California Vacation: Day 7

Animal Acres, The Getty Center, and Real Food Daily

Los Angeles is this great city with a seemingly endless list of things to do, yet it's surrounded by such beautiful, diverse habitat: ocean, mountain, forest, desert, etc. That is one of the reasons I love it so much. See all of the cars (and smog)? They are the reasons I have not been able to convince Ryan to move there.

Sunday, we drove to Acton, which is about 45 minutes from L.A. That is where Animal Acres farm sanctuary is located.

They were having a special event/open house to kick off the start of a new season. I had envisioned a peaceful picnic on the lawn before we played with the animals...it was anything but peaceful. Not 15 seconds after we sat down on the grass and spread out our food, we were invaded by this chicken. I kept trying to throw a chip off in the other direction, but she was fast and persistent.

We quickly picked up our stuff (not easy with several plates) and moved to these chairs. Mrs. Hen was joined by her chicken friends, and they were all relentless. It was annoying. We were cramming down our food as quickly as we could because they would fly up and try to eat it right out of our hands. In defense of the little boogers, it IS their home, and we were merely guests.

Besides, I would much rather have one meal interrupted by these critters than to have them stuffed into cages like these for their whole lives. Please consider buying (if you're going to buy them) local eggs from a small, family farm or organic, cage-free eggs from the store. :)

lots of animals to pet and play with

The pigs (hogs?) were huge. One of them got spooked when several people were around it, and it suddenly took off without warning. Its hip barely bumped Tornado, but they are so big, it completely knocked him off his feet. (could have been bad if it stepped on him)

I love pigs, though. We were watching an Animal Planet show on pigs in our lodge, and they were so incredible. Pigs are SO smart, so sweet, and so trainable. They were picking letters out of a pile with their mouths IN ORDER, spelling words.

The turkeys were sweet and gentle.
Doesn't this dude (or girl, I don't know) have the most incredible hair?

The kids were thrilled about the bouncy house at the Animal Acres event. We had to (literally) drag the two little ones away, kicking and screaming. (It's getting toward the end of the week, and the irregularity of their naptimes is starting to take its toll.)

This is what it looks like on the outskirts of Los Angeles (on the way back from Acton).

We stopped at The Getty Center (an art museum and more) on the way back. It's so cool! (Look at this picture.) You have to park at the bottom of this hill (mountain?), and a (driverless) tram takes you to the museum at the top. The building is amazing, and the views are stunning. (I really need to pull out my thesaurus. I feel like I keep saying "good" and "amazing" and "cool" and "delicious" while describing my trip.

Sissy was pretty "ho-hum" about the art until we passed this piece. She audibly gasped and wanted out of her stroller. She immediately went into dance mode again.

There was a huge Leonardo da Vinci exhibit while we were there. We talk a lot about artists at home, but Dash's class recently did a "Marvelous Masterpieces" unit at school. He learned a lot about different artists so it felt very relevant to him. He recognized "Irises" by Vincent van Gogh, who he knows as the guy who cut off part of his ear.

And this one is Monet's...I forget the name of it...The Seine at "something"?

the garden area

another view

We walked through the museum, around the gardens, and played in the Family Room (where there are different interactive kids' exhibits) until closing time. I would like to come back another time when we can look at everything. The kids have had pretty good behavior all week, but like I mentioned earlier, they were a little on edge this particular day. They kept fighting over who got to push the stroller during this outing, and it was driving me a little batty.

When Sissy saw this 18th century replica bed in the Family Room, she said, "Ohhh! I can have this bed when I'm a princess!" I loved this little enclosed reading nook; I want to do something just like this in my living room if we ever build another house.

The kids decorated masks in the Family room.

Later... while we were waiting on our table at Real Food Daily, we walked around the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

See - Tornado ordered mashed potatoes and gravy again (AND a club sandwich).

I was disappointed in my ordering choice at RFD. I got the burrito, which I thought was going to be more like an enchilada covered in sauce. But really it was just like a burrito I eat all of the time at home. It was huge, and I didn't eat much of it (getting to the end of our trip, and I'm starting to feel a little full). I think Ryan made the better choice above. I like Real Food Daily (we ate here a couple of times on our last CA vacation); it's in a great location in Santa Monica.