Last night as we were settling down for the evening, Walker was watching one of his favorite YouTube podcasts, CaptainSparklez. Jordan, the Southern California based host, is very popular and has nearly 10 million subscribers. (Jordan is on the right; Kid is on the left.)
When Walker learned that Jordan had gotten permission to graffiti the CaptainSparklez logo in an undisclosed public location, Walker was intrigued. Using Google Street View and his sleuthing skills, he sniffed out what he thought was the exact location. He begged me to take him there to see the graffiti in person especially when he determined it was only about 10 miles from our hotel.
I was proud of him for attempting to determine the location but I was caught in cruise director mode. All I could think of was how tightly scheduled the day was and how I didn’t think we could get there between breakfast and 10:30 AM mass. We were traveling in tandem with Monique and her girls and I wanted to neither leave them behind or nor pressure them to join us. I declined his repeated request to see if we could go see the graffiti in person.
I owe a big thank you to Monique for her enthusiasm for Walker’s sleuthing and her encouragement to try to see if he was right. By Walker’s estimation, the graffiti was really only a few miles out of our way and we wouldn’t really need to do much more than jump out of the car and take a picture to say we had been there. Saying yes really mattered to Walker.
We set off after breakfast with Walker as our navigator. He adeptly led us to the alley in Venice Beach and we found the exact location of the graffiti he wanted to see. However, even though it was just a day after the podcast had aired, the street art had been white washed. We knew we were in the right location because we could see slight borders of spray paint on the left side of the white wall and we were right around the corner from the artist’s other panels.
Mason was only interested in photo bombing at this venue.
Tada! He was right. We snapped our photos and raced back for 10:30 am Mass.
After Mass we went to lunch at Pann’s Restaurant. Pann’s is an iconic institution in the Los Angeles area. It’s been open for longer than I’ve been alive and as many times as we have passed by it on our way to my grandparents’ house, I had never been there before today.
Sunday brunch is a busy time there under normal conditions but our wait was slightly longer since we were a large party of nine. We stood outside to pass the time, caught up with our cousin Deana and enjoyed the brisk sunshine.
Papa was surrounded with love!
The food was plentiful at least until it was devoured.
We parted ways with Deana and drove in two cars down to Irvine to spend the afternoon with Laynie and Sophia. On our way, however, we stopped at another institution—Randy’s Donuts. Again, I had passed this place a million times growing up but never to my knowledge had we stopped. Monique promised her girls a donut specifically from there and my boys offered no resistance.
The line was long! We took the donuts to go (since clearly we had had a big meal) and headed to Laynie’s house.
My dad treated the boys to Los Angeles Dodgers hats which was really a fun souvenir since the LA Dodgers were in the playoffs against the Chicago Cubs.
Before the sun disappeared and it got too close to Sophia’s bedtime and evening routine, we set out to find a pretty spot to take some family pictures. Our gathering was momentous. This was the first time my parents were with all three of their daughters and all of their grandchildren. Photo documentation was required and granted.
A very kind soul patiently took this (and several other photos) for us.
(I love the peek a boo face in this one.)
We dined at a Mexican restaurant at my dad’s behest and then made our way back to Mom and Dad’s before retiring for the night. I am grateful to Mom and Dad for chauffeuring our families down. Mom had the three youngest grandchildren and Dad drove Monique, Walker and me. The drives were filled with stories and interesting conversation in both cars, reminding me once again of the delight of being captive audiences.
It was really a great day