After almost three years in the greater Los Angeles area, we finally visited Hollywood. We saw the Hollywood Sign, the Walk of Fame, Kodak Theater, Grauman's Chinese Theater, random people dressed up as movie characters, Rodeo Drive, the Los Angeles Temple, among other things. Everyone had a good time (except Meri was upset by a giant Elmo).
Not sure why all the house photos did not upload together. Here is the last one. We are missing a photo of the master bathroom which is not a room to be missed. Stay tuned.
Hard to believe but the decade of our youth is being memorialized. Friday was 80's dressup day at Tompkins Elementary School. These kids look great. We will continue to play 80's music (and that is some great music!) in the car and in our home and maybe they will want to dress like this all the time. I just wish I had some parachute pants to share with the boys. Awesome!
The great room. Kitchen in on the left.
Due to repeated requests from our good sister, we are introducing the first in a series of interior photos of our new home. The main delay has been remembering to take a photo when everything was cleaned up.
Behold, the world famous Tehachapi Loop. We went to visit one of the most famous railroad landmarks ever (it fulfilled a Cub Scout requirement). The Loop has been in use since it was built between 1874 and 1876. It was a novel solution to the need for the train track to climb 80 feet of elevation in a small space (there is a limit to the steepness a train can handle). The top photo is the view from the small pull-off-the-side-of-road area with a couple of historical markers. I was a little disappointed - I was expecting a park or something. You can't even see the whole loop because of that little pointy hill in the middle. Also we saw no train traffic.
Jessica is shown justifiably proud of her first self-portrait. I thought she captured her blue eyes especially well.
We went for a overnight campout before school started. Now that we live in Tehachapi, in the mountains, camping is just about 10 minutes away - very convenient. As usual, the favorite food item was s'mores or at least the mallows and the chocolate.
How often do you get to do this? Here is me switching on the electrical power to our house for the first time ever. Amazingly, the electric company showed up the day we moved in and installed the meter. After switch on the main breaker, we tried each of the individual breaker. No sparks! No smoke! We had to wait three days for the gas company to show up. I should not complain, though - a cold shower is always worse in the dark.
The last day of summer - cartoons in Mom & Dad's bed.
The school crew.
The place.
I think we are ready for Baywatch. We just need a couple of those orange, banana, life-saving things. We visited the beach in Ventura before school just to make sure we were still living in southern California. It was a little further from our new home in the mountains but close enough.
Here is the new house. We are now residents of Tehachapi, CA. We spent about three weeks homeless as our Lancaster home sold before the Tehachapi home was finshed. Stay tuned for more pictures.
Here's us outside the Laie Hawaii Temple. It's neat to see and visit such a historical building. I have always seen pictures of it (it has been around since 1919) and now I have lived it.
We took a whale watch cruise from the North Shore. Nobody else had signed up so it was just us and two crewmen. Like having a private boat. The whale watching was just like videos that you see except that's a real whale and it's right there in front of you. Amazing! I was also impressed with the whale's breathing. Of course there is the blow when the whale surfaces but right before it dives, there is a very loud intake of breath. Whoooosh!
Another picture from the island. This is ukulele lessons at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We brought a ukulele (should that be AN ukulele? It doesn't sound right) home and have been working on it since.
I'm still not sure what that means. Part of our time away we spent in Hawaii. Well, some of us did anyway. Ylfelynn and I spent a great week on Oahu. Here is a picture of us the night before we came back (do we look at all like islanders?) enjoying a dinner cruise. There was a show downstairs after the dinner but we could not tear ourselves away from the show outside. We sailed across Waikiki to Diamondhead and back while the sun descended. Excellent scenery.
Never fear. The new lawn has been installed. It was put in right before we left town for two-and-a-half weeks. When we returned, it had grown exceedingly. We are still trying to catch up to it. I'm starting to think of it of the big green monster in my yard. Maybe now we can sell the house. Here is the listing if you are interested.
A view of our new house from the back yard (there is a little slope in the back of the back yard).
We went to the San Diego Zoo again (we bought memberships last year and we are maximizing our return on investment - they expire in April - and it was a good investment). Past favorites were the tapir and the okapi. Yesterday's favorite: Galapagos tortoise. The zoo has several that it acquired in the 1920's. That's 80+ years ago. And they have 50+ more years to live. It's a good thing, too. It takes them a while to do anything and go anywhere. Fascinating animals!
