MU
Back to El Capitan for the latest Pixar flick; Monsters University. It is, as all the world knows, the Monsters, Inc prequel. We did the character breakfast with Sully pre-movie. He was huge and really cute with his letterman jacket on. Georgie unsurprisingly loved him! We had a small issue with our breakfast taking FOREVER to be served but all turned out ok. I was also caught a bit off guard by how packed the theater was... I guess we're not usually there on an opening weekend and during the touristy summer season. I'll just leave it at "wow".

Anyway, G and I both thought the movie was great! It was really funny and had a good story. I even liked the message. Cute, cute, cute! Friends, Tanya and her daughter Gracie, came to see the movie with us which made Georgie really happy. Afterward we headed over to what has become our "after El Capitan" lunch spot Johnny Rockets where G happily enjoyed her very first shake ever! She got strawberry and liked it a lot! By that point it had been a pretty big day and we headed home.

Fun, fun!

The table centerpiece was cute... see the title of the book? Scare Techniques :-)

We were smart this time and brought our stuffed Sully with us avoiding the necessity of buying a new stuffed lovey.

Official Grad Pix (x2)
Its not everyday that one of your kids graduates from preschool and another one graduates from college! This is an event that definitely needed to be immortalized. Georgie's preschool doesn't do any kind of a graduation ceremony but that didn't stop us from getting some for-no-other-purpose-than-its-really-cute preschool cap and gown photos ;-) and of course Casey looks SOOOOOO handsome in his ceremonial garb.

IMO they are Adorable!!!

Con-GRAD-ulations
to our family's newest graduate Casey! Can you belive it? I can't but, nonetheless, there it is; my younger son is a college graduate. I'm so proud of him. We got super lucky that the weather for the ceremony was beautiful, overcast and relatively cool. It heated up later in the day but it was almost over by then. Thank goodness! At Brett's graduation ceremony two years ago we nearly keeled over from the heat so this was a relief.

It was a really nice ceremony. The mascot for UC Riverside is The Highlanders so there was a strong Scottish theme running through the entire event. It began with a couple dozen bagpipers in kilts and led eventually to a rousing rendition of Pomp and Circumstance. Casey walked in toward the end of of the group... I could see him because, in true mamarazzi style, I had pushed my way to the front of the camera wielding crowd... anyway, I could tell he was happy because he had the BIGGEST and most natural smile on his face I've ever seen. I teared up. It made me so happy to see him so happy!

Casey looked very handsome! and he was sweet to patiently pose for the 1000 pictures I took of him :-)  Afterward we had a celebratory lunch at Mission Inn's Las Campanas and then we topped the day off with an impromptu pizza and swim back at our house. Great day!

Yes, we were early. Yes, we sat in the very first row!

I'm not usually a big fan of bagpipes but I must admit that having dozens of them play along with the scottish drummers made for a festive mood

 There he is... the happy graduate!

This is the professional photo that the school takes. I can't believe how great it is! I swear I think they could use it in their advertising :-)

Casey and his super sweet girlfriend Maria. It will be her turn to graduate in just two more years

After lunch we went back to the school to take some more pictures. Just after the ceremony the place was PACKED with bodies and there would have been no way to get any decent shots on the school grounds.

I think this is such a good picture of Casey and my mom. She was a very proud grandma and almost as excited about Casey's graduation as he was.

Two kids down, one to go. Of course Georgie won't graduate from college until 2030!!! Eeek!!

The Garden Again
During G's time off from school we returned to the Huntington for another day of fun! We hit the children's garden first because last time we went at the end of the day and G was so tired she got a little grumpy. It was a total winner this time!

After all that water play my little one was hungry so we had some lunch in the Rose Garden Tea Room... loved it! Once our tummies were full, we walked through the rose garden quite a bit. Watching G peruse the roses was hysterical... she'd read through the name cards (and there are hundreds of them) until she found one with a name that struck her fancy "lavender ballerina" or "america" and "applesauce" are a few that did, then she'd start yelling "MOMMY!! Come here, come here, hurry!!!" because, you know, the roses were going to disappear if I didn't hurry :-)  So, of course, I'd walk over to see what she had found where she'd then share the name with me and insist that I take a picture of the blooms. Such a funny little girl.

