My Dad’s Garden

On Saturday we drove up to LA to visit my dad and Shelly.  We hadn’t seen them since mid-February, so it was time for a visit.  The drive up was uneventful, which is always a good thing.  Getting stuck in LA traffic is not my favorite!

We arrived just in time for lunch.  We went to a Korean BBQ place near their house that they had never been to. I guess when you go to a Korean BBQ place, you get meat!  The meat was sweet and salty.  It came with spinach, onion, and mushrooms. You put this ring of broth onto the stove at the table. The broth heats up and you put the veggies in there to cook. There's a dome in the middle and that's where you put the meat to cook.


One of my favorite things about Korean food is the all-you-can-eat side dishes that they bring to the table. I always enjoy those.


We chatted about Todd’s Ironman race, and also what Todd’s been up to with his Toastmasters speeches.  We caught up with the family and friend happenings.




After lunch, we drove back to the house and Shelly showed us their Cancun vacation photos on her computer.  Looked like a fun time.  She also showed a few photos of when they went to the San Diego Safari Park in December.  My favorite photo is the one of my dad with a bird on his head and a bird in hand, eating out of a cup.  There were also photos of their trip to NorCal, where uncle Chuck drove a big van and took them touring to Sacramento, Napa, and Monterrey Bay for three days.  Looked like fun too!

There was snow on the mountains that we could see from my dad’s street.
 
Then we looked at dad's garden.  He has put months of work into new plants and flowers, and built up the garden with different levels of dirt.  It really looked fantastic and colorful.  This is definitely his favorite hobby for sure!  Todd and I joked to him that he has become a “plant hoarder”! 




This is called a “Bleeding Heart”.  I had never seen this plant before! 






Dad and Shelly even drove up to Calabasas recently to pick up these very rare persimmon and mandarinquat trees to plant in their yard.  I can’t wait to eat the fruit!




We had a good visit.  On the way home we listened to this episode of Radiolab, which was a bit freaky.  Todd said if he ever meets a person and they said they like Radiolab, then he’d know they could be friends.  That’s how much he loves Radiolab.