Recent happenings

Charlie went to a birthday party a couple of weeks ago and they had "Make your own tie-dyed shirt". What a great idea!  Charlie really loved it but looks like perhaps he could have used more dye on a white shirt:

Charlie is getting SO cheeky!

Toys R Us is closing (actually has closed now at this point) and we end up buying more toys than we need to as everything is at a discount!  Graham and Charlie are happy with these fighting robots whose heads pop off when the middle/chest piece gets struck by a punch.  Anything to keep these boys off their tablets!  At last for a little while:

Bobby finally meets the guy that I used to date back in my working days in Phoenix.  I am so glad they got along really well!  They are laughing here as both are trying to suck their tummies in. Ha!

Charlie works on some painting - loves his bat!  He copied it from a YouTube video. Not sure what that other thing left to the bat is...? Okay, just confirmed with Charlie... that thing to the left is a giant log that is falling on his giant bat.  Abstract for sure! And little person is him. Too cute!

I take the boys to help me get the car wash.  $6 automatic wash plus my "manual labor".  Not too shabby!!!

Oh, did I post this photo yet?  A branch decided to fall just as our car was driving by along the Pacific Coast Highway.  The crash scared Graham as it was on his side of the window.  And it made these terrible scratches!!! Booo hooo.... :-(

There's a heat advisory this past weekend.  It was 108F in LA itself and 100F on the top of the hill for us. So glad our apartment is down the hill along the coast.  Phew! Although no air conditioning is a tough one with the heat, especially trying to sleep at night!

So happy with these new bucket hats that we recently bought for the boys.  I saw them during our visit at the Bay Area Discovery Museum in San Francisco during Memorial Day weekend.  And of course, I had to ask the mom where she bought them:

Almost always the perfect view out here! :-)

First bike ride along the beach

We took the boys on a bike ride last weekend.  I finally had a chance to ride with the boys!  We went down to Redondo Beach.  Unfortunately, Bobby still doesn't have a bike so he walked along and the boys and I would park and they would play while we waited for Daddy.

At some point, I had my "sun wrap" literally wrap itself around my entire back tire!!!  No photos as I didn't have my camera or phone with me.  But this is basically what it did once I was able to untangle the wrap off:

I obviously didn't realize that my wrap was dragging along the back tire and eventually as it was loosening from my waist,... well, you know the story.  The boys were riding ahead of me and it took me a few minutes to get back on my bike again.  By the time I got to them, Graham and Charlie had parked to the side and Graham waved at me when I saw him.  And he immediately said "Sorry we were going too fast for you, Momma!"  Ha ha... too funny!!!

Well, now how do I fix these two big holes??!!!  I didn't have iron-on patches big enough and decided to use some old fabric from the boys' old/worn-out shorts.  Then, an idea popped up.  I decided to just use one of the shorts' pockets to patch it up.  Ta da!!!

Probably a bit "obnoxious" but at least the holes are gone!!! And I now have a little pocket for my sun wrap.  Definitely lesson learnt from this bike ride!  I need to be more "European" and just drape my sun wrap over my shoulders instead ;-D

Junior golf camp

The LA County is currently organizing free summer golf camps. Yes,... FREE!  Too bad we only managed to sign into two of them.  The sessions get filled up so fast!  The first one (at the end of June) was over at Lakewood Golf Course - about 45 minutes away.  I tried to make the boys pose for a photo before starting and this was all I could get out of them.  No wonder I am getting more white hair!

So...! Let's carry on then!

Graham and Charlie got split up into separate groups but after day 1 (of 4) they were both pretty self-sufficient:

The younger kids had a chipping competition on Day 2:

And Charlie won!  His remark after... "That was TOO easy!!!".  Ha! Talk about confidence! :-P

On Day 4, all the kids have a putting competition within their groups:

Charlie came away with 3rd place - a Bronze medal.  Yay for Charlie!!!

And Graham came away with 1st place for his group!  I was watching him putt and it didn't seem like he was doing so well.  Hmmm... maybe they made a mistake.  Ha ha!  I know... I am such a terrible mom! 

