Family

So I mentioned in my Snow Day post that my grandmother passed recently. She was an amazing woman. She lived about 45 minutes from where my family grew up when I was 5 till after I left for college. We ALWAYS celebrated the holidays at her home and drove up frequently during the year. I knew how special she was because my father KNEW how special she was.

I have fond memories of food fresh from her garden, from fresh peaches with cream to strawberry angel food cake with fresh strawberries to cherry pie made from cherries off her cherry tree. I love fried catfish because of the fresh caught catfish my grandmother would fry up (though I now cook it oven fried to be a little healthier...).

She lived through some difficult times. She came from a poor family and her own small family had some great financial struggles. I was touched when I learned how she gave up smoking to buy my father a clarinet. She was that kind of person--trying to make the best life for her children despite difficult circumstances. My father learned the hard, but important, lesson of being a hard worker from her.

Because the funeral was in the morning in Redondo Beach we decided that it would be best to drive down the night before. Then we decided (okay, I was the one who decided) that we should drive down earlier in the day and take the kids to the Aquarium of the Pacific. Mark worked the night before and then got delayed by several hours because of a late call so I was a "little" stressed that morning.

But we were able to leave about 1.5 hours after I intended to leave (Mark got home about 30 minutes before we left). Traffic wasn't too bad, except we had to stop at the bank and to grab lunch and then my son had to make two potty stops. When we had to stop for a second potty trip an hour after the first I thought we would never get there! But we finally made it to the Aquarium at about 3pm.

I loved the aquarium and Ira was excited about being able to touch sea creatures. After viewing the large aquarium and sea lions we went outside to see the shark pool. I thought Emma would enjoy touching the sharks as Ira had talked about little else. I helped her up and tried to guide her hand. As soon as her hand touched the water she recoiled and refused to have any more to do with the sharks. She didn't even want to be near the larger shark aquarium, but daddy eventually convinced her to take a look.

Once we could peel Ira away from the sharks, we visited the lorikeets. The kids are familiar with feeding lorikeets because we have season passes to the Wild Animal Park (we can also go to the San Diego Zoo, but it's farther) and feeding the birds is one of their favorite parts of our visits.

After feeding the birds and talking to the bird caretakers we went to the upper level. Ira was stoked about touching the tidal wave animals (sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and anemones). Again, Emma would look but NOT touch ANYTHING. Ira then visited the ray pool before we walked inside.

I thought Ira would be so excited to see the jellyfish, but all he could think about was touching sea animals. He did pause briefly to view the octopus and eels. Thankfully the Aquarium knows that kids want to touch and have several kiosks inside the aquarium with more tidal animals that the kids can pet. My mom even convinced Emma to touch an anemone by telling her it was a ocean flower! She wouldn't touch anything else, but at least she touched something.

We were pretty hungry by the time we finished at the aquarium and seeing those huge rock lobsters and enormous crabs gave me a craving for sea food! I'm sure the people who built a Bubba Gump's Restaurant next door to the Aquarium did so for people like me. :) It was a little pricey, but I don't know where else you could get a "bucket of boat trash" that tastes any better!

The next day, after the funeral, all the extended family made a special trip to Leo's Mexican Restaurant. It is a small mexican restaurant that my father's family frequented when it was little more than a taco shack. Even though we lived over an hour away, my father still took us on special trips to this fabulous place! I have happy memories of making wishes on pennies and throwing them into the fountain on the patio or feeding the birds singing in the vines growing along the iron fencing and overhead. If you are making a trip to the Redondo area I would highly recommend it!