Doowylloh

I've always wanted to hike to the Hollywood sign

 I told the kids we were going on a hike

But I didn't tell them how long it was

 I just promised them slurpees when it was done.

 They were so awesome.

Round trip (with an extra mile tacked on at the end) they went almost 5 miles! 

 Don't get me wrong, it took us a long time.

And let's be honest, I didn't even want to try to make our youngest.

We called her "Giant Baby." (that could have a double meaning in this case-she hates walking very far:)) But we'll cut her slack since she's only three.

 The hike lead us up to the top of the mountain and to the back of the Hollywood Sign, spelling "doowylloh."

 Seeing the view at the top Mackayla kept saying she could see a rainbow which turned out to be the awesome colorful SMOG. bleh.

 Since we were basically there I really wanted to go see the Griffith Observatory too.

It ended up being a half of mile hike to see it...but once again the kids were troopers and giant baby even walked.

The building kind of looks like the great and spacious building to me. There were even people in the balconies looking out and pointing.

 Inside we weighed ourselves to see how much we would weigh on each planet and learned a few facts about each one.

 At night they open the roof to see out in this enormous telescope.

 We didn't stay that long, but just long enough to run into rush hour. yikes.
Ben was missing us!

 I went on a stair run the next morning that made my legs even more sore,

but we had fun running through these arches:

We had a mourning dove nest in our rafters on our balcony

 our diligent doves spent a month gathering supplies and making their nest

and another month sitting on their nest

until a HAWK swooped down and attacked one of the birds.

We heard a crazy scuffle

and then I saw my neighbor sprinting across the lawn trying to save the bird

but it was too late.

I was sad for our birds-the parents and the eggs :(

Their mourning dove cries sound especially sad now (they kind of sound likes owls).

We've loved all our bird friends this year, especially our squeaky flying doves.