Staycation

I don't think I've ever done as much traveling in one month as I did this July.  Three weekends out of the four this month, I'd have gone to three places and stayed slept on three different beds other than my own.  Each trip will earn it's own blog post.  This one, however, will highlight the places I took my kids to during one of the weeks of their summer vacation.

So in the years past, I've always scheduled summer camps back to back.  When one ended, another one was the week immediately after.  This year, because my boys' school schedule was so packed, I decided that we'd take it easy during summer vacation.  I cancelled all of their after school activities that they normally take, and inserted a week of "nothing" between the summer camps and before and after our travels.

During one of the empty weeks, I decided that since the kids are all old enough to behave like decent human beings in public (as opposed to a bunch of wild monkeys), I should take them to different places locally and still have fun.  Otherwise we'd be watching TV all day at home and/or read books. Here are the places that we visited during a particular week: Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena, The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, and Abalone Cove in Palos Verdes.

Kidspace Children's Museum (link)

I took my boys here when they were tiny toddlers.  They weren't even 2 yet.  I remembered the place being a lot of fun for them.  They were a tad too little to enjoy all the activities here, but they nevertheless had a lot of fun.

We visited a family member in DTLA that day, and because it's not too far from Pasadena, we decided that we should go to Kids Space too.  We only had about an hour before closing to play, but that was plenty of time.

Admission is $11 for adults and children, and infants are free.  When you enter, you enter through a tunnel, I think that alone had me in awe.  My children had fun climbing up an indoor treehouse.  We weren't there long enough to enjoy all the activities indoors, because I had to take them outside.  Once outside again, you have two separate areas where kids can ride tricycles on paths.  There were ones for older children, and the other side for toddlers.  Helmets are provided for the older children.  As you go up further up, there is a man made stream where the kids can jump in and enjoy the water. It was incredibly fun!  I brought an extra set of clothes for my kids to change into, but what I should've done was just have them in their bathing suits.  You can take buckets from the tricycle area and bring them up to the stream.  These pictures will speak for themselves!

Aquarium of the Pacific (link)

We're members of this museum, and I feel so lucky that we get to live so close to such an amazing facility.  My boys absolutely LOVED sea animals when they were little.  They were in awe of all the different types of sharks, and the shark petting "zoo."  Aside from that, there is a lorikeet jungle where you can feed the birds nectar.  Sometimes when they're extra hungry, or just feeling friendly, they'd even climb on your finger.

Since my daughter was born, I wasn't able to bring the boys here as much as I'd like to.  One of the twins had wanted to go for quite some time, but I haven't had a chance to bring them until now.

What perfect timing it was!  The aquarium is currently having a jellyfish exhibit.  It was mesmerizing seeing all the different kinds of jellies.  From jellies that have flashing lights, to upside down jellies, to ones that have electrical currents running through them, to glow-in-the-dark jellies, every single exhibit was amazing.  Oh yea, and the rest of the aquarium exhibits, like the giant crabs, the octopus, the friendly sting rays (they come to the surface to say hi!), the fascinating sea dragons, and penguins, etc, aren't so bad either.  *wink*

See the pictures below and prepare to be wowed!

Glow-in-the-dark jellies

A bunch of tiger sharks

A friendly sting ray!

It's hard to tell but there's electrical light running through this jelly.

Octopus! 

Sea turtle

Fish that can change it's gender

Lionfish

Shrimps

Sea dragon

Beautiful leafy sea dragon

Abalone Cove (link)

I've never been here before - however, I've heard many good things about this place.  I've always wanted to bring my kids to the tide pools to explore.  And sure enough, this place did not disappoint.

Don't get me wrong, this place is not for little ones.  It is about a 10 minute steep hike to get to the tide pools.  Then when you get to the beach, you have to walk past a bunch of rocks to get to smooth surface.  The tide pools itself wasn't easy to get to either.  The rocks are sharp and unsteady, so water shoes with more traction (not just Crocs, from our experience) are definitely recommended.  But when we did get to the tide pools, it made the trek totally worth it.  We saw so many crabs, anemones, mussels, hermit crabs, sea snails, etc.  I'd say it's a hard walk for even a 4-year-old, as my daughter, although a total trooper, did have a little difficulty getting around.

Sea snails

It's hard to tell, but these are hermit crabs

A green crab 

Mussels

I think they found a shrimp

If you're a So Cal resident and you're wondering what else there is to do, I hope I gave you some ideas to take your children this summer!  Enjoy the summer while it lasts!

xoxo,
Lin