Eliza Thornberry World @elizathornberryworld - Tumblr Blog

We decided to make a yearly tradition in our family by celebrating the Chinese New Year in China Town! We hop on and off a couple of metro lines and pop out at the China Town station where we enjoy the parade (their 118th annual this year) and we follow up by eating a large amount of Chinese food. Feel free to join us for the 119th next year!

Just boarded our flight back to LAX. August and I had a mini vacation to Austin to visit Nona these past few days and I am pretty certain we are both about to pass out on the flight home due to our jam packed schedule we had! -Shopping expeditions -Dinners out -Thinkery museum -Little mermaid musical -Slumber parties with SJ -Late night snacks -Facials -Playing at the park (what August calls their backyard) -Playing shop -Playing trains -Inviting Paddington to dinner -Visiting SJ at work (Indeed) I'd say we accomplished a good amount in the space of five days (this includes flights to and from LA. Thank you Nona for our Nona-vacation!

When your flight gets cancelled and you have to wait in a horrendously long line but it's ok because you're two years old and you have a movie and fries and a luggage carrier fashioned into a day bed. (at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX))

Park life in LA. When parents think it's their job to hang out and play with their kids at the park which then results in the kids playing with their parents rather than the other kids. Hence my kid looking like this on the swing. (No judgement, he was having a blast)

Today was a day where Matt found out there was going to be some pretty big swell up north (think 20-30ft waves) So we packed up our little family in our little car and our friends who also happen to have a little family and a little car joined us and we made the day into a little road trip in search of this "epic-ness" We came. We saw. We had a couple minor meltdowns and my lips only started turning blue once. And we conquered. Mental note: Pack more food. Pack thicker pants. Pack a balaclava. Pack alpaca lined boots. Eat some whale blubber in preparation.

Oh hi! Are we back? Am I back? I'm not going to make a big announcement in case I flake out again.. But maybe I'm back...? Photo from this morning when we were headed out for a run but August wanted to look at the solar system. I stood there in the year 2017 asking if he would like to join me and he stood there in the year 1997 looking at planets and an asteroid.

"Keep running Daddy keep running!" August ran at this intensity all whilst cheering us on and encouraging us for a little over a mile today. He stopped for two water breaks and to talk to some bees.

August drooling at the skate park fence. (at Stoner Skate Plaza)

To whoever says you don't need community to be able to thrive as a stay at home Mom, I can smell your pants on fire from here. (at Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County)

When you outgrew your winter wetsuit so you have to wear your spring suit which you are still growing into all because your mum didn't cancel your weekly swim lessons in December. You're welcome August.

After 5 years of jumping out from behind doors/walls/shower curtains and sofas to scare Matt, I finally met my match tonight. August hid in our pitch black bedroom and pounced at me yelling "HI MOMMA!!" I just about peed myself.

"Hellllp peease!" 🏄🏽

Our zoo trips always start off with a nap. August has never been awake in the stroller as we enter the zoo. I wonder what he thinks when he wakes up and I'm standing there intently watching some chimpanzees. And he's all, "WHERE AM I?!" The other day Matt had to get (I informed him it was a necessity) a haircut, and he needed some fancy coffee beans for his fancy cold brew system. Fortunately, there was a highly reviewed barbers and one of his favourite coffee bean sellers near the zoo! So Matt dropped us off while he did manly things. August and I saw some monkeys, a sleeping bear, some sleeping hippos, some of the BIGGEST vultures I have ever seen, a jaguar, some coffee trees, some sugar cane plants and, for the first time ever, one of the elephants! Not only did we see him, but he was right at the edge of the enclosure where we were standing. We watched him eat some hay and then tear down a tree branch. Then August ran off with his blueberries. Priorities. And an amazing new update in August's life, he can now eat bananas all by himself. I don't even know what to do with all my new free time.

Valentine's Day celebrations! Matt planned for us to go down to Laguna Beach for the day and grab picnic food to munch on while we watched the sunset. Well after a much needed pitstop to get gas and oil for the car we were already hungry, so grabbed in n out on the way down. August even got his own portion of fries. He was pretty excited about that. On the journey down he and I would pass his little cardboard fry tray back and forth for me to replenish and him to eat. Laguna was a tad chilly and the marine layer was so thick you couldn't even see the water, which Matt and I were in hysterics about since that was the main reason we drove down. Fortunately it cleared up by the time the sun started dropping. Love my big and little valentines 😍

Chinese New Year celebrations! The actual new year was earlier this month, but the china town in downtown LA was celebrating this past Saturday. August and I took the bus and metro down their while Matt surfed and met up with us later at the parade. August absolutely loved it. Lots of drums, dancing, dragons, lions and noise. What's not to love? After the parade finished we both realized our phones were about to die, so it was up to our good old noggins to figure out where we could find some yummy food for lunch. As we walked around I wandered into a food shop that was selling frogs to eat, meanwhile Matt sampled some tea from a lady on the street. We are so street smart. Fortunately the lady pointed us in the direction of the restaurant the "Phoenix" and it was DELICIOUS! The place was small so we had to wait for a table, and as we were waiting a traditional lion dance was performed right at the front door. AKA directly where we were standing. Cue August looking intrigued/petrified/concerned. It was pretty wild to watch. The two dragons dance, then went and paraded around the restaurant before doing some martial arts jump to "eat" a half a lettuce and grab some money from a red envelope that had been hooked on the high up doorframe of the entrance. I encourage you all to google "lion dance" on Wikipedia! Funnily enough, another lion dance troupe came while we had sat down to eat. The poor owners must have a very protected establishment from evil but were probably broke by the end of the day. We then wandered around the Chinese market places and were shown many pairs of Chinese outfits for toddlers for August. Surprisingly enough we passed on those. But we did enjoy our souvenir leftovers from lunch!

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

So I’m pretty sure I have talked about the museum membership we have, but if not, here goes!

This past summer Mum picked us up a “premium” membership to the Thinkery in Austin. The difference between this kind and their basic is you get to be a part of the ASTC passport and some ACM benefits. What on earth does that mean you may ask? Well the ASTC passport program gets all three of us into a number of museums and kids activity places all over the country for free. PLUS we also get friends in for free at some places and huge discounts for them too. The ACM gets us half off at a number of places too.

Well this pass has been amazing! This past week August and I ventured over to Pasadena to go to Kidspace museum and we had a blast! Plus we get ourselves in for free plus another two guests and then 6 other people for half off. So basically the ASTC passport means the “don’t have any friends? Well you will now!” program.

A list of things we did at the kidspace were:

Painted Crafted Looked at bees. And found the queen! Played outside at their water tables. Wandered around outside. Went to see their “animal encounter” of the day. And thankfully August was being too loud for the Madagascan hissing cockroach so we left that area. Played with some blue noodle building block things. Experimented with some science experiments. Played with mud in the greenhouse. And lastly, but most importantly, got absolutely soaked at the splash pads to the extent that August went home in just a diaper.

The place is fantastic for kids of all ages. And they even have a huge new garden area opening up in April which looks fantastic too.

Kidspace, we shall be back!

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