TIM & JEAN: California or Bust: Day 5

Well, sadly, we had to say goodbye to Disneyland on the fifth day of our trip. And by "we," I mean Weston and Cole, because Tim and I snuck back there on Friday for a day by OURSELVES! Teeheehee!!! But, for all intents and purposes, our "family time" at Disneyland was over. :-)

So, Day 5 of our California trip was...

PASADENA DAY!!! Wheeeee!

This turned out to be an extremely jam-packed day of activities. Honestly, there are about a thousand more things that we would've also done, if we'd had the time. (Like Travel Town and Pretend City and Santa Monica and the Zoo and Sprinkles Cupcakes, etc...) But, we only had a day, so we had as much Pasadena fun as we could manage. (And Tim actually headed up to Santa Barbara in the afternoon for the wedding rehearsal, so most of our Pasadena day was just me, Weston, and Cole!)

We left our hotel in Anaheim that morning, grabbed breakfast at the McDonald's drive-thru, and then drove north. Naturally, we experienced some of that fabulous L.A. traffic:

Tim wanted to visit Art Center, so he took Weston there while I headed to our old church for a baby/toddler music class. I used to bring Weston to music class EVERY week in California, and I really, REALLY MISS IT! (And hey, there's Summer, Kim, and Rebecca!)

Okay, how cool is this? Danielle used to volunteer to teach the class when her little boy Michael attended. Now, Michael is in kindergarten, but Danielle STILL teaches it out of the goodness of her heart!! Wow, all these kids (and moms) are so lucky to have such a wonderful, FREE weekly music class with such a talented, fun teacher:

After music class/Art Center, we drove to two of our favorite Pasadena food spots: Tarantino's and Dots Cupcakes. THIS is what sat atop my lap in the car on the way to the Brownstein's house. Can it possibly get any better than this??

Our friends Mike and Rebecca were so kind to let us stay with them for a night. I'm not sure if Weston remembered their older son Max very well from our CA days, but he sure loved playing outside with him and his brother Tate!!

We all lunched on pizza and cupcakes. It was heavenly.

I had to run to the store to buy some cookies for a little playground get-together later in the day (what a healthy trip we had, huh?), and I stopped by our old apartment on the way back. I was surprised that Weston remembered the walkway, and that he recalled a spider that used to live outside our kitchen window. (I loved when he remembered things about California! That's where he was born and where he lived the first two years of his life, and it was so neat to see some of it coming back to him!)

The apartment was vacant (it looked like there were a number of renovations going on inside), so I got a picture of Weston at the front door, and we wandered around a bit.

Ah, memories. It was great to see the old place, even if I used to hate living there sometimes. I do NOT miss the constant sirens and the homeless people collecting recycleables. But, we had a lot of great times there, and it was wonderful (and a little surreal) to see the place again.

Anyway, after a brief attempted nap, we headed to the amazing new playground near the Rosebowl called Reese's Retreat. I'd been hearing about this place for months from blogs and other CA expats, and I was so excited to get Weston there!

I love just sitting and letting Weston play, and it was even better because there were also good friends and good cookies. :-) You may remember the fabulous music teacher Danielle (Cole was smitten):

And here's the fabulous Laura with her two adorable boys, Peter and Charlie (Charlie was looking away for the picture, but I guess it's okay because he was sad about something at the time, haha!):

And here's our fabulous hostess Rebecca with her sweet little guys, Tate and Max!

Oh my gosh, I love seeing friends SO MUCH. That was definitely the highlight of this California trip, with Disneyland following at a close second. I think we managed to see almost all of our best CA friends again, and I am so glad!!!

After the playground, Weston and Cole and I stopped by King Taco to pick up my favorite dinner: a chicken sope and chicken tamale! Weston hammed it up in line:

And then we stopped by the Adams' place, where I ate my King Taco and Weston enjoyed Kim's homemade pizza!! It was wonderful to see Kim (of Disney Day 1 fame) again, too. Weston was so happy that he got to play with Emma and her little bro Nicholas again. Look at the little man! SO CUTE!!!

After getting Weston and Cole to bed back at the Brownstein's, I headed over last-minute to a party at another friend's house (yeah Sachia!!). I had to leave the party early to pick up Tim from the train station. (He drove up to the ranch with the groom's dad and then took a train back to LA.) I don't have any details about the wedding-rehearsal component of our trip because I wasn't there and Tim is light on details. :-) Hang on, let me ask him. In his words: "Uhh... I took a train. I don't know. You mean how the rehearsal went? It was really nice to see them. I hadn't seen them in a couple years." And by "them," he means our friends Jacob and Kate from Art Center who were getting ready to tie the knot!!! (Don't worry, we'll get to that in Day 7.)

Overall, it was a fantastic, fun-filled day in Pasadena!!!