Kelocity.com

A runner with an appetite for adventure!

California Science Center April 7, 2014

Filed under: Babies,California,Dining Out,Family,Happy,Los Angeles,Weekends — Kelocity @ 7:56 pm

Yesterday, we ventured down to the California Science Center to enjoy some time with Adele. We started the day with breakfast with our friends Melissa & Robb and their daughter Claudia! She and Adele have been friends since the womb! We did prenatal yoga together. It’s so cute to watch them play together.
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They kept each other on their best behavior and we all enjoyed a relaxing meal al fresco. Nothing better!
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After breakfast, we said goodbye and headed to the museum. We hoped Adele would nap in the car on the way there, but she sang the whole way down. Our plan B was to bring the Ergo and Stroller, walk around and then maybe she’d nap on one of us while we explored some more….but we were silly to think that, she was WAY too excited to sleep! I mean, there are fish!
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The kelp forest is awesome. Lots of fish and sharks! And even a tube you can walk through. Toddler approved!
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At one point, i just sat on the edge, with Adele in my lap, and we sat together talking about the colors of the fish, and the size of the sharks. And we watched the fish swim ‘up, up up’ and ‘down down down’. I enjoyed it so much. The Science Center is free and I foresee us spending lots of time with the fish in the future!
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I can’t get enough of pony tail silhouettes!
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We had to literally drag her away from the tank, she loved it! We also saw some Turtles, mice, lizards and birds! There were so many other exhibits to visit, but we will have to save those for another day. We didn’t want to overwhelm her, and she was already pushing her limits without a nap.

But we did sneak in a little ‘toddler’ town action first. Check this out, it’s a ‘sand box’ but instead of sand or rocks, it was made out of shredded rubber tires! If I ever have a backyard, I’m getting a truck load of this stuff, it was awesome! And I loved their additions of vegetables to go hunting for! So healthy and cute.
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We thought for sure she’d sleep in the car on the way home after all that stimulation! But alas, no dice. We waved the white flag and hung around the house for a couple of hours when we got home. Then we decided to squeeze in one last errand of the day and within 2 minutes of the drive… she was out. Yep. We’re officially ‘those parents’. The ones who swore we’d never resort to driving to get our child to sleep. We enjoyed a blissfully quiet ride and then i sat in the car for an hour checking email while Irving meandered around Costco. All in all… the perfect day full of friends, family… and finally, a nap. =)

 

Weekend Getaway: Monterey Playground January 26, 2014

Filed under: California — Kelocity @ 4:11 am
Tags: , , ,

On our last day in Monterey, we kept it simple and headed to a playground so Adele could burn off some steam before being in the car for five hours. After some googling, we settled on the Dennis the Menace Playground. It did not disappoint.
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It was built decades ago so it didn’t fall into the traditional parks you see nowadays. They just don’t make em’ like they used to. Check out this slide! (hey, adults can play too!)
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And look at this one! It was a ‘roller’ slide. 
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Our plan to tucker Adele out worked. She was fried after a couple of hours of climbing, sliding and running.
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She slept for 3 of the 5 hours on the way back to LA. I spent the rest of the ride in the back seat with her reading, singing and playing. (And maybe some Elmo watching as well… shhh! I’ll never be one of THOSE parents. haha)

Here’s a video of Adele in the backseat (note: it’s dark, just listen!) All she wanted was to watch Elmo and mom singing was NOT going to cut it this time. ha.

 

Weekend Getaway: Monterey Butterflies January 25, 2014

Filed under: California — Kelocity @ 4:51 am
Tags: , , ,

After our full day at the Aquarium, we all slept great and woke up ready for more! Our room was comfortable with a king bed, and plenty of room for a pack n play. All three nights we were there, we put Adele down around 8pm and turned out the lights. Then Irving and I sat in bed and read on our phones/laptops in the dark for another hour before passing out. We logged a lot of sleep while we were up there, it was great!

We headed back to the Black Bear Diner for breakfast (it’s THAT good!) I had an amazing biscuit with a side of fruit. Adele had some ham and eggs with berries and toast on the side.
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Our destination for the morning was the Natural History Museum.
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We thought the Butterfly Exhibit was there, but turns out it was actually a few blocks down. Before we left, we explored the ‘backyard’ of the museum and found this fun nest to play in!

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I love this picture. She’s climbing trees!
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We eventually did find the Butterflies! The Monarchs love the trees and weather in this particular neighborhood and come for a visit for a few months each year.
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They had a simple trail where you could walk down and back and observe all the pretty butterflies.
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The tip-toes!
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I love her free spirit and love of the outdoors. She was running so fast I thought she would trip!
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The butterflies were awesome, there were SO many!
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We had a great time looking at the “Utter-fries” =)
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After our fun morning, we headed back to the hotel so Adele could take a nap. We took advantage of our built-in babysitters and snuck out for an afternoon date! First, we headed to Lover’s Point to climb some rocks and watch the waves. It felt like the old, adventurous ‘Kelley and Irving’.
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After that, we had lunch together, walked around a mall, got some Coldstone ice cream and then say American Hustle in the theater! It was SO wonderful to get away for a few hours. We had a blast. It was the perfect date!

