A couple of weeks ago we took a quick trip to California when Jacob had some time off from his rotation. Jacob’s been talking about taking the baby to the beach since…well, before she was born! I’ve never really been to LA so we thought it would be a fun trip.
(I was really paranoid about getting sand in my new [to me] camera and it’s pretty heavy so a lot of these pictures were taken on my point and shoot. Then that started acting up and we took pictures on the video camera, hence the quality.)
We left for LA around 8:30 PM. The only way I was ok with making this drive was if we drove at night so Addie would sleep! I knew that traffic from Vegas to LA was bad on Sundays but we’d been watching this traffic site and it didn’t seem too bad. Little did we know that the night is the WORST! We were stopped/crawling for 2+ hours between Baker and Barstow. Addie woke a few times on the trip but I got her back to sleep fairly easily. It was the worst in the stopped traffic because we weren’t moving enough to lull her. We were originally supposed to get in around 1 AM but didn’t get to our hotel until almost 3 AM. Ugh! And then when we got in our room Addie woke up and wanted to play. I didn’t get her down until after 4 AM. We stayed at the Radisson in Culver City for a great price (thank you Priceline.)
Lounging in the hotel.
So we had a late start Monday morning. We went to Venice Beach. Jacob wanted to lift weights at the famous muscle beach, where Arnold Schwarzenegger used to lift weights. They have weight lifting competitions and iron man competitions there sometimes now. You pay a fee and then you can go in and lift.
Venice Beach is a hippie dump. The boardwalk had a Marijuana doctor and this kid was sitting next to me at Muscle Beach rolling a joint. And we saw Harry Perry.
It was cloudy and kind of chilly the whole time we were there. We were surprised because 10 minutes away from the beach at our hotel it was bright and sunny. It was too cold for Addie to get wet so besides playing in the sand a little with Jacob I kept her in the Ergo to stay warm. And still somehow she managed to have sand in every crevice of her body (and down my shirt.)
She was pretty much in the Ergo almost the entire trip. I don’t love the print but it’s a great carrier. I got it for almost half price at babysteals before she was born.
We went back to the hotel and showered/changed. Then we decided to go downtown to the The Grove and Farmer’s Market. We were going at rush hour so we went on city streets and really had no traffic problems. Addie even fell asleep. We were maybe a mile away when we got to a road closed off. So we went around and another road was closed off. We finally found a way and 3 cars back from the intersection the police closed it off too. It reminded me of when we lived in New York and Obama was in town and just as I said that to Jacob, Emily texted to say that Obama was in town around the Grove and they were shutting off like a 6 block radius of traffic. Ugh! They can’t say what street he’ll be on so there was no way to know how to get around. And there were lots of roads closed that didn’t need to be. We just gave up and drove as far away from there as possible. Good thing because we heard on the news that traffic was backed up for hours and hours!
After we drove away we decided to go to the Santa Monica pier instead. We went to the 3rd Street Promenade to park and get some food. I had Addie in the Ergo and because of the way she was sitting her diaper leaked (just pee, whew!) all over my lap. And then she spit up down my front while in the carrier so I was a mess. It was really cold out there too (they had heat lamps on in the outdoor eating areas!) so we had to go buy a sweater which covered both of us and covered up my messy clothes. We had fun walking around and sharing a little food from a bunch of different places. Jacob loved the Korean BBQ truck. By the time we walked down to the pier around 9 PM Addie was pretty sleepy and we were exhausted (and I was sunburned!) so we didn’t spend much time there before going home. Addie slept a lot better that night. I think we wore her out.
We checked out of our hotel on Tuesday around 11. Then we went downtown to The Grove and Farmer’s Market. We loved the Farmer’s Market! For lunch we shared a little bit of food from a bunch of the vendors. We shared a french dip sandwich and fresh pineapple lemonade and a slice of pizza from Patsys (the best pizza we’ve had since NY) etc. We could have stayed longer but we had to get over to Grauman’s Chinese Theater to get the hop on hop off tour. The tour wasn’t great. It was mostly “That’s a club that a celebrity used to own.” and “That’s where OJ Simpson lived” and “Here’s another famous shopping area!” And it was REALLY hot. Addie was in the Ergo and slept for most of it. The loop that went out to Santa Monica was nice and cool and when we got back to the city it had cooled a little. But by then Addie was tired and sick of being in the carrier so she got cranky. We were passing her back and forth trying to keep her from screaming. I couldn’t wait to get off the bus!
After the tour I sat in the car and pumped while Jacob walked around with Addie. Then we decided to go to Milk, a restaurant recommended by Caroline. She’d recommended several restaurants but we hadn’t been able to go to any. Milk was delicious. We shared a really yummy turkey BLTC and the Milkie Way Malt. They took forever for the malt to come and we were ready to go so when Jacob went in to ask he ended up getting a free peanut butter brownie too and he loved it.
The drive home went really well. We made great time. Addie slept the whole way.
It was a fantastic first family trip!
P.S. Addie’s bonnet is from this etsy shop courtesy of my mom. The quality of the bonnet is fantastic and we get lots of compliments. Just be aware that the shipping time was SLOW, slower than the projected time and the communication wasn’t great. It came over a month after I ordered it. But it’s darling!
