LA: The Getty, Temple and Diddy Riese

Before school started, we took a day trip to LA:

The Getty Museum

The LA Temple

Diddy Riese.

They are all really close by each other, and for that amount of driving in that amount of traffic, it was perfect to hit all three in one day!

The Getty is one of the most visited museums in the US.

It's free...so that is a bonus. It has quite an impressive collection!

I'm not an art history major, so I felt like a lot of the importance was lost on me. Still, I was impressed.

Loved the outdoor gardens.

Kids are very welcome there. They even have a kids section with a bunch of cute activities.

They created a still life

Created a sculpture

Slept on a royal french bed

and jumped on it

Here's the real one, they didn't actually touch-

Speaking of touching things. When we first got there Macey touched one of the paintings. I didn't even realize it and she had no idea how serious it was. One of the security guards saw her and ran over, calling in a code red on his walkie talkie. He very seriously inspected the painting and then gave me the lecture of a lifetime. I was sure he was going to make me pay $10,000 for microscopic fingerprint repairs.

Anyway, after that the kids were so well behaved, whispered, walked, never touched anything. It made my job easy. In one of the other rooms we saw a kid hanging from a sculpture and you could hear audible gasps from all three of the kids.

I get it though. This painting, Van Gogh's Irises, was last sold for $53 million (it is unknown how much The Getty paid for it).

I let the kids just stand by random favorite things they chose in a room and get their picture taken:)

(Someone was unhappy about someone touching them-)

 A famous still life. I should know who/what. and I forgot.  

Was this the kids favorite thing we did this summer?

No.

(We did this on a weekday so Ben wouldn't have to come, he would never want to go!)

But they got a little culture all the same.

They liked it a little, and got to ride a tram to get here, and no one complained! Win!

 Diddy Riese on UCLA campus is well known for having delicious homemade ice cream sandwiches for really cheap so we stopped to check out all the hype.

 After all the chaos of those it was so great to come here:

 I told the kids to go touch the temple. 

 Our prophet said "Touch the temple and the temple will touch you."

So we took it literally.

 The temple was closed so we were the only ones there.

It was so peaceful and quiet compared to the rest of the chaos we had been to before.
The kids could feel the difference, too.

The temple really is a peaceful place.

Not sure what the theme is in the next pictures, but the kids were into it 

 We made it over to the visitors center for just a few minutes before it was time to go to beat rush hour. 

A perfect day trip before school started!