"Walking" not hiking

I told the boys we would go hiking but after being on flat ground for most of the day, Charlie cried when we got to the car and said, that's not hiking, that's walking!!!

Guess you can be the judge of our "walk" then.  And oh, thankfully we didn't see any of these:

Okay, so it is relatively flat:

Graham cracked up when he read the last line. Ha!

 Lovely view of Catalina Island across the way:

I still haven't figured out this loop yet.  Hmmmm......

So after the hike that was downgraded to a walk, we head out for a real hike (perhaps?) a few days later.  Graham puts on his homemade "hat" from school:

Amazing how the hat is staying on. It is actually quite windy:

More than halfway down the hill.  Charlie is careful with his steps:

What a cute and interesting surprise when we get down to the rocks.  It's a "rock-man" looking out into the ocean?!?

Charlie is trying to maneuver along the rocks:

Graham is throwing rocks into the ocean:

The boys build their rock pile - something we have been doing a lot here!

Happy Graham and Charlie!

After a while, we head back up the hill.  It is actually quite the hike!

Phew!!! And then, there was the steep slope when you made the turn.  I am trying to catch my breathe by now and legs are burning a bit.  Talk about being out of shape!

Now, this definitely qualifies as a hike! :-)

Beach time!

We have been doing a lot of beach time here.  Mostly on Fridays, after school - so that way I don't have to worry about getting the boys fed, bathed, and ready for school the next day.

Graham and Charlie LOVE the sand!

The pier at Manhattan Beach:

Interesting shells (?) on the pillars of the pier:

We had to take a photo with the Life Guard's truck :-)

The boys actually wanted to take a photo on this signage.  MB for Manhattan Beach.  Too cute!

And on another occasion, we are scoping out what we now call "Crepe Street" beach.  Well, our favorite crepe restaurant is not far from this beach and somehow, it stuck - or at least it's the easiest way to tell Bobby where we are!

Big and aggressive waves!

Graham did actually go into the water and was taken down a couple times by the waves. He is definitely keeping a good eye on it!

Charlie is struggling with the seaweeds littered on the sand and also in the ocean.  It's funny how they "pop" when you step on the ones that are filled with water:

Charlie is definitely keeping his distance away from the seaweed! :-D

We have spotted some dolphins at this beach.  So cool!!!

Selfie time!  Graham did this selfie all by himself:

And Charlie did this selfie of himself. Ha ha!

Did I also mention that there is a gelato place along the same street as the crepe?  Well, that has also been one of our favorite stops:

Both Graham and Charlie are definitely living life to its fullest in California!

Random photos

Here are just some photos of random things I see when we are out and about.  And of course, I always have my camera handy in my handbag!  Even Charlie is getting to a point now that when he sees something interesting, he would ask for the camera :-)

I thought this was really clever - a stand with a book box.  And just as it says "Take a book, return a book".

And then, also a public bike repair pit-stop:

Hopefully we will never need it, but definitely something to keep in mind!  I think I remember which intersection it was located at.  Hmm....

And not far away from that, was this signage.  These treatments seem to casual around here:

And last one - my jaw literally dropped when I saw this in a local magazine:

Unbelievable!!!  We are definitely out of the league here!

Plant projects

I decided to open up Charlie's pumpkin after Halloween.  We had yummy roasted pumpkin with dinner and also roasted pumpkin seeds as snacks.  The pumpkin seeds were a bit tricky even for me, so we didn't finish those, but the roasted pumpkin were yummy!  But of course, only Charlie and I ate them:

And I found a pumpkin seed that was already trying to sprout.  So I decided to plant it.  Tada!!!

And here it is now - 2 to 3 weeks later.  Hopefully we will get a pumpkin by next October :-)

Graham picked up this succulent (yes, he actually knows that word!) not long after we arrived in LA:

Look at it now!  Somehow it is leaning a lot and I just figured out why:

It is having babies!?!

Here are the couple other projects - the Dragon's Breath and Hibiscus.  The Dragon's Breath unfortunately was invaded by spider mites.  I have never seen anything like them before. What a pain!  So only one stalk left for now.

Let's see how long this one will last.  Hopefully the self-watering spikes will help.  No... it is not actually wine in the bottle. Ha ha!

The Hibiscus plant is suppose to be quite hardy.  It is actually the national flower of Malaysia!  So it is a nice little reminder of home.  And the flowers are spectacular as well.  Seems that they only bloom for 2-3 days and then it will just fall of.

Here are some other interesting flowers that I found during our walks around the area.  No idea what this one is.  The purple flowers are lovely hanging like that:

And the flowers on this succulent are so pretty as well!

Oh, here is an interesting pepper.  I saw it at the local supermarket here.  It was labeled as Striped Holland Bell Pepper. 

Looks like it was discovered back in 2013 and also known as "Enjoya".  It is suppose to have more Vitamin C than an orange!  Well, before knowing those facts, I decided to actually plant some of those seeds and look what's sprouting! :-)

I also am waiting for a seed of the Persimmon fruit to sprout.  Funny enough it was actually a seedless Persimmon but somehow out of the batch that was given to me by a new friend, I managed to find one seed.  Fingers crossed! Here are what Persimmons looks like:

All these plantings should definitely keep me busy! Oh, started on ginger too.  So far, I have only found organic ginger and it is so expensive!  Although probably the real thing compared to the ones I get in Abu Dhabi that are imported from China :-s

Happy Halloween! (Oct 31)

Graham and Charlie got to dress up for Halloween at school.  They were both very excited!

We are going with the Superhero theme - Graham is Ironman and Charlie is Captain America.  A little handiwork with face-paint on Charlie first thing in the morning :-)

The kids had to grab the chairs from their classroom so they could all sit during the Halloween Parade.  Nothing Ironman can't handle:

Daddy got to show up for the parade too. Yay!!!

There's another kid in Charlie's class with a buzzed haircut too.  I keep thinking it's Charlie when I see this kid from afar at school.  Too funny!

Once school was over, it was time to prep for the Trick-or-Treating later at night.  Too bad our boxes from Abu Dhabi did not arrive yet, otherwise the boys could have changed into different costumes/outfits.  Charlie did use his Dinosaur outfit which we bought recently for his ABC Fashion Show. All set!

We walked up the hill near our apartment complex and crazy enough, there were no homes lit or decorated with Halloween decor.  So... I had the boys hop into the car and we drove towards the school area.  Jackpot!!!

We had to actually cut our fun short as our boxes from Abu Dhabi were arriving that night!  Finally!!! But of course, it had to be on Halloween night.  Didn't stop Daddy from trying to score a few pieces of candy and chocolate before leaving to the storage unit :-)

Boys are obviously happy with their loot:

Graham and Charlie did donate more than half of their candy and chocolates back to the school, where it will be sent in care packages to Treats for Troops.  So proud of my boys!