Daryl's Birthday/Family Visit

Monday, March 26th-Daryl's Birthday. And we went out to eat sushi and that's about it. Daryl didn't want a celebration but I did bake him a cake in the shape of a billiards table, with marzipan balls and cue. When he's done with his billiard team I'm going to make a bigger cake for the whole team of 8 players. Currently, they're #1! And is there anyone who's surprised by that?


Friday, March 30th-Daryl's mother, brother, Joel, and nephews, Joseph and Andrew are in town to visit so we got Christian to take us to Hertz to get a mini-van. Boy howdy, the line there was so long we couldn't even pick them up at the airport; they had to come to Hertz and wait with us. Thankfully, we got out of there with the mini-van we were expecting and we then proceeded to Santa Monica Pier. Unbeknownst to us, a fire had been set in the hills and we saw huge billows of smoke coming from the Hollywood sign. Good thing we were driving away from that. We brought the kids out to the Santa Monica Pier and they immediately decided to change into shorts, which turned out to be a smart move as it was sunny and warm. They had fun on the pier in the Motion in the Ocean and Ferris Wheel and also got a souvenir penny. Then we drove up PCH to Malibu and had a lovely meal at Gladstone's where Andrew, amazingly, ate 1/2 pound of crab legs. You wouldn't think of it to look at him, but that boy can really put it away. We left with our leftovers wrapped in a foil bunny and a foil penguin. The foil artist was very good and the boys were delighted with the foil buddies. Then we drove around for a bit and brought them back to our place and we made arrangements to have one adult and one boy in the foldout bed in the living room and one boy and one adult in the office on the inflatable bed. (Honestly, I wasn't sure we'd be able to handle all of these people in our little apartment.) Surprisingly, this worked out and people seemed to get enough sleep. Daryl and the kids bonded over the Playstation and they gave him hints on how to win Lego Star Wars, while he coached them on Jak & Daxter.

Saturday, March 31st-We went to Chinatown for Dim Sum and while Joseph didn't like it all that much, Andrew got a kick out of it. I wonder how this family eats because Joseph only eats cheeseburgers, fries, and the like, while Andrew doesn't like fast food (He even eats broccoli!) or spicy food, but his dad loves spicy food. It must make dinnertime very interesting. Daryl's mother brought Slim Jims, gummi candies, pistachios, and Easter chocolate just in case the kids got hungry. And boy did they! Then we went to the La Brea Tar Pits and tried to see how strong we were at pulling tar and saw a lot of bones and a cool visual effect of a saber-toothed cat appearing over its skeleton. Joseph got another souvenir penny and told me that "all the cool places have souvenir penny machines." We tried to satisfy the kids with fried mozzarella sticks and quesadillas at our favorite Mexican restaurant, but I think, in the end, chocolate candies won the day.

Sunday, April 1st-We had a bit of a late start so had to eat breakfast at Jack-in-the-box. Andrew was ok with it when he learned he could dunk his French Toast into the maple syrup. Apparently, it was pretty good. Then we went to the Griffith Observatory which was a little confusing, but had some cool exhibits, like the big Foucault's pendulum. They even had a person explaining how it demonstrated that the earth moves. Very informative. We got tickets to the lovely planetarium show which was lovely, at least the part that I was awake for. (I told you we had a late start.) I don't know how it ended but the kids stayed up for the whole thing which I thought meant that it was pretty entertaining. Let me just say that the staff there were not only well informed, but polite and happy. It makes me want to be a member. Now if only we could just drive up there! We also strolled around Hollywood Boulevard and Mann's Chinese Theater, where the family was witness to the aftermath of a violent fight. I missed it because I was in the Sanrio store looking for Hello Kitty stationery and pushed my way through the crowd wondering why people weren't moving. Luckily, the kids did get a chance to look at handprints and footprints and even got a picture with Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper. The kids were so happy! And Joel got a great deal on T-shirts for the kids and for people back home. Andrew and Joseph got to pick out the designs that they liked. It was a lot of fun.

Monday, April 2nd-Ok, today was Disney. We did the Buzz Lightyear Astro-Blasters twice. After Daryl gave us some hints we all got higher scores than the first time, with Daryl's mom getting a whopping 95,000 points. The favorite ride of the day was the Indiana Jones ride which we did twice. The first time, after we were done, Joseph turned around to me and said "That was AWESOME!" Which was exactly the response we were looking for. Everyone should go to Disneyland with kids. Everyone. I should mention that we left at a staggeringly early hour (for us, that is) and eventually had dinner at Swingers where the kids fell asleep in the booth while eating. I got the impression that they had a good time.

Tuesday, April 3rd-Today we went to The Griddle and finally, finally, Joseph got a pancake bigger than his head. Carol got to see Ian Ziering yet again, little did we know he was just on Dancing with the Stars the night before. And then we were off to the Star Wars Exhibit at the California Science Center. Just to make it easier to get in, I got us all tickets to the IMAX show which required 3D glasses. Cool. The dinosaurs did look like they were going to get you and there was a moment at the end where the person sitting next to me gave a little scream as she jumped out of her seat. Fun! And then we were shuttled like cattle into the Star Wars Exhibit which was so crowded it was hard to keep track of the kids, although, with four adults looking after them they didn't get far without one of us tailing them. I had fun creating a lego mag-lev train, although there were some magnets missing from the train propulsion exhibit. And the kids had fun looking at all of the blasters from the movies and robots. We even had them programming a robot. Daryl, Joseph, and I waited a good 40 minutes to get into the mock up of the Millenium Falcon which could only hold 8 people at a time. No wonder why this place was crowded. Andrew decided he wanted to climb the climbing wall while we were in line and he made it all the way to the top! There never was a happier grandma than Daryl's mom when Andrew got to the top. Well done, Drew!