April 24 - All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun ... Till the Sun comes up on the Santa Monica Boulevard!

And we had some fun today on the Santa Monica Boulevard!  We woke up and had brekky at Starbucks - just what Claire has been hankering for.

We drove the 1 1/2 hours to Riverside to see Tony and had In-and-Out Burgers courtesy of the "Establishment" in his precinct - something they do every quarter apparently and then we dined back at "Somerset Outdoor Living".  Then a trip back to Downtown LA to the Griffith Observatory which was a "magnificent" (according to Claire), experience.  The "Hollywood sign" was a "must" for Claire and finally she saw it and proudly had a piccie in front of it - albeit some distance away.

We learnt about the Foucault Pendulum an 1851 demonstration that Earth rotates on its axis.  A lecture on the "Criterion for Life" was really informative, especially for one who didn't do science 40+ years ago, and for one who is learning science at primary school now.  It was wonderful to see Claire soaking up so much information ... although we're all still a bit jetlagged, and sleep deprived, she is doing amazingly well.

The Observatory has fantastic displays of the planets and the solar systems and although fairly intense, it is easy to scan and pick out the things of interest.

A talk on how to "Make a Comet" was fabulous - Claire just wants to know where/how to buy some dry ice.  Mixing liquid water, dry ice, carbon and a few other ingredients made for a spectacular show and enthralled all of us in the theatrette.

This is the comet that was made in the Observatory show. Fascinating.

We took a walk along Santa Monica Boulevard this evening and took some pics of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean (a great opportunity to take a picture of the sun setting over the ocean from the west coast, John reckons).  Ignore the empty potato crisp packet - it's true that Claire hasn't been dining out on these all week!!!

The Santa Monica Pier is the end of the line for "Route 66", so it was proper that Claire had her photo take there.  She was keen to do some of the "awesome rides" here - but I hate these rides.  Claire assures me that I'll be riding them with her once we get to Universal Studios and Disneyland - I'm not so sure

Damn the photo not displaying properly.

Sitting on the Santa Monica Pier - watching the sun set.

April 19 - I have arrived in Melbourne!

On my way to the airport this morning, Mum and I went shopping and I bought some shoes. I checked in and we went through security and forgot we had scissors in our bags so we had to go back to the car, and then back to the airport and through security. I got some Pringles and a drink on the plane for free! 

Nana, Auntie Mel, Olivia, Connor and Daniel met me at the airport.  I felt excited to see them. This afternoon Nana and Olivia and I went shopping and we made a pavlova for Pa for his birthday but it was yesterday.

Olivia and I are making a dance up for tonight's dinner concert with Connor.