 

Weekend Getaway: Monterey Aquarium January 24, 2014

Filed under: animals,California — Kelocity @ 1:02 pm
Tags: , , ,

Over the long weekend, we trekked five hours up the coast of California to the seaside town of Monterey. We met up with Irving’s mom and grandmother while we were there. It was three days of fish, ocean, family and relaxation. We had a lot of fun.
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First up on our list of things to do was of course the Monterey Aquarium. It’s a must see, we spent ALL day there.

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We knew Adele would like it, but we had no idea she would LOVE it. She had her face plastered to the tanks, we had to peel her away to move on to the next one.
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Her silhouette pigtails are the CUTEST!
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Hey fishie! Come here!
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We briefly let her play in the touch pool, but she was more interested in watching than touching.
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The aquarium is right on the bay, so you can go outside and catch a glimpse at the wildlife out there as well. She was mesmerized by the waves. She kept saying “Water! Water! Water!”
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But we eventually made it back inside to watch the Penguins!
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This was a ‘beach’ exhibit with lots of birds on the sand. She really liked this one.
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Once it was apparent it was nap time for the little (and lunchtime for the adults), we headed back to our hotel. (Shoes not required…the shoes and socks came off one by one on the ride back to the car!)
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Adele took a nice nap and Irving, Nini and I snuck off for a nice lunch at the Black Bear Diner. (Thanks for babysitting Adele, Julie!) When she woke up, she was in a great mood, so we headed back to the Aquarium to take fully advantage of our tickets!
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First stop was a visit back to see the waves!
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Outside, they have an exhibit where you can stand under a glass wall and a wave will ‘crash’ over you. You never get wet of course, but Adele thought it was HILARIOUS. She got scared and then giggled. Over and over.
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Back inside, we checked out the Jellyfish exhibits. I remembered these from when I first visited here in 2002(?)
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You could even make a drawing and it would ‘swim away’ like a Jellyfish would. Irving’s quite the artist!
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We spent the rest of our time there in the toddler playground area. They had a slide and bouncy things to climb on. And also a fish tank tunnel with little Nemos!
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That night, we all went for Chinese Food (really really good Chinese food!) and then called it a night. We were all pretty tired. It was a full, wonderful day.

Stay tuned for more photos of the rest of our weekend!

 

Hollywood Honeymoon October 29, 2013

My sister (and new brother, Chris) honeymooned in California after their wedding. They had an AMAZING time up in Napa and Sonoma. Their pictures were so fun and they had such a great time up there. Then they continued their California adventure down in LA and San Diego. One night, we got a babysitter and went with them to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. It was SO fun.

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We dined at Saddle Ranch beforehand and ended our meal with their infamous cotton candy.
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We stayed out at Universal until 2am! (I haven’t seen that time on the clock in about 14 months. HAHA ) I was all nervous about the time, thinking Adele would be up at 6:30a (she was sleeping in our closet so Mikaela and Chris could sleep in her room– don’t worry, it’s a big closet). But she decided to sleep in til 9:30am!! WHATT?? We were so excited, we decided to reward her for her amazing sleeping talents by visiting Hollywood & Highland.
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I feel like Hollywood gets stranger and stranger every time we visit, but it was fun.
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And of course, we had to make a visit to the Hollywood sign. Mikaela wore her veil! Love it!!!
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Yep. Jumping with babies. Totally safe.
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And a jump with dad too:
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After all the jumping, we needed some fuel… in the form of Sprinkles Ice Cream! <— I only link to important things on my blog.
1235113_10152010860708804_893607500_nCan you see Chris’s cone? That’s what he ordered. That’s smaller than a sample bite! Are you kidding? Clearly he doesn’t know what he’s missing!

I have no pictures of what I ordered, but let me paint that delicious picture for you…. Red Velvet ice cream sandwiched between two CUPCAKE tops (Red Velvet and Vanilla)!! Are you kidding me?! A cupcake ice cream sandwich! It was as amazing as it sounds, I promise. It kind of looked like this:
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The only thing that would have made this better was if there was ICING on the cupcake tops…. Cupcakes are vehicles for icing… if anything, Sprinkles should know this. Oh well.

No one shared with Adele, so she got bored and fell asleep. Usually it’s “Snooze, you Lose”… but in this case, it’s “Lose, you snooze”.
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The original plan was to say Bon Voyage to the newlyweds as they took the Amtrak train down to San Diego for the last few days of their trip… but before they were slated to leave, we found out the train was shutdown due to track construction and they were offering a bus as an alternative… that didn’t sound remotely romantic to me, so we volunteered to drive them down to SD in our awesome minivan. Minivan>Bus.

I brought a map and looked for a beach to pull off into so Chris could touch the Pacific ocean for the first time. We randomly picked one in San Clemente and pulled into a parking lot. And wouldn’t you know… that was the EXACT location of the train track construction!!! Out of the miles and miles of track, we stumbled upon the road block. It was quite ironic.
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To get to the water, we had to hike down a hill, traverse along a cliff, climb over a ledge, cross the train tracks, and jump down a sand dune…. and Irving did all of that holding a carseat with a sleeping baby in it. #DadOfTheYear
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It was worth it for the amazing sunset we caught while we were there. We got some great shots. Here’s some of my favorites!
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We had a great time hanging out with the honeymooners for a few extra hours. We topped off our exciting day with dinner in Old Town, San Diego before dropping them off at their hotel. We were so excited to be part of their honeymoon adventure. Hope you guys come back and visit soon!! XOXO

 

 
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