Easter weekend in LA

There are a few posts I’ve been meaning to put up for a couple weeks, but spare time has eluded me as it so often does. So when I woke up this morning to a beautiful, sunny Sunday I thought, “what better day to hide inside and stare at a computer for a while?”

I’ll start my short-term recollecting with a lovely trip we took down to Los Angeles for Easter weekend. Culturally, LA is very complimentary to San Francisco as it offers a lot of things the Bay Area doesn’t. And when we are homesick for the very large feeling of New York, LA is just a one-hour flight away.

A friend of ours from NYC recently relocated to LA for a few months to work on The Green-- you should watch it if you don’t already. Anyway, he was kind enough to give us a place to stay (and a cool bungalow in the Hills, at that.)






Aside from some early shopping, the trip was really about seeing friends and many laughs were had. And of course, what SoCal trip would be complete without visiting a Studio City farmer’s market where Ed Begley Jr. manned his own booth to sell environmentally friendly cleaner. The same market gave Diaz a chance to get close to some farm animals. A very small set here.

Pack up the Grandparents, there's science to see!

Don’s parents braved the airports and came out for a few days last weekend. It was great to see them, but the real joy is watching Diaz with them. Naturally, the grandparents try their best to spoil her rotten and usually succeed. But who are we to talk.

One cool thing we did with them was check out the Exploratorium. If you’ve never been there, it’s a science museum of sorts where you are allowed to touch—and in some cases, operate—everything. A few pics from this excursion are here.

Diaz and Kelly get close to the action

Zingo

So the grandparents show up with a game called Zingo! for Diaz. Little did any of us know that we would end up playing this game (with rules dynamically created by Diaz) several dozen times over the course of the weekend. Don’s parents were saints for taking most of the load.

Mani / Pedi

She was interested, and what’s the harm anyway? Diaz wore nail polish for the first time this past weekend—Kelly gave all 20 fingers and toes a coat of translucent sparkle.

Making Diaz understand that she had to sit still while her nails were wet took a little effort. After she decided to use her grandmother as a lounge chair, she was more comfortable with the idea.

Plastic egg season is upon us

After Kelly loaded up the plastic eggs with goodies, we unleashed the kids for the second annual Egg Hunt. We live in a condo building these days, so the lush garden setting has been replaced by our living room—city living, I suppose. As far as I can tell, the indoor setting didn’t keep anyone from having a good time. As expected, everyone ate too much candy. A few pics here.

Totally nuts, I tell you.