So glad they are both so happy with their achievements.  I did finally decide to take them out for a real round of golf of 18 holes on a Par-3 golf course.  But first, a quick nap in the car??!

Okay! We are ready now!!! :-)

Look at that follow-through from Graham!   His feet are normally aiming elsewhere so this was definitely a "Proud Mama" moment!

There is a wait on the tee so it's snack time.  Just glad the squirrels didn't attack us!

Here is a video of Charlie's swing:

And here is Graham's swing:

Both swings are so different!  I hope they continue to enjoy golf :-)

Garden update

I finally decided to harvest my carrots:

WHAAAT...??!!?

I was totally stumped as the leaves looked so nice and healthy.  After some reading and research, seems that my soil might have been too dense.  I pulled out the carrots from the other pot and oh boy... more "mutant" home-grown carrots.  HA HA HA!!!

Looks like we will have to try again next time! At least we have some peppers!  Okay... one pepper for now and it is super tiny :-P

Fort MacArthur Museum / Korean Friendship Bell

We were actually at the "Seal Day" event hosted by the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro - supporting a friend's booth.  Her son was in Charlie's kindergarten class last year and she is also now my optometrist - hence the "eye" in this photo below:

The boys were dressed up as there was a costume contest at Seal Day.  Graham is Iron-man and Charlie is... a Power Ranger??! No wait, he is a Transformer here + mask but as you can see, the outfit is waaaaay toooooo small!  The outfit comes up to his calves now. Haha! So we made him change :-D

Anyhow, on the way out, we noticed that the gate to the Fort MacArthur Museum was open.  So we parked and decided to take a stroll:

Woah!!! Impressive!!!

It's amazing how well preserved this place is, considering it was formally created in 1914!  I guess it is made out of cement :-)  It was a training center during WW1 and the first large gun batteries for harbor defense were installed in 1917:

We entered one of these rooms and there were still old radios and even old newspapers from WWII as well:

We went down these steep stairs:

Into a tunnel... it's crazy to think that this was what was being used during the war!

This is where the gun would have been:

What a view!!!

You can see the Korean Friendship bell in that pavilion (towards the left).  We are overlooking Angel's Gate park here.  The bell was presented by the S. Korean government to the US in 1976 to celebrate the bicentennial of the US and to symbolize friendship between the two countries.

I obviously can't read Korean so struggled to figure out what these two figurines represented:

What a beautiful pavilion, also known as the Belfry of Friendship:

Here is a close-up of the bell.  Looks like Statue of Liberty holding hands with... wait, "Goddess of Liberty" which bears some resemblance to the Statue of Liberty.  Guess I should have read up on it first!  And the other figure is a Korean spirit figure named "Seonnyeo" who is holding the S. Korean national symbol:

Beginning in 2010, the bell is struck 5 times a year with a large wooden log (slightly seen left of the bell):

The colors and patterns on the ceiling of the pavilion are so pretty:

Time for a we-fie! I think Charlie was crying/being grumpy about something here so he was hiding behind me:

Looks like this is the place to fly kites too:

Absolutely gorgeous ocean view:

And on the other side, the view of the harbor and lots of homes:

 We are definitely learning a lot of history around here!

Par-course

There is a par-course track not too far from the boys' school.  I was very interested in checking it out ever since we arrived.  It is basically a "course" or track where you can follow and perform an exercise at each station:

The boys did have a good time:

It was a bit tricky to find the "stations" according to their numbers, but Graham and Charlie didn't really care:

Instead of going up the hill, we go a different route and find a stream:

I think we should have done the hill first.  By this point, Charlie was being quite cranky!  But we made it to the "PV" hill - which I believe is meant for the Palos Verdes High School:

It is quite the view from up here! That should be the high school at the bottom of the hill.  It's too bad the day was not a clear one as it is ocean beyond that:
Despite all the excited, funny enough we haven't been back to the par-course since that day!  I need to be more motivated - have been quite lazy this summer.  I did just sign up for a golf tournament for end of July so definitely need to get back in shape to be able to walk in a 3-day event! :-D