California

From Arizona, we drove across to Los Angeles. We spent several days in California because we had appointments to ship our car and our cats from there, and we flew to Hawaii from LAX.

We expected to spend our entire first day in Long Beach, messing around and trying to ship the car. Shipping a car with the military is usually a long process, so we were prepared to waste time. This time, though, we were shipping our car privately (the Navy will only pay to ship one car, so we had them ship our other car from Georgia), and it was incredibly easy. We were in and out in minutes. So then we had a whole day to sight see, but I was unprepared and had no camera... Sad, because we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific and it was a really beautiful aquarium. We got to pet rays, sharks, starfish, and, new to us, an anemone. Very cool. They also had a great collection of seahorses and seadragons. I love seahorses, but had never seen a seadragon before. These were fabulous! When we left the aquarium, we spent a while wandering the waterfront. It's very pretty, and it was great for getting us even more excited about living by the ocean!

On our second day in California, we headed over to Hollywood. My husband had never been there, so he wanted to check out the sights. We spent some time driving through incredible, cliff-hanging neighborhoods so that we could get a good, unobstructed picture of the Hollywood sign. Those houses are gorgeous, but I'd spend all my time waiting for a mudslide...


We stopped by Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which is where the stars leave their hand and footprints.


Crumpet and his dad:
The Harry Potter kids!
I remember the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum entrance from when I was a kid. Hard to forget...
We wandered the Walk of Fame:
We came across a big crowd outside Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, and discovered that Ben Kingsley and Jerry Bruckheimer were there giving speeches. Ben Kingsley was receiving his star on the Walk of Fame! Can you see his bald head up on stage? No? We barely could either, but hey, I saw famous people!
Then we headed to the Santa Monica Pier for the afternoon. The beach and amusement park rides - Crumpet was in seventh heaven.
Crumpet preparing to take off on his very first solo amusement park ride. We were so proud. And so sad. He's growing up:
Flying!
Crumpet's first steps in the Pacific. He LOVES the ocean. We went there unprepared, and ended up totally soaked.
But really happy!
I love this picture... Crumpet walks on his toes most of the time, and here are his little toe prints in the sand:
We loved California. Especially because it was our last stop on the way to Hawaii, and our new life!
For more Field Trip Fun, hop on over to Live the Adventure!