night at the museum

sorry for the absence, you guys.  in the midst of me being sick, the poor bean got stuck with it too.  it's been a little less than fun around here the last couple of days.  we're both on the mend, though, so hopefully things will go back to normal soon.

when my co-leader and i learned that there are sleepover nights at places like the l.a. zoo and various local museums, we thought that would make for a really fun outing for our girls.  i mean, obviously.  and so when we found an available date at the natural history museum that worked for us, we decided to go for it.  it was a little pricey - $75 per person - but we figured it would be an awesome experience and totally worth it.  right?

well...read on.

check-in time for the sleepovers is at 6:30.  dinner isn't part of the program, so the girls and i stopped off for a quick dinner nearby and then made our way to the museum.  we'd geared up for the night, with sleeping bags and and air mattress and our personal totes with pajamas and toothbrushes and clothes for the next day.  and because there were three of us, we decided to bust out the ol' wagon so we could get all of our stuff out of the car in one shot.

i think she was trying to make like a dinosaur here.

i'm not actually sure why i got the frowny face from her sister, though.

once inside, we passed by fun stuff on our way to where we'd been assigned to set up for the night.

the agenda for the evening:

we were in the saber toothed-cat group.

it was a little weird to have the whole place practically to ourselves.

she loves when i pull her aside for selfies.  can you tell?

although she's perfectly happy to photobomb me when i try to selfie it up without her.

our first activity took us behind the scenes, through employee-only areas and into a back room where the girls got to make goo.

 the next thing was a team scavenger hunt through the museum.

this was the bean's prize for finishing it.

the included snack consisted of goldfish crackers, string cheese and water.  yup.

and then we went outside with jessica for a tour of the tar pits.  this was probably the most fun part of the evening, although it was a little hard to see much because it was so dark already.

throughout the park, there were small fenced-off areas where there was still tar bubbling up from below ground.

and the "tar pits" area, we learned, wasn't actually full of tar after all.  it's mostly water in there, with trapped bacteria continuously bubbling up.

this lady was freezing her ass off, apparently.  it was maybe 65 degrees out there, but homegirl was all bundled up.

jessica gave the girls a little history lesson on how the museum started, which they clearly thought was fascinating.

and then it was time to get our sleeping areas all set up, pajamas put on and teeth brushed before lights out.  the old lady and i set up our air mattress, rolled out our sleeping bags, and checked out our view.

although if i looked to my left, i had a clear view of the creepy ass tiger and his skeleton.  the old lady was not thrilled to see this later, when all the lights went out.

the next morning, we woke up fairly early and started packing it up to get outta there.

the "continental breakfast" consisted of several jumbo-sized bags of generic branded cereal, weak lukewarm coffee and a few granola bars.  i think there was a costco box of croissants too, which was the highlight of the meal if you could get one.

and of course, the gift shop was open for business.

you can take home your very own wooly mammoth for a grand.  sweet!

do i sound disillusioned about this whole thing?  because hell yeah, i was.  all of the adults who were with us for this outing were on the same page...we paid $75 per person for goldfish crackers, a craft project we do at home several times a year, and generic cereal.  WUT.

however...the girls had a blast.  they all raved about how much fun they'd had, how cool it had been to sleep over at the museum, and just enjoyed being together for the night.  and while i would never, ever, ever recommend anyone to spend their hard-earned cash on this outing, i'm pretty glad for that.  after all, that's what it's all about anyway, right?

seriously though...if you'd been considering this, don't.  just pay the $12 and wander the museum during opening hours and then go home and have a great night's sleep in your own home.  really.  you'll be much better off.

killin' time in cambria

our first full day in cambria was a cool and cloudy one - definitely not unwelcome, as we'd driven up from 100-degree heat.  we'd checked the weather forecast and packed accordingly, so we were excited to rock some long-sleeve tops and jeans for a few days.

since it was still a weekday, the hub had work to do.  thanks to the beauty of laptops and wireless internet, he's basically got a mobile office and can get 'er done from damn near anywhere these days.  except for the fact that our free wifi in the hotel was kinda shitty.  and so while he headed off to a coffee shop in town, the bean and i decided to take a stroll and check out what there was to see (the teen wasn't having it and stayed behind to sleep in and get ready whenever she damn well felt like it).

it wasn't hard to pick a shop to browse in first.

because i knew we had a good chunk of time to kill, i was really hoping this would help keep the bean occupied for a while.  alas, while it was a super cute store, it wasn't very big.  although this doesn't mean we didn't have fun looking around.

hello kitty.  she's errrrywhere.

there was a display of every flavor of malt ball known to man.  i figured maybe the owner had a thing for 'em.

our next stop was here:

inside, we were greeted warmly by a volunteer who invited us to come in and look around.  i made it a point to tell the bean not to touch anything, and the lady immediately said "oh no, she's welcome to look and touch things if she wants."  so, cool.

except that as soon as she played a few notes (very gently - i swear she wasn't banging on the keys or anything obnoxious like that), another lady emerged from a nearby room and pretty much chewed us all out for daring to touch the precious piano.  i whipped my head around and glared at the other lady, who smiled nervously and apologized for the mixup.  eff that noise.  we dropped a couple of bucks into the donation box and hightailed it outta there.  hmph.

to soothe her hurt feeling box ("mommy, why did that lady tell me to stop playing the piano?"), i steered the bean towards this shop - she dug the rainbow - and told her she could pick anything she wanted out of the bakery case.  i think it helped.  heh.

as we munched on our snack (come on - i wasn't going to let her eat a cookie the size of her freaking head all by herself), the ILs and the teen caught up with us at last.  we walked up and down the street a bit, checking out the few shops that caught our eye, and ended up here:

yes, that is a knitting store.  knitting is one of those things i've always wanted to try, but haven't had the time (or patience).  and by coincidence, i'd just opened an e-mail offering me a series of ten 1-hour knitting lessons at a shop close to home for $49.  i was actually considering it, until the nice lady behind the register said "if you've got about 15 minutes, i'd be happy to teach you how to knit!"

sold.

and not just me, but MIL, the teen, and the bean got in on the action too.

a couple of minutes later, we'd learned to "cast on."

and not long after that, i'd actually knitted a little square and learned how to "cast off."

we were invited to peruse the rest of the shop and pet all the yarn.  ha.  that sounds kinda dirty.  but we did it.  and it was really fun.

after we made our selections, we got to pick needles.

here's what i ended up with:

later that afternoon, i'd completed the first step - opening up that skein and winding the yarn into a nice ball, to keep it from getting all tangled up as i worked with it.

i'm not very good at this.  i swear, i'm all thumbs.  the bean is doing a better job of this than i am.

oh, well.  i'll just have to keep practicing.  it gets better, right?  RIGHT??