Love, Learn, Play: California Adventure- Day 27

The beginning of our last week here in California. I don't think we expected the end to be this hard. When we first got here we figured that by the end of the month we'd run out of things to do and we'd be ready to go home. Jon was even quite afraid that we'd hate it here and want to leave after a week or two and that we'd be stuck here. I don't think we expected that this place would come to feel like home. But here we are trying to visit all of our favorite places, our places- little spots around town that have come to feel like ours- one last time before we leave. And its really sad to say good-bye to some of those places :/

This morning we hit one of the boys favorite skate parks one last time. They have loved skating at P-Rod's park in Pacoima because it has the most stuff they can do out of all the parks. There are two great transitions that they can do totally on their own now and Caleb has learned to ride down the curb there. So they spent the morning skating P-Rod. There were a bunch of city workers there that were supposed to be cleaning up the park, but instead they all stood there and watched the boys skate! They were absolutely amazed! And to be honest, Jon and I are pretty blown away too. To look at them today as compared to how they skated when we first arrived in LA is just unbelievable. They have made so much progress and grown so much. They are cruising so gosh darn fast and with such control. They know how to run it out if they are going too fast and how to catch their balance if they're losing it. They're getting close to doing ollies and they are riding some really big transitions now! Its hard to believe that they are just two year olds out there.

Our plan was to get to the Griffith Park Observatory in time to catch the 12:45 planetarium show, but of course the curse of Griffith Park struck again. I swear every time we go there something goes wrong! The Paddocks are so not a fan of Griffith Park! We were all excited for the show, but the observatory is closed on Mondays. Seriously Griffith Park?! Instead we enjoyed a beautiful family picnic and let the boys run wild on the lawn in front of the observatory. They made a little friend named Avery and the three of them played tag for a good 15 or 20 minutes, but apparently that wasn't long enough to tire the boys out. Because we all slept in so late (the whole family woke up at 9:00am!) they just weren't ready for a nap today. Jon attempted a rest time at the condo while he let me go out to Starbucks to catch up on the blog. I do have to say that I am desperately craving my nap times back when we get home! I have love, love, loved nap times in the car with Jon... we have explored so much of LA and we've been able to spend some great time together just talking and laughing and reliving all of our amazing LA experiences. But man do I want to put those kids in their cribs and have two hours of peace and quiet all to myself where I can totally veg out in front of the computer and Jon can go bang away on some nails in the garage!!!

After dinner we had to stay close to home or else the boys would crash in the car, so we just went to one of our favorite local parks. I think we spent two and a half hours there! While the boys were playing in the sand, Caleb started dumping shovels full of dirt on his own head. I lept up to say "NOOOOO!!!" but his response caught me a bit off guard. "No mama! I'm bein' an elephant and I'm takin' a bath. A sand bath. Elephants do that!" And I'll be damned, that's exactly what we watched the elephant do at the zoo last week! So I had to think on my feet and explain that elephants only take their sand baths on Tuesdays and since today was only Monday we couldn't do that. Oh dear! A little bit later an old friend of mine from high school who moved to LA came to the park to hang out with us. She moved here four or five years ago and I haven't seen her much since then, so it was really nice to see her again. It was the first time she got to meet the boys and of course they hammed it up :) Caleb asked her boyfriend to play his guitar and because neither of the boys had napped, they crawled into my lap and snuggled up while Tom played and made up hilarious songs about the boys and being at the park. They were totally mesmerized, it was so sweet. Then the boys had to show off on their skate boards a bit so we let them ride for a few minutes, then it was time to say good-bye. I feel like this week is going to be a lot of good-byes :/

Sorry I'm a bit short on pictures today... but here's an awesome video of the boys skating this morning to make up for it:

Paddock Twins Ride P-Rod
http://youtu.be/j6sKpslesfY

Baby lizard that Daddy found at the skate park today