Army

The boys are really into army toys right now. Specifically Yakov. If they see anything Army related they go nuts. Yakov saw a soldier on the cover of the paper and was so excited. He has so much patience to sit and line up all the soldiers in very creative combinations. Even Yehuda (23 months old) walks around with the toys and says "Army"

Yakov decorated his bunkbed and the blinds in their room with the toy soldiers. In the middle of the night Yosef and I can hear them fall. "Man Down!"

Aunt Linda is so amazing, I was telling her about Yakov and his army obsession. She connected him with a real solider actually in Afganistan, via Facebook! Now Yakov has a soldier penpal!
Yakov calls him "Colonel Dan"

The Zimmer Museum

We went to the Zimmer museum at least once a week throughout the summer. The boys loved dressing up in costumes and putting on a show at the theater area. They also looked forward to giving tzedaka in the spiral tzedaka bank. They got to see their coins spin around and around before falling in. There are stations set up around the museum, all hands on imagination havens. From a fake food restaurant & a pretend lemonade stand to a real ambulance and airplane to explore freely. We always ran into friends there.

The Westside Pavillion food court

When it is an over cast day or just too hot, may people look for indoor activities. I found this food court at a local mall and the boys had a ball climbing on the foam structures. They were nice enough to pose for a few pics too.

The Santa Monica Pier

We went to the Pier a few times this summer. I bought the boys a wrist band and they could ride the rides over and over. There were no lines when we went so they rode everything from bumper cars to the frogger that jumps up and down over and over agian. They had so much fun and the ocean air is beautiful. We went with Shabnam and her kids and they all rode together, minus the babies who stayed home to nap. Maybe next summer we will get all 7 cousins on the rides. We definitely had a lot of fun at the Pier.

Joey's Gym

Joey's Gym is a fun place. Parents sit on the side and watch while Mr. Ron teaches them the basics of gymnastics and works on their balance skills. For my boys it was a place to run, climb, swing... everything they can't do at home. Most of my pics are blurry because they were moving constantly, so here are my favorites. Sometimes I convinced some of our friends to sign up. When Shabnam was in LA we had all the cousins take a private class together. The gym is on the same block as a kosher frozen yogurt store called toppings. As a special treat I would take the boys to toppings first, then let them burn off the sugar high there. The instructor had such a great sense of humor, the kids were smiling and laughing the whole time. Plus the music he plays is fantastic. He runs the place with his wife and they have 2 kids. They live around the corner from us so its a real family friendly environtment.

The Grove

What is the Grove? The Grove is a mall set up like a movie set. It has a fountain that dances to music, a trolley that travels from one end to the other and every thursday they have a kids club with a kid friendly concert. The boys loved riding the trolley, both the upper and lower levels and its FREE. There is a kosher hot dog stand there so sometimes we had a picnic. We always tried to arrange to meet up with friends there. Sometimes we were lucky and it worked out, other times it was just us. There is a movie theater there as well and the boys are old enough now to enjoy a matinee. Attached to the Grove is the farmers market which has a fun gem hidden inside. A store called Sticker planet which has almost any type of sticket imaginable, a fun place for kids and their scrapbooking mommy. The boys also enjoyed tossing pennies into the fountain. So you can see why we spent at least one day a week there.