Christmas in June

Every year my parents give all of us kids a group Christmas present that we all use together. The tradition started sometime around 1995, and it's been really fun. The first year was Disneyland annual passes and other years have been trips to the Pageant of the Masters, family vacations in Big Bear, Mammoth, Catalina, and Solvang, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember at the moment. This year was a day at the Huntington Library followed by dinner at Roscoe's Chicken N' Waffles in Pasadena - two of my favorite places!! We had a really great day, doing the "kid friendly" version of the Huntington, which meant lots of time in the children's garden and very little time in the galleries. Nathan and my dad and I did manage to sneak off for a little while to check out the exhibit on body and landscape in LA. It was very cool, and I could have spent hours there.

We started our day with a little picnic on the lawn outside the museum. Then we ventured in and headed for the children's garden, stopping at the iconic fountain and marble-statue-lined lawn on the north side of the house.
Judah and Papa ran around the fountain a couple times and looked at all the koi fish before we moved on....

The children's garden, thankfully, has tons of water features that kids can get into. The adults (some of us) took advantage of the cool water on an over 100 degree day and got wet too.
The kids all got into a splash war with the tiny fountains, with the girls finally just sticking their heads in the water and soaking their hair.
Even Micah joined in and had a great time. Look at how white that boy is! Whose baby is he, anyway? We slathered on the sunscreen and hoped for the best. It turned out just fine.
Zoe and Lindsay horsing around, still in the children's garden.
Our little family of four, on a bridge in the Japanese garden. We ended up spending a lot of time there toward the end of the afternoon, because there was a lot of shade and grass, and tons of fish and turtles and ducks for the kids to look at, even a family of four baby ducks.

Dad and mom, the people that made this all possible, relaxing near a pagoda. Thanks, mom and dad! We all had a blast.
We managed to get about one shot each of all the cousins together. If you zoom in on this one you can see that Micah is NOT HAPPY. This was taken seconds before he rolled backwards down the hill and almost landed in the lake. It scared him pretty good, and ended the photo session.
Lindsay in a tree being a "Lindsay apple" right before the guard told us to get all the kids (they were all in there) out of the tree.
What was left on my plate at the end of dinner. When I first heard about chicken and waffles served together I have to admit I was kind of grossed out. It just seemed wrong. But after I went there the first time, about seven or eight years ago, I realized that this combination, when done right, is just this side of heaven. It is so tasty, the perfect way to end a long day: one diet coke, one waffle, and one piece of really good fried chicken, plus bites of Nathan's omelette and Jude's buckwheat waffle and the community macaroni and cheese. So, so good.
The whole gang at the end of dinner, plus our waitress who was super nice. We all went home stuffed and tired and very happy. It was such a fun day!