Lemons, Flowers, Trains and Hollywood

We discovered a lemon tree growing in our backyard yesterday. There was some initial confusion over whether they were lemons or oranges, but they're definitely lemons. They smell wonderful. I'm looking forward to trying them out in some recipes.




Other blooms in the backyard... This just bloomed over the past couple of days. J was excitedly pointing it out to us.



We had an excursion today. Just a couple of minutes walk from our house are a couple of train tracks that J's been really excited about. Everytime he hears the train go by, he makes sure everyone knows it! So we decided to surprise him today - we took the train to the heart of Los Angeles.

The Claremont train station

He was so excited - completely enthralled by the whole experience. I had a great time watching him get a thrill out of something so mundane to the rest of us. It was nice to be able to enjoy something so simple. We sat on the upper level so that he could get a good view and he pointed out everything he saw, so it was pretty much non-stop chatter all the way.

Our destination was downtown LA, so we did the tourist sightseeing thing for the first time today. We saw Kodak Theatre where the Academy Awards are held and Manns Chinese Theatre where you'll see handprints, footprints, and other assorted prints of famous people. It was a lovely day, with nice, cool (but not too cold!) weather, so we had a good time. Although I have to say it was a little unreal too. This move has been so much about setting up a home in a new place, I'd not thought about the touristy part of being in LA at all. But it's nice, realising that we can explore all these new places easily.