Weekend Recap: Ezzy Tours Pepperdine & UCI

Maybe weekend recap isn't entirely accurate for this post, since some of these pictures go back to Thursday night - so you can call it an "end of the week recap" if you will. For our Thursday family night we ate some delicious pizza and pizzookie over at BJ's before hitting up Ikea. I've been wanting a coat stand to collect all the clutter that I throw over chairs as soon as I walk through the front door, and they're surprisingly hard to find and not cheap either, so after some online research I found the cheapest, best-looking one at Ikea. We also got a $13 lamp and some cute lanterns while we were there, so all in all it was a good night by my standards. I know, I know - we lead a life of excitement over here.

On Friday Ezzy and I made a lunchtime visit to the Rainforest Cafe at downtown Disney to meet up with my cousin and some friends who were in town for the weekend. It was so much fun to spend some time with family and to meet Christina's newborn son. He's a little over one month old and he's so tiny compared to Ezzy! I can't believe how much Ezzy has grown in such a short amount of time.

Christina, Me, Ezzy, and my cousin Vanessa

Saturday morning we headed over to Malibu to visit Pepperdine (Joe's school). I love that campus, the ocean views are gorgeous, and the weather was sunny and perfect. Ezzy got some Pepperdine gear, so now he and Daddy can match (actually all three of us can match, I think I officially have more Pepperdine gear that UCI, for some reason...). We also visited the campus art gallery and apparently Ezzy has quite the eye for abstract art. He was completely absorbed in a trippy colorful painting (in the pic below). I guess we know how to decorate his room for future reference. We capped off our trip with some yummy lunch at our favorite pizza spot. The same place we went to with Daniela on Labor Day. They have the BEST beet salad. 

Gorgeous views at Pepperdine.

That boy loves watching fountains. And we clearly love to watch him.

"Which bear do you want? The cheaper one? Good choice."

The view from the top (after we hiked back up to the car).

"Look into my eye...."

On Sunday Ezzy decided to wake up at the crack of dawn, after waking up twice through the night and wanting to eat for an hour straight each time. Joe, being the best dad in the world, took Ezzy for a walk so I could get some rest. I hear they had a great time watching a soccer practice at the school near our house. Ezzy was laughing and giddy watching them run around the field. It's funny how much that kid loves watching sports. He's mesmerized whenever football is on TV. Like father, like son. 

After I got my beauty rest, I had my mind set on doing some Halloween family stuff, so when I found this list of the best pumpkin patches in Southern California, we decided to head down to Irvine to visit Tanaka Farms and UCI. I think Ezzy's favorite thing by far at both Pepperdine and UCI was the fountains. He's absolutely mesmerized by them. As a reward for being a good sport while we dressed him up and made him pose for hundreds of pictures, we let him dip his feet in the fountain at UCI. We got so many great pictures that day, that I'm going to save most of them for another post, but you can get a little preview in the collages at the very bottom. 

Ezzy all bundled up for his early morning walk.

There's no better place to sleep than in Daddy's arms.

Rose garden at UCI.