Daddy-Daughter Weekend

This weekend, as Ann was with her family in Illinois saying their final goodbyes to Grandma Dolly (Ellie and I will miss her very much, too).. the little lady and I had a fun time whizzing around the Los Angeles area, making a lot of new stops for Ellie.

It all began post-swimming lessons Saturday morning.

SATURDAY:

We headed down to Hollywood to have brunch with Mulan herself at the Disney Soda Fountain on Hollywood Boulevard! That movie has become Ellie's favorite Disney movie dujour, so she was thrilled to meet the princess herself. The meal was typical Disney greatness. Fresh fruit, yogurt, bagels, and a Mickey Mouse-shaped waffle.

After our brunch.. we watched Mulan at the Disney-owned El Capitan Theatre, which is right next door. But it wasn't just a movie.. before the show an award-winning organist played some Disney tunes on a classic Wurlitzer Organ. It reminded me of being at a Blackhawks game (and hearing "Here come the 'Hawks!" played on the organ).. but with Disney songs instead.  Pretty cool.

 Then Mulan herself came back out to do a couple dance numbers to two of the songs from her movie. Ellie was thrilled to see Mulan dance.. and we had a good time watching the movie, too.

SUNDAY:

Ellie was all about Saturday.. even though I had a lot of fun, too. And I was all about Sunday.. even though Ellie had a lot of fun, too.

Sunday afternoon we did something I've been wanting to do for months.. head down to the California ScienCenter to visit the Space Shuttle Endeavour! It was totally awesome. Right now the shuttle is in a temporary exhibit space.. a hangar they built just for Endeavour.. before it's moved to a more permanent locale on the museum's campus. Anyway.. it was still awesome. Ellie remembered seeing the shuttle fly over her school last September, as I did, and was excited to see it again. Neither of us were disappointed.

 (Above is a close-up shot of the heat tiles from underneath the shuttle.)

Endeavour is not the only space-related item on display at the ScienCenter, either. They also have several capsules.. including the Mercury capsule Ham, the first chimpanzee ever sent into space, went up in.

Ellie also managed to get a pretty good shot of me in front of the Gemeni 11 capsule.. the vessel that carried Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon into orbit. It's a significant mission because it was the first time one craft ever docked with another in space. That process, as you know, was vital to the success of the subsequent Apollo Program.. as well as pretty much every space mission thereafter.

The museum also had a lot of other cool things, including a tidal pool and touch tank exhibit (Ellie is still apparently a little to skeeved out to touch the starfish), as well as a section on light.. where we got to see ourselves in infrared. Ellie was especially amused that my glasses turned out blue. I explained to her that they're blue because they aren't generating heat like our bodies are.. but I'm not quite sure she understood. Oh well.. there's time.

MONDAY:

An added bonus day to our whirlwind weekend.. and we took advantage of the warmest day of the weekend by heading over to Santa Monica to spend some time on the famed pier and the beach.

Ellie and I started our day by making Ellie's first sand castle. She was very excited to bring her bucket, shovel, and rake with us to the beach.. and even though the sand castle isn't anything to really write home about, she was pretty pumped up that the sand could stand up by itself once you pack it into a bucket and flip it over quickly.
 

After we made sand castles, Ellie decided she wanted to put her toes int he ocean. We did.. several times.. but Ellie was often scared away by some of the bigger waves rolling in. I promised I'd hold her hand tight, but she bolted a few times.

When she asked if she could get a surf board, I told her she had to keep doing a great job at her swimming lessons, which she is, then practice surfing a lot before she could get a board of her own. When I explained about boogie boarding, however, and that you can do that without knowing how to surf, she seemed well into that idea.

After that, we headed up toward the pier, but stopped on the way to swing on some swings and do some monkey bars. Ellie found a set that was just her height, and she actually made it to the third rung out before losing part of her grip, dangling for a bit, then dropping to the padded, rubberized surface beneath.. which she thought was pretty fun.

Once we made the short climb up some steps we headed over to Pacific Park, a small amusement park built on the pier itself -- it's the one that houses the famous seaside Ferris wheel you'll often see when viewing montage clips of Los Angeles. There were only a few rides Ellie wasn't tall enough for, including the roller coaster, which bummed her out since she's become a pretty big roller coaster fan thanks to her many ridings of the Gadget Go-Coaster inside Toon Town at Disneyland.. but we found a lot of other things to keep ourselves entertained.

 Ellie was brave enough to ride on that ride above, The Pacific Dragon. It's one of those rides that swings you back and forth with pretty good velocity, and gets some good height. Before we stepped on, as we watched the riders before us, Ellie got a little nervous. But once on the ride, she was all about it. "It's not scary, Daddy. It's just like a big swing. WEEEEEEE!!!" So, yeah.. she loved it. We have a bonafide daredevil on our hands.

Above is Ellie aboard the Pacific Wheel.. the big Ferris wheel I mentioned earlier.

After getting our fill of the rides, we had a nice Mexican lunch at a restaurant at the end of the pier...

 

(She beat me at Tic-Tac-Toe.)

...and then we headed down to the sand on the other side of the pier to do some people-watching (Ellie was amazing people were swimming in our brisk California weather -- low 60's and windy..  know, I know.. warm for winter) and have some ice cream before heading home.

Back to school tomorrow! Ellie is excited to share her stories from the weekend with her friends.