In April, the family took a 10-day vacation to Los Angeles to visit friends and absorb some much needed sun.
ABOVE & BELOW: Before and after takeoff.
The first people we visited was Ken and Susan. Ken and Matt have known each other since they were 4 years old. They played hockey and soccer together throughout their youth and went to the same middle and high schools.
Ken and Susan have two kids — their youngest is Kallum who is 3.5 and about 9 months older than Fitz. They obviously hit it off together. Above, they are all smiles because their bellies are full of ice cream. And below, you’ll see that Kallum has a deep love for Star Wars. Obsessive love.
ABOVE: Using the Force on Matt.
ABOVE: Trying to use the Force on Fitz to no avail.
ABOVE & BELOW: Kallum trying to convince Fitz to look for Luke Skywalker.
ABOVE & BELOW: After a first day of settling into the LA lifestyle, we took the kids to Travel Town, a train-themed park for kids in Griffith Park.
ABOVE: The garage has been converted into a guest house and the boys loved running in and out of it and hiding from Matt.
ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz took a shine to Lilah, Kallum’s sister, but got upset when he realized we were about to leave for Gen and Jesse’s place.
ABOVE: One of the first things Fitz did when he arrived in LA was take a few layers of skin off of both knees.
ABOVE & BELOW: Once we arrived in Irvine to stay with Gen and Jesse, we had to find the nearest parks. Luckily, their neighbourhood is full of them, including one that had an old-style tram that Fitzy declared as his own (below).
BELOW: This little park proved that Fitz has very good directional skills. He had been here earlier int he day with Carly and Gen and wanted to return to it with Matt. But Matt had no idea it existed and let Fitz direct him to it. It was about 5 blocks away from where they started and it blew Matt’s mind that Fitz could point them in the right direction having only visited the park once before. Also, don’t be concerned about the how Fitz has morphed into some four legged creature.
ABOVE & BELOW: We visited Newport Beach/Balboa Island, the setting of Arrested Development, one of Matt’s all-time favourite TV shows.
ABOVE & BELOW: We spent a morning on the pier in San Clemente. No sight of Richard Nixon.
ABOVE & BELOW: We spent a lot of time on the balcony of Gen and Jesse’s place.
ABOVE & BELOW: We visited Venice Beach and it’s canals one afternoon. Some amazing places. We also discovered some cool public art on Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice (see pic of Gen below)
ABOVE & BELOW: On our last day, we visited the beach at Corona Del Mar. Fitz insisted on aking sure his hat didn’t fly off so we had to pull up the hoodie. He looked like one of those people freaked out about getting any sun on their skin. But we also saw some amazing outcrops of rocks and insanely huge homes.
ABOVE & BELOW: We went to a student art show for Jesse’s students and got to see a very cool waffle architecture building on campus. At sunset on our last night — we went back to Balboa Island for ice cream.
ABOVE: Of course, Fitz fell asleep on the flight home 5 minutes before the plane landed.
ABOVE & BELOW: We took Fitzy out to Milton to hang with his cousin Avery at her grandparent’s place. The main draw was the pool (and probably a promise of ice cream). Fitz was reluctant to get into the pool but just as we were about to call it a day he jumped in and spent another hour jumping and splashing with Avery and Aunt Angela and Carly.
