A new place to visit in L.A.

Not so new to many folks, but it was new to us! Today we went to Griffith Park to ride the trains and ponies.

We met up with some of our MOPS pals like Lucas for the morning!

Lucas introduced Libi to the fine art of collecting leaves and sticks. She wanted to take everything home with us after a few hours with him.

Our first order of business was to ride the train!

It actually was pretty speedy and it went on a long route!

You can see how excited Libi was to experience it all!

We went over a bridge and through a tunnel. The kids were excited to see both things coming...

but Libi was a bit unsure once we were in the tunnel.

They had lots of things to wave to. We passed ponies, Snow White statues, a little ghost town, and several other animal statues.

It was a fun ride on a neat old train.

Next it was off to the pony races (I mean rides!) They actually have two different speeds that you can choose-- medium which is a totally fast trot and slow which is just walking. We picked the slow ride after our friends advised us about the not-so-medium one ;)

All of the kids took turns on the ponies-- Lucas and Libi happened to go one after the other.

Here is my best attempt at a group shot of all the kids. Sadly most of them are playing in the dirt behind these folks or simply refusing to be in any photo at all-- at least I tried!

One of my dear MOPS friends Kasha insisted that her hubby take a photo of Libi and I together-- I'm so glad for friends like that! On trips like this I am so rarely in a shot that I feel like I was invisible.

Michael even caught me getting some of my baby fix with their youngest. Isn't she just the cutest thing?

After a short break for snack (and more stick finding/rock climbing) it was back to the train. Some of our friends got to the park later so they missed the train. Libi, Lucas and I all made the "sacrifice" and rode the train again.

It was such fun to ride again-- Lucas got a seat to himself and Libi was sharing with her sweet friend Zofia!

This time we sat at the back so I was able to get a better shot of the conductor.

At this point Libi was starting to fade so we gracefully bowed out of going to Travel Town and went home.

In the evening I got a much needed fix of my MOPS girlfriends. This is the old regime that meets up every so often to catch up on one anothers lives.

I am so blessed to have these gals in my life-- especially as a sounding board for what is to come next year.