Haunted Mansion

Nope, no trips to Disneyland this time around; just a friendly little ghost we know who isn't named Casper...

Zachary "the Jetsetter" began his fourth trip (flight #9) yesterday as we flew down the coast to the City of Angels (which in my experience is more and more frequently also the city of permanent gridlock and outrageously bad driving) to visit our many Los Angeles friends, most of whom had not yet met him. Surprise, surprise, the flight was late to our gate and thus late departing, with no reason given. Ah, the glamour of travel! Zachary was again great on the plane, despite it being a rather cozy 2+2 seats across little commuter jet. In between snacking and occasionally napping, he kept flirting with the flight attendants, the woman sitting across from us, another woman sitting behind us, etc. Oh, and towards the end of the flight, he made a really poopy diaper with a strong bouquet, when it was too late to change him before landing.

Once we disembarked, got everything in order, and got Zachary aired out, we headed to our cozy hotel to check in. Zachary had some lovely playtime before we headed back into the city to attend a yummy take-out kosher deli dinner at the home of friends T and S and their daughters M and R. Several other friends joined us and we had a lovely time catching up and introducing Zachary, though he refused to go to sleep at his appointed bedtime in their darkened guest room. We eventually said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel, where he was grunty most of the night despite the portable noise generator (aka my laptop), and eventually ended up in bed with us.

Today we were pretty much 'free' during the day, so I was determined to find something cozy for us to pass the time doing. On our last trip (when we were about 2 1/2 people), I'd attempted to find a nice park or estate with gardens, and we ended up at a somewhat smallish and sad one in Hollywood, with an impressive but totally fenced off and closed-to-the-public estate. This time I'd remembered the lovely Graystone Mansion I'd visited back in college (friend J reminded me what it was called), so we set off for the Hills of Beverlee to find it. After passing increasingly impressive private homes, then mansions, then estates, then principalities, and finally a few small self-contained countries, we arrived at the park entrance. It certainly didn't disappoint, with amazing manicured lawns, pools, and a beautiful mansion (unfortunately the interior was closed due to filming), and we had a really nice visit.

There were only two challenges: First, some misinforming park rangers -- yes indeed, Graystone Park has rangers, which is a little weird to see in a pretty urban park, but why not in Beverly Hills? Anyway, Zachary was asleep in his car seat, and I immediately remembered that there were quite a few stairs to deal with. The ranger insisted there was a paved sloping road we could use. He didn't mention that road was still scattered with varied sets of stairs, so after lugging the stroller containing Zachary (no longer asleep of course) down a few sets of stairs, we gave up and pitched the stroller back into the car. Which brings us to challenge number two -- somehow we'd forgotten about this bright glowing thing up in the sky that was the likely cause of the splendidly warm weather. This thing (let's call it "the sun") doesn't really have much impact this time of year in Seattle, so we'd naturally forgotten to bring a hat for Zachary. Our strategy to keep him from getting too much exposure? Draping the bebe-au-lait over him whenever it got too sunny. My attempts to do this made him look like a very stylishly patterned ghost, and I joked that he was haunting the mansion. Meh had better success draping it over him as more of a sun shade, and we completed our tour with Zachary's most lavishly served snack (and diaper change) yet, right next to some pretty fountains with butterflies fluttering about. On the way out, we stopped by a few artistic designed gardens, one of which had a pond with an enormous number of turtles sunning themselves while fish swam around; Zachary was fascinated by both.

Had lunch at an excellent new-ish kosher steakhouse (gotta take advantage of these dining options while I can!) before heading to a mall for some good pseudo-indoor time and casual shopping. We then met up with friends C and R for a lovely dinner in the always baby-friendly Cheesecake Factory before heading back to the hotel for an 'early' evening (~7:30 pm), including the return of hotel naked baffy time!