Thirteen-year-old tomboy Vada visits her uncle in Los Angeles to write a school project about her mother, who died during childbirth. Meanwhile, she meets Nick, the son of her uncle's girlfriend, who has to reluctantly chaperone Vada round her mother's old haunts - but before long romance blossoms for the pair. Comedy drama sequel, with Anna Chlumsky, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis and Austin O'Brien.

Vada Sultenfuss has a holiday coming up, and an assignment: to do and essay on someone she admires and has never met. She decides she wants to do an assignment on her mother, but quickly realises she knows very little about her. She manages to get her father to agree to let her go to LA to stay with her Uncle Phil and do some research on her mother.