Hot fun in the summertime

This weekend was the L.A. Times Festival of Books. I look forward to this event every year because I feel like the city loves this fest and people always show up in droves to support reading and the community.

This year it was moved from the UCLA campus to USC, and I was extremely thankful. Not because I'm a die hard Trojan (which I am) but I am a die hard hater of hills, and at UCLA it seemed more spread out and awkard to navigate. This year there was a clear grid with side pockets of whatever you were interested in. For me - it's always children's books.

We arrived Sunday just in time because the Kid was thrilled to see Mo Willems. He wrote the Pigeon books, Knuffle Bunny and is one of our favorite authors. He read from a few of his books and is always entertaining. Such a talented guy! We have all of his books, some original Pigeon sketches, yet we have never met the man. The line up to talk to him is always long and so we never get the chance.

I bought the Baby "Can I Play Too?" a Mo Willems book and the Kid lamented there being no 'Magic Treehouse' booth. I heard that from a lot of kids that day. We stopped and visited First 5 L.A., Boom! Studios comics and our friends at Steam Crow. I was sad to miss out on all the cooking events, but again - no time, gotta keep on movin'.

Per the usual, it was HOT. Every year the book fest lands on the hottest weekend and this year was no exception, it felt like the surface of the sun. The heat quickly got to the kids so our stay was short, but we had to go to the most important booth before we left...free ice cream from Ben & Jerry's! Everyone else at the fest had the same idea.

I wish we could have stayed longer but the heat was overwhelming and our weekend was packed with so many more fun things to do. You know it's time to go when the Baby just drops dead in the grass. When Batman's down- the fun is over.