A report, as promised

 Two by two

This post is for Sam who was teaching for 10 hours a day instead of having fun with the rest of us, and so missed 80% of this stuff.  But who wanted to hear "every detail of those cuties."  We missed you and would have had 10x more fun with you along!  Here is every detail.  Some of them, anyway.

You were with us at the Noah's Ark exhibit (Skirball Museum), of course.  The boys loved making the rain and thunder and wind and lightning noises.  Daisy loved watching.

It was just too big to get great pictures of.  But there were so many things to do---and all the animals were so strange and clever and wonderful.  Remember how the boys crawled around in the rafters like gerbils?  And Daisy hugged every single stuffed animal?  And she loved that little bird squeaker?

She was also a cute baby kangaroo

The rainbow afterwards was fun too.

 And it made Sebby sparkle in the sunlight.

That night the clouds were really beautiful.  Philip said California doesn't usually get very great clouds, but we were lucky.  And we were lucky with hot weather, too.  I'm usually kind of disappointed when it doesn't feel as tropical as it looks down there, at least for days on the beach.

Good light for photographing babies in.

The boys were good in the hotel, mostly, as you saw.  They were tired enough to fall asleep in spite of their excitement, flailing all over each other in the bed.

But Daisy did this.  For hours.  How was she not tired?

The Reagan Library was so interesting.  I loved all the exhibits!  We went through Air Force One twice (and the boys were then disappointed not to also be able to enter every other vehicle on the premises).  The location was really beautiful too.  I love looking out over vineyards and rolling hills.  There were some pretty rose gardens overlooking the valley.  We'll go back with you sometime (when they're done remodeling).  I can show you the location of the bathrooms on each floor (since I was the first to succumb to the stomach flu that morning, I threw up in each of them.  Nowhere else, luckily.).

Piece of the Berlin Wall

We went to the beach to convalesce that afternoon (surprisingly good place to be sick, the beach) but I have so many pictures of it they're in a separate post.  You know how I tend to take too many pictures of waves and sandy children.  I can't help myself.

Of course our day with Philip and Allison was great.  Benjamin is getting so big and so cute.  He was a busy bee just like Daisy is (up the stairs, then cry to come down, up the stairs, then cry, etc.).  We liked all the astronomy exhibits at the Griffith Observatory.  They have a telescope that lets you look at the sun.  You would have liked it.  You would have liked the "Big Picture" too---a huge wall mural of blown-up photographs from the Hubble.  Actually you would have liked everything there.  You probably would have kept us there another two hours.  We watched the pendulum, and saw it knock over one of its pins.  That was a dramatic moment.  I could hardly drag Sebby away.

We had a picnic lunch (you know that Allison packs the best picnics) which I TOLD the boys to "go easy" on (recovering stomach flu, you know), but can you guess if they did or not?  It was hot and there were a bunch (a buzz? a bevy?) of bees following us.  They liked the turkey, it seemed.  And then we went, per Sebby's anxious request, to the Tar Pits.  It smelled just as tarry as always.  The boys liked it all.  Nothing seemed to have changed from last time we went.  Remember the wall full of Dire Wolf skulls?  Still as impressive as ever.  I also liked the place where you can see people working on sorting what they find in the tar pits.  A lady was separating dirt from bones under a magnifying glass.  She had the toe bone of a mouse on display.  Tiniest thing ever!

 Philip holding the babies for a picture.  Both are protesting.

The next day, because you weren't there to lead us around and discourse upon the art, we did just the Impressionists and the Modernists at the Getty, then spent the rest of the time in the Children's Room and the Gardens.  Oh!  And I can't forget the tram ride up the hill, of course.  Sebby claimed not to remember it from last time, until we got next to the tracks and he said, "Oh yeah, the wheels go along on this long conveyor belt track---NOW I remember!"  There was Great Excitement about the automatic doors and so forth.

The boys made masks and everyone rolled around happily in this Louis XIV-ish bed.  You should have heard Daisy.  She was shrieking with glee.  Glad to be out of the stroller, I suppose.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I was asked, "All these kids ALL YOURS?"

This was the coolest room.  All the childrens exhibits were imitating/explaining one of the works in the regular museum, and this one recalled the sculpture pictured by the arrow (above).  There were long foam tubes which you could arrange to your liking by inserting them in holes in the wall.  The boys were ENTHRALLED.

On the grounds we ate a fruity popsicle (expensive, but our only lunch, and quite delicious) and the boys found these huge leaves.  They became quite attached to them, as you know.

Need I remind you of the cutest thing of all?  Daisy, released from long bondage in her carseat, "driving" the car from your lap while I got breakfast ready.  Remember how cute and happy and wiggly she was?