Saturday in California

Saturday we went to the Santa Monica Pier to enjoy the beach.  

It was windy there. 

Gramma and Grampa Harley, this is for you! 

Boys in prop toys. 

We had some time on our hands, so we rented two tandem bikes and rode to Venice Beach (which is only about 2 1/2 miles away). I love how chill Luke looks back there.  He couldn't really reach the pedals, so he ended up riding with his feet up a lot. We rode to the candy store that Luke saw last year when he was too sick to go inside. We made up for lost time. :) 

We pulled over to wait for Dad and Josh, who were trying out letting Josh ride in front...which did NOT work!, so it's selfie time!

Silly selfies are our favorite.

And then came Daddy and Josh. Josh was reaching out for a high five!

They were cruisin!

Luke and I rode the roller coaster on the pier.  Then we had lunch and came down to the beach for our toes in the sand. :) 

These kids don't care how cold the water is, they're tough!

Hey boys, stand still and smile please! 

Way too busy playing in the water. They didn't play long, it was freezing!

Obligatory toes in the sand perspective view 

Next we went to the Griffith Observatory, which we heard was the best way to view the Hollywood Sign. It turns out that it's an amazing science museum type of place.  

Luke got a stuffed earth, and Josh got pencils. :) 

It is a great place to view the Hollywood Sign!

Sweet brothers

The rooftop was so cool. We went here first, and really enjoyed exploring before we went indoors.

Luke had just finished learning about the phases of the moon, so we took a picture to show his teacher. 

The boys were using the telescopes to view exhibits. I love that they had those metal steps for the kids!

There was one whole room dedicated to planets.  We loved this room!

I love Albert Einstein, so we had some fun with this statue of him.

ET? 

Deep thoughts with Josh Jenkins

Thataway

And my ever-clever husband, getting his nose picked by THE Albert Einstein.  

After the observatory we went to Din Tai Fung Americana for the best dumplings in the hemisphere. 

We tried a lot of different food to show the kids how tasty it all is

Josh liked the noodles, but the dumplings were the best. 

They're crazy good!

They come in those bamboo steamers and we ate 20 of them between the 4 of us. :) 

Our last hotel pool swim of the trip.  They were not happy to stop the fun for a photo.