day four - first day into the city

We moved to our other hotel today that James Price lined. It's the Sheraton Delfina located in Santa Monica. It was so nice! Great work, James! I was very, very pleasantly surprised. Clean, modern, my kind of hotel! And I think James was happy that I was overly satisfied as he probably got sick of me complaining about the dumpy hotel we were at previously. After doing laundry at Crappy Inn, I mean the Candy Cane Inn, we went straight to Skirball Cultural Centre. It's part of the Jewish Community Centre. Skirball, was a Jewish lady that dedicated her time in creating a place for children. This place was quite impressive. Right as we entered, the lady behind the counter was very helpful and when asked where we are traveling from, she got so excited as she used to travel to Vancouver every other year for a family vacation. She directed us where to go but we decided to grab lunch at the restaurant in the centre before heading to the Noah's Ark area. As we entered Noah's Ark, the lady who greeted us informed us that everything within reach was free to touch. This place was divided into three sections: cause and effect area where the kids can turn things to make them move, the interactive area where the kids can do imaginary play and also climb on the climbing structure (I got stuck at one point!), the third part was for arts and crafts and for story time. Matthew and I made a voodoo doll in the arts and crafts room and then when storytime came, he plopped himself in the front row. It was very cute. We also went upstairs on the rooftop to dig in the archeological area for some fossils. Again, this place was pretty cool. After checking into the Sheraton, we did our 10 minute stroll to the Pier and this was when Matthew got his late afternoon nap. We were thinking he'd fall asleep in the car but didn't and seemed okay without a nap. But since he was getting a wee bit fussy, we put him down and he went down no problem. We walked through Bloomingdales and oh man oh man! It's heaven to me! Right when we entered, I was surrounded by beautiful purses by Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Burberry, Tory Burch, Rachel Zoe...the list goes on and on...But since this trip was all about Matthew, James didn't plan any free time for mommy to shop :( I only got to cruise by as they all whispered my name, taunting me to touch each and one of them... After leaving all those beautiful purses, we walked down the ramp to the Pier but since it was on the dock, the ground was quite bumpy as we strolled Matthew for his nap. We decided to visit the Pier after he woke as we didn't want the bumps to wake him up so back up the hill we went. We stopped off at the first food truck we saw. It sold tacos, Korean style. It was tasty and cheap. I think it was $2.50 for a taco. We tried a chicken and beef one. Matthew woke up by the time we finished walking on Third Street, a Robson type street with shops. James saw Johnny's Burgers as we strolled and said that it was one of the restaurants he wanted to try so again, we had burgers! I finally found a cheap sweater that I would potentially wear again. I've been looking to buy an extra layer since Disneyland. LA wasn't as warm as I thought so I barely packed anything warm. The sweaters in Disneyland were way too

tacky and expensive. And since Scrooge, aka James, came on this trip he discouraged my shopping habit. I merely got away with a matching t-shirt for Matthew and I, and a couple of souvenirs for my teachers and Matthew. My purse strings were tied too tightly... We got back to the hotel to put the little guy down. Afterwards, I attempted to ask for free wifi as this hotel only provided complimentary wifi in the lobby. I got denied...twice...boo!!!