Island Adventure Cont. Stuff We Did

Camping at Hermit Gulch


Swimming to Diving Dock in Avalon Bay

Sitting on the Dock

Lover's Cove

Grey and White Pelicans at Lover's Cove

The Blanche W. (Wrigley Jr.'s grandaughter's boat) for a Flying Fish Tour

Getting Wet on The Blanche W. on the Way to Two Harbors

Two Harbors

John and Carrie Touring the Ups and Downs of Avalon Via a Rented Golf Cart

Natalie and Keving in the Back Seat

Avalon From Way Up High

Private Beach We Later Visited ($2 admission)

Back Side of the Casino.

Glass Bottom Boat Tour

Saw Some Fish

Kevin and John Snorkeling (these two saw a sting ray)

Me Too Snorkeling (my new favorite thing to do)

Natalie Holding a Shell Harvested From the Bottom of This Ocean (unfortunately, we had to put it back; there was a hermit crab living inside)

Island Adventure Cont. Mini Mobiles

Island Adventure Cont. - Catalina Tile

Island Adenture Cont. - Some Places We Ate

Our first dinner was at Antonio's Pizza.

The bench in front of the campground eating leftover Antonio's pizza

Lloyd's of Avalon for our daily dose of ice cream and candy

The best fish and chips I've ever had

Sally's Waffle Shop for what else - waffles and omelettes

Coyote Joe's for a light lunch of shared chicken nachos

This was our last stop for breakfast before getting on the boat to go back to Long Beach. That's our stuff piled up by the wall.

Island Adventure Cont.

Did you know the definition of casino is a building or room used for social amusements and that the casino on Catalina Island was never used for gambling?

Happy Couple
Natalie with her first "island drink"
Kevin waiting for breakfast
Happy Family

Catalina at night

An Island Adventure

John and Kevin climbed up Mt. Whitney two weeks ago. With Brent in Europe, that left me and Natalie with a day to ourselves - no boys. While I was searching around for something for us to do I ran into the Aquarium of the Pacific online. I thought, "that would be fun", but I didn't want to go so far away with just Natalie I wanted to go with the "whole" family and since it is the launching off place to Catalina Island I planned a whole trip around it. We left on Tuesday night, met John in Woodland Hills (he was on travel) left early on Wednesday morning for Long Beach. Our goal was to arrive at the aquarium when it opened, tour it, then head off to Catalina for four days. And that we did. We arrived on Catalina early enough to set up our campsite then go back to town for dinner. It's about one mile to town. We didn't pack any food; just sleeping bags and tents and of course toiletries and clothes. There were showers at the campground so we were all set. We stayed three nights. Every morning we left the campsite and didn't return until after nightfall. We saw all kinds of wildlife on those walks; deer, woodpeckers, quail, and squirrel. The walks back were very relaxing; a nice way to reflect on the day and have intimate family time. So, needless to say, Natalie and I did not go to the aquarium that non-boy day. That day, Natalie and I went to Lancaster to see the newest Jackie Chan movie then to Palmdale for lunch and back-to-school backback shopping. I don't have any pictures from that day.

Here are some choice pictures out of about 300 from our "non-boy day" inspired family vacation. Oh, by the way, Brent is safely home from his European vacation. I have yet to take an after picture, but I will and I'll post it too. He does look different.

The Aquarium of the Pacific

Here's Natalie taking in her favorite of all the sea animals, the sea lion.

John touching a sea ray.

Kevin touching a sea ray too.

An adult sea ray with a leopard pattern. Cool and weird.

Seahorses.
Did you know male seahorses have a front pouch they use to carry around fertilized seahorse eggs and when they hatch the male is the one to tend to the hatchlings while the female seahorse has simply left her eggs and gone off somewhere?

Family photo.

Catalina

Getting there; a picture of "the boat".

On the boat.

On the boat too.

In Case You Were Wondering . . .

This is what the inside of my refrigerator looks like right now.

Any questions?

Pink Flamigoes

This morning John and I woke up to find plastic pink flamingoes covering the front lawn.

It's a fund raiser for the local girls soccer team for tournaments and what not throughout the year. They were "sent" to our house by some friends who knew we would be generous enough to donate money to their cause. $5 to have the girls remove the birds and $20 to have them "sent" to someone elses front lawn. As far as I know they are still outside. We called one of the team members at lunch to have her come and get them, but they have not shown up. School starts tomorrow, maybe they are too busy getting ready for that. Hmmm . . . am I the new proud owner of twenty some plastic pink flamingoes.

Great idea for a fund raiser. Hint hint Robin.

Here's a Better One

of them dressed like vegetables.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I promise.

"Here's a Blondie For Your Trouble." ~ Nancy Drew

Seriously. Have one.

Toby Mac

Toby Mac played at the Anaheim Angels Stadium last Sunday with the Harverst Crusade. I was excited about seeing him live, but was less than enthusiastic about the venue.
I'm glad we went but . . . yeah.

Here is a picture of him from the big screen after he took off his beautiful white blazer.

Oh, another treat from the concert was seeing Dennis Agajanian.


Here he is playing guitar.

The one below is a video of Toby's fancy footwork.

One More Thing About That

The Ditty Bops concert we went to a couple weeks ago was the first performance of their Farm Tour. To honor the farmers they dressed up like vegetables! Amanada was dressed as a carrot

and Abby was dressed as an artichoke. Here she is holding a vegan cupcake singing up a dream.

Awesome!

Third Stop

After the museum we went to another favorite dining spot for lunch. Can you guess where?

After the satisfying fare it was home again, home again.

Next stop . . . TobyMac.

The Nex Day

The plan was to see The Ditty Bops, stay over night and in the morning eat at our new favorite breakfast place in the city, Du Par's. After breakfast no one was quite ready to go home so we visited the nearby Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I'm so glad we did. I was introduced to Dan Flavin, an artist of fluorescent tube art. I was so excited by the exhibit I wanted to walk through again and again. What a nice surprise.

Here are some examples of his work.

Isn't it so pretty?

So . . . The Ditty Bops

I first heard The Ditty Bops on XM radio last Fall. A song called Fish to Fry caught my ear. I have since discovered more of their songs to Love. They are two very creative and talented girls with a mission to inspire and entertain. Check them out at the link above or here.

While poking around the internet to learn what I could about them I realized I could see them live. And see them live I did at the lovely Henry Fonda Music Box Theatre in Hollywood. I arranged an overnight trip for the whole family; John, Kevin, Natalie and Me. We stayed the the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in North Hollywood and ventured to the venue via the Metro. Fun! John admits to coming to the show with me out of humor, but was pleasantly surprised by their flawlass musical engineering.

We'll see them again when we can.

Bye Brent ~ Have Fun in Europe

Here is a picture of the family the morning before Brent left for Europe. He left on Sunday the 29th of July. He will be gone for three weeks! He returns the day before school starts, August 20th. In this picture (Saturday morning) he is ready to leave for work and we are just preparing ourselves for an overnight trip to L. A. to see The Ditty Bops live!