We had been wanting to check out Santa Barbara so we made a road trip out followed by some time in LA on the way back as Daddy needed to be there for meetings and a company party.

Stopped in Long Beach for some { SE Asian } food. And tea.

And dessert.

Rolled ice cream AND acai in one establishment? YAS!

Then another stop in Culver City to charge up the car. E got some wiggles out at the Westfield there.

Meandered through Malibu. Blue sky, blue water.

Short hike.

Stroll along the sand. These beachfront houses are like steps away from the water.

We brought E’s scooter so he wouldn’t complain about walking everywhere. :P We made our way to the Moxi Science Museum on our first full day in SB.

Auntie Glo would love this giant gee-tar.

Walking on coals, haha. J/K. This one timed how fast you can run on pebbles. E won due to his lower body mass!

Isn’t this also @ like every museum?

They had some cool larger experiments in the courtyard…

Yay, SD!

The rooftop had more exhibits and a great view.

More on the second floor.

Supposedly, you can “will” a ball to move. Fact or fiction?

This was one of his faves there.

Grabbed some lunch after an activity-filled morn.

Ambled to the pier.

A diving class was going on.

Then we actually went BACK to the Moxi at E’s request! He loved it that much. He pretty much built tracks for balls until the museum closed. :)

He started going a little too fast on his scooter that we had a huge scare when we lost track of him. This pedestrian walk ends at a larger intersection!

Not super happy we called him out.

Calming down under the Moreton Bay Fig Tree, supposedly the largest of its kind in the U.S.

All smiles again when we caught a Pressed Juicery freeze deal at the mall.

Walked past and peeked into a cat cafe… They had just closed or we would’ve gone into this world of cats — supposedly all rescued.

Explored the famous State St. and some random points of interest along the way.

We had an inkling Chinese food in SB may not be super authentic but it actually wasn’t too bad.

First stop the next day was the SB Museum of Natural History.

Outside was the Prehistoric Forest, which was very similar to the animatronics at the Heard Museum he used to be so frightened by.

Then we went inside the butterfly garden.

We were briefed that we couldn’t touch any of the butterflies so here he is patiently waiting on one to land on him. :D

STILL waiting! We were actually kinda shocked at his patience.

Finally.

Live birds and some lively chatter with the birdkeepers.

After lunch, we walked to the SB County Courthouse — open to the public and known for its beautiful Spanish Colonial architecture.

Many of the rooms were intricately painted.

Tile love!

We climbed to the top.

We could see where the mountains meet the ocean.

There was also a clock gallery where you can look inside the clock tower but with limited hours so we had missed the window. Another time!

In the evening, we went to a local beach to catch a SB sunset. :)

Jr. lifeguard in training. :)

Some peaceful early morning { foggy } run scenes…

Their boardwalk…

Taking the Cabrillo Path, MUCH traveled on. ;P

To Chase Palm Park… which had a nice shipwreck themed playground. As always, he made a friend or two and they did laps and laps around the park on their coincidentally matching scooters.

Caught some sunbathing turtles.

Nice independent coffee shop…

Lunch, drinks, games before hitting the road to LA.

No surprise but traffic into LA was horrendous. The stop and go and winding roads made all of us queasy. Nothing a flight of Salt & Straw can’t fix, right?

Kinda Americanized dim sum. :D

Post dinner we walked to the Beverly Center cuz TMI, Daddy “needed” Uniqlo underwear.

While Daddy was in the LA office, Mommy and son started the day off with a matcha-infused breakfast! Priorities. :))

Mommy’s childhood nick. :)

Then it was a fairly long (well, traffic) Lyft ride to the Natural History Museum. Choosing not to drive in L.A. was a good decision!

Caught a 3D ‘saur flick!

And saw more of their bones.

Nice graphics.

The mice had a tiny show of their own.

Then it was to the California Science Center next door. Dominoes occupied a good portion of our time here, heh.

We stayed until they closed and waited in the impressive family pavilion with hanging sculptures and thoughtful quotes engraved on the surrounding bench ’til we could hitch a ride back.

Daddy had dinner with co-workers so we explored some more of the area around Beverly Center.

In the AM, grabbed some brekkie and it was off to the Grove. Started raining! We ducked under some outdoor umbrellas and thankfully it cleared out after awhile.

Caught a neat show from the Bob Baker Marionette Theater.

E wanted to go “behind the scenes”, lol. Afterwards, we walked around for a bit and hung out at their triple story B&N for a longer bit.

Took the trolley to the { original } farmer’s market.

Found Singaporean food.

Then to the Beverly Hills Library which was close to our hotel.

Browsed lotsa books and made a mini robot craft.

Headed back, met back up w/ Daddy, chatted a little with his co-workers and then ordered some to-go Chinese food before it was time to leave. THIS dessert was outta this world! Mashed taro on the bottom and white fungus, gingko and jujube topping it all. Hehe, that description does not do it justice.

Back in Culver City to charge up before heading home and ate dindin we had gotten to go while waiting. Back to SD for a few more weeks of summer camps and school-free fun.