Le Summer: Local Family Fun

I've been busy, sapped of energy, and relentlessly harangued by two demanding children. It has been a long busy summer with some very fun highlights. Let's focus on the fun stuff, shall we? Let's start off with the stuff we've been doing to explore our own back yard, so to speak. We visited the Lomita Railroad Museum.

Small, hands-on, well maintained, and very inexpensive. It's a good place to spend an hour or two with kids or train enthusiasts. 

Another of our weekend adventures included biking along the coast. There is bike path that runs along the beach for several miles, so we loaded the kids into the bike trailer and set off. Next time we do this we'll just have to pack a picnic because Paul was starving and he wanted to play at the beach. We couldn't get him food and stay at the beach, so we got a tantrum. yay.

We have gone to the beach a lot this summer. We usually go to the beach near Miramar Park because there is often free parking available. Every time we go Paul asks me to take his picture with one of the two statues in the park:

Statue #1

The Elusive Mer-boy

Statue #2

The little boys and I attempted that Build-a-Bear discount day, along with millions of other people, and we chose to take the coupon offered to us rather than wait in line for 5 hours.

So a week after the infamous Pay-Your-Age Day, the day of which it has been said, "It was so successful it failed," The boys and I went again to Build-a-Bear and found it nearly empty. We got our little buddies, walked to the Disney store where the boys watched cartoons, and then we went home.

Smokey the Firefighter Bear, and Captain Bunny, the Optimus Prime Rabbit.

We got to have a cousin sleepover with Grandma Karen a couple weeks ago. We met up at Travel Town in LA. Travel Town has old trains, cars, and wagons you can look at, some you can climb on, and a mini train that you can pay to ride around the park. The park itself is free, and right next to the LA Zoo. If you are visiting from out of town it is a place you might consider visiting. We took Grandma and our cousins to the beach, played in the yard, and watched movies together. Paul is so looking forward to doing another cousin sleepover.

And of course we went to Knott's Berry Farm a couple times too. Though after accidentally being there on the hottest day on record for half a century, we've chosen to wait until it cools off to go again. (In case you were wondering, it was 109 degrees that day and it we all stayed very well hydrated.)

That is what we did with summer in So Cal, keep watching for the post about our travels, we really got around this summer!