A Visit to Nana's

Last week we went to visit my Nana.  I wish that we lived closer so that we could visit her all of the time.  Uncle Dick had LOTS of fun activities planned for Maddie starting with a riding lesson.

Maddie rode Western style in San Pedro.  Her horse was 30 years old, but she had lost of fun with her.  I really liked her teacher.  It was 80 degrees, I think. They had lost of other animals too, so we had great fun looking around at all of the creatures.  The next day we went to the Japanese Garden at UCLA.  This is a special place to go.  You need to get reservations and they only allow two cars worth of people inside at a time.  We were lucky and were the only ones in during our time.  Maddie thought the garden was just magical and had a whole fairy tale figured out while we were there.  We made wishes and took lots of pictures.  It was easy to forget that we were in the city.

That afternoon we went to the neighborhood park.  Maddie's favorite thing to do there is to ride up in the rocket.  It was very hot, so we didn't last long.  

We also went to the Queen Mary.  It's an old cruise ship.  It was the place to be for its time.  Maddie really liked to see the children's playroom on board.  They had it all set up as it would have been in its hay day.  It's also a hotel and restaurant now.  We didn't look around at all that, but enjoyed the ocean views and the bit of history.

We ate dinner at a nearby pizza place and finished off our day with a trip to the chocolate factory.

For St. Patrick's Day, Maddie made sure that we were all wearing green.  She threatened to pinch anyone who didn't comply!  We hung out with Nana while the men golfed.  We made some cupcakes with green frosting.  I think it had been a while since Uncle Marty had had homemade cupcakes.  They were a big hit!

For our final night in Torrance, Uncle Dick took me and Maddie to see Backwards in High Heels.  It was just fantastic.  It's about the life of Ginger Rogers.  The Gershwin music was great and the singers fantastic.  I had no idea she had married so many times!  Maddie tapped all of the way home!!

We had a lovely vacation.  We sure missed our boys, though, and were glad to get home.