Did everyone have a good memorial day weekend?

Sometimes when you get long weekends it’s nice to get away, but more often than not when you have small kids, it’s nice to stay at home and use the extra day to just slow things down and relax.

This is not to say we were not busy this past weekend.

We took some of Adam’s clients to Topolobampo, Rick Bayless’ award winning restaurant. They changed the menu from the last time we were there. From a la carte to pre-fix. You can now order 3, 5 or 7 courses. It was an amazing dinner. Sometimes when a restaurant is so hyped up you can be disappointed but I wasn’t in the least. It just made me even more of a fan of his. In fact, we recently started to frequent his casual restaurant next door, Xoco when we need a quick, inexpensive Bayless fix.

Speaking of eating out, we spent a lot of time eating out this weekend. We hit the The Burger Bar after Jack’s soccer game Saturday. We also went to The Original Pancake House after trying unsuccessfully for a table at Summer House Santa Monica. We love the food at Summer House but in the end we realized it probably worked out for the best as the pancake house is much better for kids.

After breakfast we were right next to the zoo so we headed over there for a while.

The zoo always makes me feel weird. On the one hand I’m happy people from all walks of life can see these exotic animals up close but I often feel bad for the animals. Especially ones that you know would be running wild in their natural habitat.

Still, the kids really enjoyed it. 

Above they make a short stop to see the lion between riding the carousel and train…

Another family photo this year!

We also had a couple of play dates. One was with the Gahans at Oz Park.

Lots of boys running around with balls.

Vivian, the only girl at the testosterone laden play date, is about the same age as Ben. They have a love/hate thing going on. It’s about 90% hate and 10% love.

More eating out. This time we had the pizza delivered to the park.

And even more eating out. Embarrassingly this is our third ice cream store this weekend!

Memorial Day we met our friends the Smith’s for a pool and dinner (yes, I don’t think I washed a single dish this weekend) date at the East Bank Club. They have a daughter who is Jack’s age and they did their normal play date dance, where they ignore each other until the play date is about to be over and they suddenly discover just how fun the other one is. I didn’t get any pictures because I didn’t want any of my kids to drown and it’s hard to sneak them in with the no picture policy there.

We woke up this morning very rested. And sad it was all over.

Hope all my readers enjoyed their weekend as much as we did!