During this President’s Day weekend, my family and I drove down to Long Beach to celebrate my mom’s birthday.

Long Beach is a coastal harbor city in Los Angeles County. It is a 2 hour drive from Santa Barbara (with little traffic). It has a beautiful harbor with historical landmarks like The Queen Mary ship with views of Catalina Island. I liked that it is similar to Los Angeles but smaller and a little less chaotic. You can tour around the harbor, go whale watching, visit the aquarium, see a concert at the Long Beach Convention Center in the Terrace Theater, or simply go shopping at an outdoor outlet mall.  

Also last weekend was a four day weekend, I hung out with friends on Friday and left late afternoon on Saturday for Long Beach. My mom’s birthday is the 22nd of February but we will be at a dance competition in Los Angeles and won’t be able to celebrate. So this weekend we celebrated her with my immediate family.

 On the way down, we took the Pacific Coast Highway 1 and stopped and had dinner with my parent’s friends in Malibu.  That evening we went on a walk in their neighborhood and could see all of the Santa Monica coast.

We arrived in downtown Long Beach later that night and stayed in a VRBO. It was right across the street from a huge outlet mall and the harbor. The next day we had Starbucks then went shopping. I got some new swimsuits for spring and a cute pair of pants. For lunch, we ate at an Islands Burger. I finally got to try the “Impossible” burger and I was not impressed. We then went back to the apartment to change for the Sarah McLachlan concert, my mom’s favorite artist. It was at the Long Beach Terrace Theater, just a block away from where we stayed. I have never really listened to any of her songs but I still recognized some she played. On Monday, we got Starbucks again and left Long Beach before noon and set out on our way home. We stopped by some Tesla dealerships, had Indian food, and I got pointe shoes before we finally made it home around 8pm.