Huntington Beach

 

I like this picture of Ashton. He was so excited he was jumping.

This was our umbrella. It was very windy and Kipton did not like the wind so Taylor and Kipton played up there where the umbrella was blocking the wind.

Making his way closer

 

Poor Kipton was scared like he was going to get blown away, but he did finally come out to play

 

Building a sand castle with Dad

 

 

The tide was coming in and if you look close enough you can see where it smoothed out our castle, but it was still standing!

We didn’t stay for very long. It was very windy and getting late, but we all had a great time.

Ballet Demonstrations

 

Peyton’s teacher doesn’t like to call these performances recitals. Instead she calls them demonstrations where the child will demonstrate bar work, floor work, and technique and then the girls demonstrate a short dance that they’ve learned.

This is Ms. Robins, Peyton’s ballet teacher.

 

 

Peyton and Lacey

After the demonstrations Ms. Robin passed out roses to the girls and their evaluation sheet where she scored each student in 3 different categories: technique, musicality, and behavior. Peyton’s scores ranged from Satisfactory to Excellent.

 

The whole class

Grandpa Mike

 

Special Comments from Ms. Robin…

“Peyton is as sweet as can be. She has done very well in the short time she has been taking ballet. She’s right on target for her age. Increased strength, flexibility, coordination and control will all come with age. I hope she will continue because she's so cute and I absolutely love teaching her. “

 

Here is a video from her demos. Thank you Annedria for recording it for me.

La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum

 

We arrived a day early and decided to visit the La Brea Tar Pits and the Page Museum. Visit their website.

A quote from their website,

“AFTER WE EXCAVATE ICE AGE CREATURES OUTSIDE, WE BRING THEM INSIDE THE PAGE MUSEUM. IT'S WHERE OUR BEST FOSSILS ARE ON DISPLAY, AND YOU CAN WATCH PALEONTOLOGY IN ACTION.”

Outside is a huge tar pit. They placed a few animals in and around it to show how animals got stuck and died and then were later discovered completely preserved.

It was really neat to see so many animals from the Ice Age preserved for us today and found right in Los Angeles.

Below is a Ground Sloth

 

American Mastodon

Antique Bison

Saber Tooth Tiger

Dwarf Pronghorn Antelope

Woolly Mammoth

Woolly Mammoth bones

 

This is the Columbian Mammoth. It was huge! His tusks were longer then my kids. Makes me think that these needed to go extinct or man may no exist today.

They also found Eagles, Turkeys, and Condors.

These were the Dire Wolfs.

Apparently there were many Dire Wolfs. They found all these skulls for them alone.

Naegeles Giant Jaguar

More Saber Tooths

Short Faced Bear

Below is a height chart. The lowest green line is just over 3 feet for a black bear. Next line is the Grizzly bear at 5’1’’, Then the Polar bear at 5’6’’. Above that is the Short faced bear at 6 feet tall. Also keep in mind that is their height walking on all fours and not when they stand up on their back two feet.

Inside the museum was a beautiful atrium in the middle of the building.

They had many turtles all over. I loved it!

 

Below is the largest tar pit. You can see little bubble rings out in the water and that is where the tar is bubbling out of the earth.

Here is one of the excavation sites and yes they are still finding bones! There is a lab in the museum where paleontologist are working on cleaning up bones. There are large windows and you can actually watch them work.

 

 

Just for fun we drove around LA and happened to drive right to Beverly Hills and got to see Rodeo Drive. We didn’t get out and walk around because we headed off to our next event.

Bel Air on Sunset Blvd.

Then a quick drive by the Los Angeles Temple

 

More posts to come from our California Trip!