Our Saturday: Pumpkins + Fish + Marshallows + Fire

Saturday morning when I returned from my ride, I told Jo Ann I could not bear to be cooped up in the house for another weekend. She agreed. We both wanted to get Pablo out from in front of the TV and DO SOMETHING. She suggested driving out to the coast. It was a quick and easy decision. We stopped for coffee and cocoa, and cruised up the 101 to Topanga Canyon. We cruised that beautiful bastion of hippiedom all the way to Highway 1.

At the corner of Topanga and the 1 sits the Malibu Feed Bin. They have a giant pumpkin patch out front, and fire wood for sale. Pablo wanted to chill with some punkinz, and we also wanted to get fire wood. Our evening project was to start a fire in the living room and roast marshmallows. It was rainy and dreary in LA yesterday (my fave kind of weather)—perfect fire weather. This October was the hottest in LA history. The cloud cover gave us a nice drop in temps, making November 1 the first day that felt like fall in our crazy climate.

After the Feed Bin, we hit Malibu Seafood, where we ate lunch on an outdoor patio overlooking the ocean. On the way home, Pablo and Jo Ann fell asleep. I stopped at Trader Joe's in Toluca Lake (aka Burbank) to pick up our short list of groceries—chief item in Pablo's eyes: marshmallows. When I returned to the car, they were still sleeping. It's a rarity for me to let Jo Ann rest—she is always running around doing stuff to keep our family running. Sleeping in the car isn't exactly a holiday, but it felt good to take care of bidness and let her be. It symbolized our lost Saturday.

As soon as I upload this post, we're going out east to Angeles Crest and the San Gabriel Mountains. First stop is a pumpkin patch (we have to find one on the fly), where P wants to buy a pumpkin today. Then we will ascend the mountain for a while and check out the view of LA, which has been scrubbed clean by showers over the past three days. I usually ride my bike up the mountain, so it's gonna be hard for me to stay in the car.

Here are some pics of our Saturday excursion:

Mommy and Pablo at the Malibu Seafood outdoor dining room.

Above and below: Pablo the politico: a bowtied boy making a big point with his pointers.

Pablo and the pumpkins. He had SO MUCH FUN crawling around in those things (his scrunchy facial expression is due to the sun being in his eyes.)