Dozens of photos of roses later, G decided it was time to visit the galleries. I find it fascinating that a 5-1/2 year old would get so much joy out of the galleries. She puts her little audio guide on her head and goes around exploring on her own. I have as much fun watching her looking at things as I do of looking at the works themselves. She's just so darn cute!!! There's a very large marble sculpture of Zenobia in Chains (its like 7 feet tall) in one of the galleries that G really LOVES! It is really beautiful but G is slightly obsessed with it. She sat on the floor and listened to the guide... when it was done, she looked up at me and asked if she could listen to it again. Uh, sure baby. She ended up listening to it a total of 4 times!!  I think she might have it memorized at this point. I guess it makes a bit of sense, Zenobia was a queen and G does have a thing for royalty but still, its super cute.

Anyway, it was a perfectly lovely day; the kind a person wishes would go on and on. I really do love that place.

This face! Seriously, have you ever seen anything so kissable in your whole life??? Love, love, love the little smirk and dimple. I'm so in love with this little girl.

Georgie doing the "gun show"

Making her way to the Rose Garden Cafe for tea

A couple of the dozens of pictures of roses Georgie had me take. She really like the first one with the bumble bee.

Just a little ballet while traipsing through the flowers

I'm pretty sure that this tree was planted and grown with the specific intent to be a photo prop. How else could you explain something growing so perfectly?

Even though my mom's not much of a fan of having her picture taken, I always try to snap a few... Georgie loves her Grandma so much!

Griffith Observatory
Georgie had a week and a half off between the end of preschool and the beginning of her summer day camps. I brought her to the office with me a couple times... even to court (don't worry, she was a perfect angel just as I hoped :-)  but it can't be all work and no play, right? So, I took a couple days off and we had some fun days with Grandma. Anyone who knows me knows that I am always looking for something new to do. I figure hey!! I live in southern california --an area where people from all over the world come to vacation --I'm going to check out all the touristy and attraction type places around. Having said that, I've never been to the Griffith Observatory and thought it sounded interesting.

Georgie has been particularly interested in the planets and constellations since doing a science unit on them in her preschool class. Its cute because she's memorized the order of the planets and loves repeating them and telling me about Pluto no longer being a planet which she explains something like this (sadly I don't have it on video but to get the full effect you need to imagine it being said without taking a breath and in a cute sing-songy almost valley girl way) "Momma, Pluto used to be a planet but its not a planet anymore and I'm so sad that its not a planet because I love Pluto so much because its so tiny and so, so cute" Haha!! Love it!

Some of the exhibits were over her head. Heck, some of them were over my head. But, there were some great ones explaining synchronized rotation, the phases of the moon and the the different planetary orbits. Georgie particularly liked the Foucault Pendulum and the Tesla Coil and she really, really liked the movie we saw on the domed planetarium ceiling. I did too! Very cool.

I'd intended to have enough time to take G over to the Griffith Park carousel and ponies but, we ended up having so much fun at the observatory, it got too late. Oh well, maybe next time!

Lovin' the tude in this picture!

My mom and Georgie looked very interested in this cloud chamber thing :-)

With Albert Einstein

 Georgie loved these purple binoculors. They work really well too!

Georgie read something about a sundial in one of the Magic Tree House books. Ever since then she's been very interested in them. I was trying to show her how it worked but it was a bit cloude.



Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Awesome show! The costumes we incredible, amazing, unbelievable... are there more words that mean great?? My mom loved it too. She said it was exactly what a "broadway" show should be BIG! and she was totally right. So much fun :-)

Mermaid Girl
Georgie loves mermaids! Loves them.... seriously, I think she believes that she may be part merfolk. We got her this tail which she usually wears to play in the tub but, now that its getting warmer, she started asking if she could wear it in the pool. I told her spa only. I was afraid she'd drown. Surprisingly enough she actually swam with it really well :-)