. To keep the kids cool this weekend we broke out the sprinkler and, as Sadie says, "the fishy diapers." We topped off the summer attire with a couple pairs of sun glasses from the 99 cent store and got this summer pièce de résistance.

Chinatown

We love street fairs. We hit a street fair pretty much every weekend of the summer, sometimes even two in a weekend. Last weekend we headed to Chinatown for "Chinatown Nights." We got the kids gussied up and took the train downtown. The kids were very excited to take the train. The pedestrian-only streets in Chinatown and free cookies were just icing on the cake for Jack and Sadie.

Arts and Crafts

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When I picked the kids up at school today they were VERY excited to show me the purses they had made. Jack made the orange bird purse above and Sadie made the yellow duck purse. They talked about the purses the whole ride home and then strutted around the house with the purses once we arrived. I even convinced them to pose for the top picture.

Air Show

As mentioned previously, the kids LOVE airplanes. J. had recently gotten into showing them youtube videos of air shows, which was a big hit. We decided that we should take them to a real air show, so we found ourselves at the Oxnard Air Force Base this weekend. Military culture feels about as familiar to us as an African safari, but the kids were right at home. They got to see a real WWI airplane with a wing-walker! They also got to sit in a real helicopter and they got to fly on the helicopter ride.

Unfortunately we decided to make the air show into a family vacation that went far a-rye. The kids have been really into hotels lately, so we booked a suit at an Oxnard hotel and thought we'd settle in for a relaxing weekend. The kids had other plans and went on a very painful sleep strike. We cut the vacation short and headed home early and are all very grateful to be back home. Next time we'll find an air show closer to home.

Kids Space Children's Museum

Thanks to a gift from Grammy and Papa we took the kids to the children's museum this weekend. There was lots to explore and climb. Even Jack, our fearless climber, had to ask to be rescued a few times. By far the coolest feature was a giant any colony that the kids could climb through, including the tunnel featured above. Jack also loved this crazy green climbing structure that I'm sure was built for kids three-times his age.

Up, Up, and Away!

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Jack and Sadie LOVE airplanes. Not just airplanes, but helicopters too. And "helicopter" is no easy word for a two-year old. As you can see from the photo above they were very excited to ride this airplane at the playground. The photos were aided by a 7-year old boy who decided to "help" us get a good photo by hitting me on the head while I tried to get a photo of the two of them smiling. Fortunately his tactics worked.