The Huntington - finally!

For years, I have wanted to go to the Huntington Library. We used to have friends who lived here who actually used it for research... and they said they'd take us but we never managed to make it happen. Of course I want to go and see one of the world's best book collections, it's been on my list for years!

A couple of weeks ago Jeff had a Friday off work. Nicholas had an ear infection and was on antibiotics, Kate was claiming her ears were 'pounding' but I diagnosed that as blocked ears instead of hurting ears because I didn't want to go back to the doctor's office, I had a sore throat, and Adam was running a temperature. But Jeff had the day off and he was determined to do something! So we decided on the Huntington. And even though we were not quite fit for the purpose we mostly had a great day and I don't regret it for a second!

We dosed everyone up before we left and headed out. When we got there the first thing we did was the European art gallery, which was in the old main house. It was a great art gallery - not too big or overcrowded, well organised, with some great paintings. There were audio guides, which is all we need for a good time! The kids love a good audio guide tour!

My little culture vultures in training

After the gallery we ventured out into the gardens. There are acres and acres of gardens. I think we only made it into about a third of them!

This is the Japanese garden. Nicholas fell down these steps just after this picture was taken and the peace was rudely shattered for quite a while!

The Chinese garden was just incredible, I've never seen anything like it. One of the kids had the camera at this point so I have a lot of pictures of koi carp and lily pads and not much else!

I think my favourite was the desert garden. It had all kinds of crazy succulents and cactii, and looked absolutely incredible. This is the only picture I have of the desert garden, because at this point Nicholas' medications had worn off. He was tired, hot, miserable, overdue for a nap, and DONE.

He cried and whined and cried and whined his way back to the car. So while I would have liked to have spent more time in the desert garden enjoying it, instead it was a frustrating trudge back through while persuading Nicholas that yes he could still walk and no the car was not too far away. He was beastly until we got back to the car, where he grabbed tickle baby and fell asleep before we were even out of the car park.

We skipped the American art gallery, the botany building, several gardens, and the library!! Which was why we came in the first place! This was on a par with anywhere that we took the kids last summer; so we will definitely be back, and soon!