Farewell Mum and Dad

Mum and Dad have been visiting for the past six weeks, arriving first in Santa Barbara, then holding down the fort in Seattle while I was in California. They left this weekend from San Diego.
We had a lovely three days wandering the beaches, visiting the Zoo-- deservedly famous even in Australia--and watching the sunsets from our huge windows and the beautiful sandstone cliffs of La Jolla.
Anselm is cheek to cheek with a hippo. Watching these enormous animals spring lightly underwater was the highlight of the zoo trip for me: I finally understood the hippo ballerinas in Fantasia.

On our last day, we stopped for an excellent lunch at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, right by our apartment. (This museum has the baby brother of SAM's Hammering Man.) This was a great treat as the museum had an interesting quite large retrospective of a local artist, Kim MacConnel, who works in a variety of media but notably junk and fabric. It was Members' Appreciation day and the museum was full of fun-- a chocolate tasting and a craft activity making artworks from huge piles of fabric scraps. The kids cut and pasted while we sat outside under the vines with our prosecco and coffee.
And here we are by the Goldsworthy egg before the kids depart for Seattle and Mum and Dad for LAX. (It is evidence of my love for my parents that I chose a photo in which they look good while I have my eyes shut.)