Visit with the Jarretts December 2013

 The Griffith Observatory. 

Beautiful View, kinda crazy parking/walk to the Observatory, learned a lot, got to look through a huge microscope and see Jupiter. Very exciting. :) 

Little Buddies. Chloe, Liam, Ella

Ella (My Go Go Go girl) LOVED having cousins to play with 24/7 for a whole week! 

Maddi playing "teacher". Macee thrilled to be included.  

Perler Beads!  

Making Beaded Jewelry with Ella...very fancy! 

Plasma Cars at the Park. 

So fun, thanks to our neighbor/friend who was so nice to share!  

Little out of Order but here is the Griffith Observatory again... 

View of L.A. 

Hollywood Sign WAY in the back! 

We really haven't explored LA very much at all so this was our first real look at the Hollywood Sign.  

Planetarium...Way fun!  

The Jarretts picked a great week to come because it was really warm (in the 80s) and they were really looking forward to swimming.  We were happy it was as warm as it was, however the pool in December is still pretty frigid as they don't heat  it in during the "winter" so we enjoyed a few Hot Tub trips and had fun daring each other to jump in the super cold pool! I'm sure my neighbors thought we were crazy. haha

 Last time the Jarretts were here they took a family trip to the Getty Villa Museum  one of two locations of the J.Paul Getty museum near Malibu which houses all the Greek, and Roman antiquities that J.Paul Getty acquired. We were really intrigued after they told us all about it and how kid friendly it was. After they left we spent the last couple years studying Greek Myths so we could prepare for our visit. We thought the kid would be more interested if they had some background knowledge. We read a great book called, D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar Parin.  A visit to the Getty was our last "Bean Jar" reward that we earned at the end of last summer but we hadn't found time to go. When we found out the Jarretts were coming it was perfect timing for us all to go together. Great experience. We loved seeing some of the statues and pictures depicting some of the myths we had learned about. They also had a great hands-on children's section for the kids to explore and play in. I loved all the architecture and decor! 

Love those cheesy smiles!  

Beautiful Sunset...