Labor Day Weekend Adventures

On Saturday afternoon we had a baby shower for Heather. Karina and I were in charge of the food and Heather's mom, aunt, and grandma did the rest. It was a beautiful, but hot, day. She got some beautiful blankets and other items to help "feather" the nest.


After the shower we jumped in the pool for a few hours. We had been in the pool the night before and were anxious to get back in the cool water. I had to leave early to go home, shower, and meet up with a group to go to the Hollywood Bowl to see the LA Phil being directed by John Williams and doing only his music. They did scores from Harry Potter, Star Wars, Witches of Eastwick and more. It was a perfect night to be out in the open.

On Monday, Jonas and I slept in and then headed to Long Beach to use our passes to the Aquarium of the Pacific. We love it there and have made good use of our passes. We played for a couple of hours before it was time for lunch. We took the bridge across to the Pike and made it over to California Pizza Kitchen. We shared a pizza and the yummy split pea and barley soup out on the patio. A bus kept stopping right out front on the street every 10 minutes. I saw that it said "free service" and had seen it stop in front of the aquarium before. We decided to check it out. We rode it to Shoreline village (but we didn't get off) and another stop within the Pike. The bus had to stop for service so we got off and walked on the path next to the harbor back to the Aquarium. There are many boats there that offer different trips. Jonas pointed out that I said we'd do a boat cruise one day and why don't we do it now. So we did the 45 minute harbor cruise. It was beautiful and informative. After it was over we headed back to the aquarium for more fun.

Then, because that wasn't enough, we hit the Citadel Outlets (not in Long Beach) for an evening of shopping. We had fun there too and shared a caramel apple that was covered with mini reeses pieces instead of nuts. Yummy! On the way home we took Heather and Eric hot chocolate from Starbucks and checked out the work Eric had done on their shower. It was beautiful.

It was a really good weekend.