Visit to The Getty Center

We finally made it to The Getty Center!  The last time we went to a Getty-related place, I assumed it was actually this one. But it was actually the Getty Villa at a different location.  It was a good thing I realized that before we drove out there!

As per usual, taking photos of LA traffic.  But you can sort of see The Getty Center in the middle of that hill (top left of the red truck in front of us):

Gas prices are getting so high - $6.49 per gallon for Premium. It's crazy!

Lovely bell tower, but there's a 7-11 store now underneath it.  Wonder what the story is behind this building:

We decided (or I guess I decided) to get some Chinese dim sum for lunch.  And we stopped by UCLA campus and plopped ourselves in a grassy area:

Largest "siu mai" that I've ever seen!!

This campus is so pretty too.  I suppose I'm comparing it to USC:

Love all the brick that's all around.  Here is the library:

Look at the ceiling of this other building.  So pretty!

If we ever need a place to meet, this would be the place - by the flag pole!

So much hair going on here with the boys.  Ha ha!

We pack up and head over to the Getty Center.  Oh, we drove by several entrances to Bel Aire.  We'll have to check that out next time!  In the meantime, we are waiting in line to have our vaccination cards and tickets checked.  Good thing the boys brought something to play with:

Waiting for the tram:

A view of the freeway while on the way up the hill:

Here we are!  Uphill climb up the steps:

The first place I wanted to visit was an exhibit on anatomy.  I think Charlie was the one that said there's a lot of nudity in this room. Too funny!

Break time already??!

There's a snack shack outdoors, so we opt for some lemonade and ice-tea and a brownie.  Too bad there is no shade from the trees but thankfully it's not too warm:

Okay, let's see where our "tour guide" is going to lead us here:

Lovely outdoor area at the Center... and looks like there are several buildings that have different collections:

And pretty outdoor area too!  We'll check that out later:

I'm guessing Charlie and Graham are not too interested in these artwork:

Check out this massive marble vase!!!  And oh, don't mind Graham - I placed him there so you could make a good size comparison to the vase :-P

More marble sculptures - so beautiful and intricate:

We finished one wing/building and take a photo outdoors.  It's pretty high up here and as you can see, Graham is perhaps pretending he is scared:

Los Angeles waaaaay in the background:

Everyone feels safer looking through this "window" and not directly over a railing:

I'm in awe with these huge chunks of building blocks... and so is Charlie.  These building are so massive:

A few minutes to climb around:

I don't remember which wing/building these were in now, but can you see how tall these candle sticks are??!

There were some amazing furniture in this room.  Check out this table!!!

And yup, another intricate candle holder!! I need to look for some of these for our own home.  Ha ha!

Okay, off to play outside!  So much for looking for some famous paintings.  We obviously totally missed them!

Almost down to the bottom level!

We made it!  How cool are these pink-flowered plants shaped within the water:

And lots of other beautiful flowers around:

I'm not sure if I've ever seen this flower before.  It's definitely a strange looking one:

These flowers are so cute!

Break time!

These are such amazing metal structures!

These boys have so much energy:

Random water feature - the water is actually dripping from the hole on the top:

It's finally time to call it a day.  What?!?  More steps??! How is it still going uphill when we started the day going uphill as well???

Time to wait for the tram again:

There's actually an option to walk down to the bottom of the hill - maybe next time ;-)

Another iconic spot scratched off our "To go" list!  And speaking of to-go, we also saved some of these Chinese egg tarts from lunch to snack on.  YUM!!s

And how about finishing up our day with spotting some Monarch caterpillars on our milkweed in the front garden. Yay!!

Quick update on the caterpillars - it's been 2 weeks since spotting them and unfortunately, we don't see any of them anymore.  Noooo...!!!  There has been some animal digging in the yard so I'm not exactly sure if it may have eaten the caterpillars too.  So much to leaving them to nature.  I'm so sad!  Well, I guess at this point all I can do is perhaps plant more milkweed.

I'm thinking the next spot for our "To go" spot is Huntington Library that's located north of LA. The gardens there are suppose to have their flowers in full bloom right now.  I hope the flowers didn't die off yet after the heatwave this week!

Another day, another project!

I think the boys are just testing my ability of fixing stuff around this house.  Look what Graham and Charlie did to my box planter yesterday:

To be fair, it was already quite rickety.  But then again, neither one of them told me about them destroying it.  Glad no one got hurt with those nails sticking out.  The boys also broke a few more twigs of that poor plant.  Perhaps I didn't place it strategically.  Boys, I tell you!  

And oh, here's the door and missing mesh for the door to our water heater outside.  How on earth am I going to fix this??!

Do you see all that ding and damage from balls being kicked and thrown into that door? Oh boy!  And then, there's this mesh which I had previously fixed. But that's on my to-fix today:

Thank goodness my drill still works.  I can't find my battery charger!... among some other things.  Ha ha!

Here's the new mesh!!  It was tricky having to make a little space for those telephone wires too.  And I don't think we even use them anymore. I wanted to get a LAN line into the house and the telephone company told me I can't do that anyway.  Boohoo!!

Looks so much better already, although it was really difficult to put it through this opening.  So glad I had this massive pair of scissors!

I was almost going to have Bobby crawl under the house to help me from under the crawl space/the other side of this mesh.  He was probably happy that I didn't make him do it :-P

Anyway, I'm just glad I was able to use the same screws.  It was definitely a workout putting those in because it kept sliding off the metal.  I later found out that I could actually hammer it in first through the metal and then screw it in with the drill.  Learn something new every day! :-)

This new mesh came with a cover but looks like it's not going to fit!  Now what??!

Well, I'll worry about that later although.  In the meantime, here's some spray foam to close up all the gaps.  I don't need any mice in our crawl space!

This is it for now!

Charlie was so persistent about using this wall to play ball when he got home from school today.  And I kept telling him no because it's taken me so much effort to get to this point!  One hit and this whole new mesh could get unraveled again.  He can wait another day or so until I figure out some sort of cover for this since that plastic one didn't work.  He was so upset to a point that he was crying.  Really??!  And I get no credit for fixing this??  Kids, I tell you!

In the end, Charlie ended up playing badminton with Graham on the grass.  See...!  This may buy me a few more days to think about how to cover this up.  Ha!

First ever Mammogram

It's taken me this long to finally get a mammogram scheduled.  With all the changes in insurance (due to Bobby's various job changes) and mostly to my procrastination - I finally chatted with a new doctor a few weeks ago and got a few doctors lined up to update my medical records.  So first one up just happened to be the mammogram.

And, no... no photos from the procedure obviously.  But there is a photo of my eye that's a bit swollen and has a little bump on the bottom eyelid.  

All because when I turned the faucet on yesterday in the boys' bathroom, the change of water/air pressure caused water to burst out of the faucet and splash straight into my face.  I didn't think too much about it until the next morning when my eye felt funny.  Looks like it was dirty yucky water from the faucet!  That's what I get for fixing their leaky valve??!

Well, the procedure was a bit awkward to say the least.  But so glad the nurse was very nice.  I did reward myself with a banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) after.  I normally go with the pork, but this time I decided on the Spam and egg.  How cute are these little stamps the restaurant uses to label their sandwiches:

Extra carrot and daikon pickles.  Super YUM!!!

Not sure when the results will come back.  Just have to wait and see.  But hopefully I won't have to go through that screening process again anytime soon.  It's tough when the machine squeezes what very little of breasts that you have.  LOL!!!