Long Beach Get-away PART 1

The kids had fall break in the middle of October, and Chris had a work convention to go to that whole week. So we asked Grandma and Grandpa Carbonneau if they could watch the kids a few days and we ran away to Long Beach.

Went to sacrament meeting and then left the kids at church with Grandma and Grandpa Carbonneau.

We left Sunday evening and got home Thursday at different times.

We got a rental car for me so I could drive around while Chris was working. Monday morning I dropped Chris off at work and drove to my Grandma Pike's house in Calabasas, CA. It is so beautiful there. We went for a short walk to find some gourds for my kids and had lunch and got to talk for a few hours. I have to say my biggest craving this pregnancy has been yummy deli sandwiches, I don't think I ever told her, but Grandma, that sandwich we made was EXACTLY what I crave, it was SOOO good.

Grandma's house

She lives pretty close to Malibu, we were stopped at a red light on our way to a museum and I had to take a picture to show how foggy it was, you should be able to see the ocean just above the grass. I always forget about the fog, and it always amazes me.

we went to 2 museums while I was visiting. They are both the Getty Museum, but one is bigger than the other. The first day we went to the smaller one and we may have seen everything, but day 2 we had to go a little faster through the bigger Getty.
look at the fog again! this is just inside the smaller Getty Museum.

A pretty garden, the tile work on the blue fountain reminded me of parts of Spain, tile work everywhere.

I love mosaics Notice Grandma to the right reading about the art. That's what we did :)

These little pieces of art were some of my favorite things. It is AMAZING the tiny detail they could put into their jewelry. Each of these rings told a story about the Trojan War, they depicted different scenes.

Grandma and I at another garden at the Getty.


It was so fun to be at the museums with my Grandma. At one point I realized that Chris would have hated being there. I have never taken him to an art museum, but that is so much a part of what I did while living in Spain. Museum, museum, cathedral, museum...etc. When I first moved there I found the art pretty disturbing. The body is a special figure, and it was shocking to see so much nudity portrayed. I slowly became more desensitized and while I don't consider it appropriate to display in my home, it no longer seems so shocking to see in a museum. However, I did decide it was not a place I would be taking my kids any time soon. the nudity being something to talk to them about, but more so about how hard it would be to keep them from touching everything. I would die if my kids broke an ancient Roman vase or wiped pb and j on a painting.

This pomegranate tree was so big! We have little pomegranate bushes in our neighborhood, but nothing like this. It also reminded me of Spain. I lived in Granada. Granada means pomegranate and all over the town were pictures in fences, streets, posts, everything had the pomegranate/Granada symbol. like the next picture that I borrowed off the internet:
some coins made back in 300, 200, 100 BC. They even had political figures pictures on them, go figure.

I had an amazing time monday visiting the museum with Grandma.