My birthday weekend

I turned 39 on April 17th. My friend Marilyn has the same birthday, so we decided to go out to breakfast with a few friends to celebrate.

It was really fun! We dropped big kids off at school and met at a bakery with our little kids.We filled up half the restaurant! 

Great idea Marilyn! We should do this more often. 

After everyone got home from school and work, we drove down to Los Angeles and checked into a temple apartment. We were on the top floor, and this was our amazing view from the balcony. 

It was stake temple day, and we took turns watching kids and going in the temple. 

We walked around the beautiful temple grounds for a bit while Dave and Spencer packed up the car. Our time there went by way too fast.

Don't stand too close - that's one pokey tree! 

We also went in the distribution center and bought everyone CTR (Choose The Right) rings. They were thrilled! 

Quick stop at the visitor's center. We could have spent a lot more time there, but we wanted to head over to the science museum. It didn't seem too far away, but there was so much traffic, it took awhile to get there. That is the main thing I don't like about big cities!!

Kristen's family also went to the temple that day, and then we all went to the California Science Center. There was a $10 parking fee, but then it was free to get in! Chloe was amazed by the escalator - you can tell we live in a small town!!

They loved the hurricane simulator! 

Kristen and Nathan took our 4 oldest with them to see the Endeavor space shuttle (which had a small fee), while Dave and I took all the little kids around to see other exhibits.

This place was really big, and it had a lot of cool stuff. We especially liked the Ecosystem section.

 I can't walk past jellyfish and not take pictures. 

Chloe literally could have played in this sand the whole time. There was water on one end, and she took handfuls of sand and washed it off in the water. Over and over and over again. We didn't see everything there, so we'll have to go back another time. There was, of course, lots of traffic on the way out, and somehow we ended up driving through Korea-town. There was a big crowd of emergency vehicles, and Spencer saw police zipping up a body bag. Lovely. After we got out of the city (shwew!) we stopped for dinner at El Toritos. Just as we were finishing our wonderful dinner,a stranger came up to us, told us he came from a large family, and gave us his coupon for 30% off our total bill. That saved us $30! I love nice people! It was a really fun birthday weekend. For my present, Dave told me to choose a new lens; so I bought (after hours of research) a 35mm 1.8 prime. It's great!