After spending the first day of our weekend family trip in Rehoboth, we leisurely spent the next day at Cape Henlopen State Park. It was our first time going to Cape Henlopen, and we liked that it was a little quieter and had calmer waters than Rehoboth, which was perfect for younger children.
We took a weekend trip in late August with my parents and my sister to Rehoboth Beach and Cape Henlopen. The girls loved the beach and were happy to be back at Rehoboth!
While our main purpose of going to LA on Memorial Day weekend was for Megumi & Daniel’s wedding, we got to squeeze in some time to have some recreational fun of our own in between the wedding preparations and festivities. Here are some other photos and videos from our weekend in Los Angeles.
Afterwards we checked in at the Hilton in Glendale for the weekend, and the girls were so happy to get to the hotel room after being in the car for over seven hours!
On Saturday morning, we met up with Estella for lunch. While we had became close friends from working together at a web design studio in Oakland, she’s now attending Art Center in Pasadena, so it was great to see her again in a new city! I am always so inspired by Estella whenever I see her — her drive, ambition, and talent are all things I admire so much about her, and I cannot wait to see the places she’ll go! She’s also one of those friends with whom you can just pick up right where you left off and just chat and joke with so naturally — I so love and treasure that about my friendship with Estella. 🙂 I’m pretty sure we’ll still be like that fifty years from now.
After lunch, we said goodbye to Estella and drove over to the LACMA to see the Urban Light exhibit that I’ve always wanted to see in person. Of course, there were so many people there as it was a Saturday afternoon, but we still had fun looking around!
Sunday was a busy day as it was Megumi & Daniel’s wedding day, and while I was occupied with preparations as part of the bridal party, the girls got to cool down at the hotel pool before making their way over to the wedding venue.
The next morning, we had to get up super early at dark o’clock to get to LAX, return our car, and make our 8am flight back to Dulles. We were all pretty exhausted and sleepy, but thankfully everything went smoothly and we were able to make it back East without leaving any of our sanity or children behind.
A huge thank you to all the family and friends who made us feel so welcome and made everything so memorable and enjoyable while we were visiting California! It was truly a treat to see all of your faces, and we miss you all so much already. Hopefully we can make it over there again to visit soon! 🙂
Although our time staying in the East Bay was short, we were glad we could see some of the faces we have so missed since moving away! There were new babies to be held and kissed, delicious restaurants to be visited (both old and new!), and a lot of catching up to do with dear friends.
On the second day of our trip, we had dinner at Burma Superstar with Dan’s brother Ted and his fiancée Jackie in Alameda, because it was one of our favorite restaurants that we were excited to revisit while we were in the area.
After our dinner at Burma Superstar, we drove over to Castro Valley to have some ice cream with Aileen and David!
This wasn’t exactly meeting up with a familiar face, but we have definitely missed our favorite taco truck! We had to make a stop in Oakland to get our fix of those amazing al pastor, chicken, and carne asada tacos (plus lengua for Dan).
Up there among our top most-anticipated moments of our visit was seeing a couple of our dearest friends, Tarrin and Jason, and their newborn son Theo! He was only two months old when we got to see him, and I was euphoric holding that teeny baby and sniffing his head. That newborn smell is so intoxicating! (Before you write me off as a complete nutcase, I urge you to try sniffing a newborn head sometime — I’m pretty sure you will agree with me.)
On our last day, we spent the evening with Dan’s family after we came back from Fairyland in the afternoon. Mio had fun helping Grandma prepare dinner for everyone!
On our last full day in the Bay Area, we got to take the girls to Children’s Fairyland in Oakland! I had heard about Fairyland while we lived in the area and that it was a really great place to take kids, but we had moved away before Mio reached the age where she could really enjoy a mini-amusement park like that. It was the first time going to Fairyland for all of us (even Dan!), so it was a new experience for all of us, and we fell in love with the quaint and charming mini-amusement park from the 1950’s, with its whimsical storybook sets, gentle rides, and friendly animals.
Mirei crawling through a tunnel:
Clothesline and windmill:
Mio looking into the Japanese tea garden:
Looks like Miss Mirei is going to be a little bookworm, too!
Fairyland was truly magical, and the girls had such a fun-filled day there! Our trip to California had been fairly grownup-centric with all the people and sights we wanted to see and places we wanted to eat, so I’m glad that we could set aside a day to dedicate to doing something that was all about our girls enjoying themselves. It’s too bad we no longer live in the area anymore, as Fairyland is definitely the type of place we would love to take the girls often!