spring break | The Sedgwicks

This year we decided to stay home for spring break. Well, not exactly home. I (Jessica) wanted to spend some time up in L.A. exploring the sites we always hear about but which still remain mysterious and ambiguous in our minds. L.A.’s supposed to be a really cool place, right? I was determined to find out for myself. And since my kids were out of school this week, I thought I’d just bring all 5 of them along. By myself. Ambitious? I like to think of it as “making memories.”

We only live about an hour south of the city, but it’s really about 2 hours if you include traffic (which we hit today on our drive home, leaving L.A. at 4 pm and arriving home at 6). I found myself planning my routes around traffic. I’m much too impatient to live my life around traffic. But it worked for a couple of days, and we had a good time.

We left home Monday morning and drove straight to Beau’s and Amy’s apartment in west L.A. Amy graciously agreed to hang out with us while Beau was at work. :) It was fun to have her around and to see their cute apartment. First stop was the famous Hollywood sign. While navigating the tiny pot-holed streets of Hollywood hills, we passed what looked like a filming of a commercial or something. They had to move their van for us to get by. As we reached the top of the hills with the sign in sight, we discovered that the road was closed and we could go no further! So we just jumped out of the car and climbed through a fence on someone’s private property for a quick shot with the sign in the background. It really looked a lot closer in person than the picture appears.

Next stop was Westwood Village (home of UCLA) for lunch with Beau. Lunch was good, but what really made us happy was a stop at Diddy Riese for their famous ice cream cookie sandwiches (famous because of the taste but mostly the price at $1.50!). We stepped inside one of the old theaters (80 years) where movie premiers are shown. Fun place.

We said our good-byes to Amy and Beau and headed over to Santa Monica pier for some amusement. The kids were amused by the rides and games on the pier. Caleb has a knack for winning those cheap stuffed animals at the amusement park games. He’s 4 for 4 in the last week, if you include the Swallows Day parade games! It was fun to hang out at the “Original location of Muscle Beach” (see picture). There were some guys exercising their muscles, mostly in the form of swinging like monkeys on the rings you see at the olympics gymnastics events.

After our beach fun we met Dave (who drove almost 2 hours for this FHE) and some friends at the L.A. temple visitor’s center. We loved the whole experience there, and would highly recommend it! After a late dinner and a good-bye to Dave, we headed back to the hotel. Since I wasn’t about to pay $33/night for hotel parking, we found a spot on the street a couple blocks away. I’m sure we were quite a sight for anyone driving the streets at 10:00 at night (me and 5 kids wrapped in blankets, a stroller, and a suitcase). Ha ha! It’s about making memories, right? Luckily the kids fell asleep pretty quickly, and I was only woken up about 5 times during the night by coughing, crying, and throwing up (luckily not bad, just the coughing-too-hard type). Other than that, we got a decent night’s sleep considering we all shared a room.

After enjoying some cartoons (a luxury for my kids) this morning, we found Denny’s, suffered through their poor service (but enjoyed the food), then headed back to the hotel for some swim time. I was becoming a grumpy mama by now, but really, must I listen to any more bickering and ingratitude for my “sacrifice”? I had to pull out the old “let’s go home and do jobs for the rest of the day”threat a few times! I guess it worked because we made it to the La Brea Tar Pits, a museum and excavation site for fossils trapped in sticky tar from thousands of years ago. It was definitely worth seeing. We finished the day at the Grove, a fancy outdoor shopping area with a farmers market which has been there since 1934. The farmer’s market turned out to be a conglomeration of pricey but yummy food stands. We enjoyed what I would call the “best Mexican shredded beef ever” there.

So, even though my kids were driving me crazy half of the time (or more), I’m discovering that the frustrations of the moment are soon forgotten and that the memories will last forever. I’m grateful for my mom who used to drag her 11 kids (was I complaining about 5?) all over, creating fun memories because now I’ve got a ton of them! Stay-cations are the way to go when you live in such a wonderful place! And it’s nice to justify the price we pay just a little. :)