Dinner dates and dinosaurs

Hello! 

I'll explain the dinosaur in a second

We've had some small but exciting trips this week. On Sunday I wasn't feeling too well after our walk the day before (I'd had a nap right after coming home) so Mitchell was in charge of driving for the day (eek!).

The face of fear

First stop was the botanic gardens. Even though I've spent most weekdays there, Mitchell still hadn't visited as they're not often open on weekends. So we drove up to the visitors car park and I showed him all the best bits.

Apparently I am the best bit

We came home for some lunch and then Mitchell drove us out to Riverside Plaza to the cinema. It was just a regular cinema, but the chairs were recliners! I very much enjoyed lying down to watch the movie with my buttered popcorn (apparently the two default flavours here are buttered or not buttered). Oh and it was 'The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard' very funny, would recommend as long as you don't mind swearing. 

The movies!

We then went to a build your own pizza place and had a little alfresco date in the golden evening light. And then back to Trader Joes again for some more interesting treats. This time I got the almond matcha drink and some thai tea mochi balls. 

Pizza!

During the week we didn't do much except laugh at the UK beacuse although it was still hotter here, we have air conditioning mwhahaha. I did some more volunteering, labelling the succulents in the lathhouse, which some are very pretty, weeding and identifying cycads in the greenhouse and doing some weeding in the wild areas where I accidently kicked a cactus and came away with giant spines in my shoe (and me), just like a cartoon. 

Lathhouse filled with succulents

Friday I took myself to the mall and bought a lovely hat and all the equipment needed to bake scones. We're planning to have Mitchell's work mates over for tea at some point, but we're still waiting on the dining table :(

And today we went out to Jurupa Mountains Discovery Centre. We weren't sure what to expect, and I'm still not sure how to describe it. It was part gardens, part garden centre, part museum and part zoo. Each section was pretty small, but we spent about 1-2 hours there walking round the gardens to spot all the dinosaur statues and giant cacti. 

Cacti can grow huge!

Me ft. the aforementioned lovely hat and a dinosaur

The museums looked closed and we think they may only open for school groups and outreach sessions which is what it seemed more geared towards. They had a 'critter corner' in the gift shop with a lot of snakes and some other lizards including some quite big iguanas.  

This giant guarded the plant nursery

That evening we went for a short hike up to the top of mount rubidoux again, but this time we brought a picnic and watched the sunset. It was very pretty as it had been a bit cloudy during the day so we got some excellent colours in the sky. On the way down we also got to see the city of Riverside lit up and we could see the line of the roads going to Moreno Valley flanked either side by two dark sets of mountains.

Sunset from the peak

Well, that's it for now. We're going to San Diego tomorrow so we'll have lots to tell you about next week!

Love

Emily and Mitchell

xxxxxxxxxxx



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