Back in the Pool

On September 1, we had a special day at swim class, because both Debbie and I were able to go. Which means I was able to stay on the sidelines and take some pictures.

We’ve been going to swim class for about a year now, and Sophie still really loves it. Now that she’s a little bigger she can do a lot more, like jumping off the edge or being thrown into the air (and of course being dunked!).

Of course half the fun of swim class is hanging out with our friends. Here is Julia with her mom Shannon.

And Matthew with his mom Joan Marie.

And this is Andrew and his mom Kristen.

And this is the alligator who lives at the bottom of the pool and eats the children who don’t learn to swim fast enough.

Our friend Nicholas and his dad Joe used to come to class with us, but they’ve moved on to a bigger pond.  (We miss you guys!)

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of Sophie having fun. Be sure to click through to the album for a bunch more.

2009-09-01 Swim Class

Summer in the Midwest

On August 20th we packed up the family and headed off for our annual Thanksgiving trip to the Midwest. Yes, I know we’re about three months ahead of schedule, but every year we miss out on seeing Debbie’s father, since he leaves right before Thanksgiving to go play Santa at some mall in another state. (For those of you who don’t know Ray, he’s the right jolly old elf with the beard in the photo above.)

So we decided to make our trip before Debbie had to go back to work. We made our usual stop in Minneapolis to visit our friends Dale and Jess. Here Sophie helps Smithers and Quimby keep a lookout for dangerous woodchucks.

We did have some fun taking Sophie out to watch the dogs run around at the dog park.

Dale and I did take the opportunity to get in some target practice. (The girls, surprise, surprise, headed to the mall.)

On Sunday we headed off to Wisconsin to meet up with Debbie’s father. He was participating in the Chippewa River Rendezvous in Cornell, Wisconsin. Here is a picture of Ray, Debbie and Sophie in front of Ray’s tent at the Rendezvous. (No. he’s not a Pirate, he’s a gentleman merchant.)

Debbie and Sophie check out some of the other campsites and displays.

Sophie tests out her fencing skills against her dad.

This giant crane-type-thing in the middle of the campground is apparently the only known pulpwood stacker in the world. Who knew?

After spending the afternoon at the rendezvous, we drove the rest of the way to Debbie’s parents house. Fortunately there was plenty of room for Sophie in our big bag.

The next day we headed down to the park near their house. There was a small  water park there, as well as a miniature train. (They also had a curling rink, but unfortunately it isn’t open in the summer!) Here we are on the train.

And here are some shots of Sophie playing in the fountains.

We also paid a visit to our favorite museum, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson art museum.

Here Debbie teaches Sophie how to run like an ostrich.

Sophie practices her drawing skills.

And of course we stopped for a group photo in front of our favorite sculpture.

We spent some time in downtown Wausau at the farmer’s market.

We also stopped by the local cheese factory (it is Wisconsin after all!)

It was our lucky day. We got to watch them erecting a new whey distilling tower. (Ok, I made that up. I have no idea what it was, but it was pretty big.)

Here is a picture of Sophie with the Woodchuck that lives in Debbie’s parents basement. (Wisconsin Woodchuck, that is.  He’s the head coach, Guido.  Really.  To call Guido a character doesn’t even begin to describe him.  Guido, if you’re reading this, thanks for the ice cream.  We’re still eating it;)

On our last day we headed up to Rib Mountain to explore nature a little bit. There are some nice views from the top of the mountain, and there is a tower at the top you can climb to get a view above the trees.

Finally we headed back to Minneapolis to spend a couple of more days with Dale and Jess before flying home. Here’s Sophie hanging out with her new best friends Smithers and Quimby.

And here are the girls waiting patiently for a treat.

Finally it was time to head back to San Diego. Fortunately Sophie’s a great traveler. She remembered to bring her stickers and her iPod (with Wall-E loaded up).

And when all else failed, just looking out the window with Mama was entertaining enough.

Below is a link to the full album.

2009-08-31 Wisconsin

Mission San Juan Capistrano

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, they had just finished up a day of hiking and exploring the beach at Crystal Cove State Park. For most ordinary mortals that would be plenty of action for one day. But not for us! So we packed everyone up and headed over to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano.

We did have a good reason for this. In California they spend part of the fourth grade studying the Missions as part of history class, and since Garrett will be in fourth grade this year Shay and Eric thought it would be good for him to see an actual Mission.

Here are Debbie and Sophie in front of the old bell tower and remains of the old church on the right.

And here we are hanging out on one of the benches in the garden.

Parts of the mission have been restored, but all that remains of the old church is the back wall.

Here is the interior courtyard behind the bell tower.

Sophie and Debbie explore on of the fountains on the Mission grounds.

After exploring the Mission we wandered in to downtown San Juan Capistrano for dinner. We found a nice Mexican restaurant a couple of blocks away. The best part was it was right beside the train tracks, and since we were sitting outside we could see and here the trains roar by every five minutes! (Ok, the kids liked it, and whatever keeps the kids happy keeps the grown ups happy!)

Our final stop on the way back to the car was in front of the elementary school beside the Mission. They, of course, had a bell out in front, and the kids had a great time trying to make it ring.

There are many more pictures in the album, just click on the link below:

2009-08-15 Mission San Juan Capistrano

Crystal Cove State Park

On August 15 we to go for a drive up the coast to visit Crystal Cove State Part to meet up with our friends Shay and Eric and their kids. We decided on Crystal Cove because it is about halfway between our house in San Diego and theirs in Simi Valley, and it has several hiking trails and some nice beaches.

We started the day with a hike up into the canyon that is adjacent to the beach. It was a little hazy out but otherwise we had a great view of the ocean.

The first part of the trail was a fairly steep climb uphill, followed by an equally steep climb down another trail called “powerline” (see if you can figure out why), then at the bottom of the hill the trail headed back to the beach where we started.

We did run into a few examples of the local wildlife (no bears, but what can you do?)

All of the exercise and fresh air lead to some quality family bonding moments.

After working up a big appetite, we set up a little picnic at one of the tables on the bluff overlooking the ocean.

When lunch was over, we headed down the boardwalk and stairs to the beach below. There were some rocky tide pools on the beach that the kids had fun poking around in.

The fun at the tide pools pretty much came to an end when Brynn accidentally walked backwards into one and got soaked from head to toe. She didn’t seem to find it as amusing as the rest of us did.

After a few hugs and some time to dry off, she was back to having a good time.

Finally, it was time to leave the beach, grab a quick nap in the car, and head to our second destination of the day. (More on that in the next post…)

Here is a link to the full album:

2008-08-15 Crystal Cove

Sophie in Balboa Park

On August 13th we headed down to the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park to see the exhibition “Ansel Adams: A Life’s Work.” It was a great show, and Sophie showed a remarkable amount of patience while her parents walked around and looked at old black and white photos stuck up on the walls.

To let her burn off some energy, we took a walk around Balboa Park. Below are some pictures of Sophie posing in front of the koi pond and some of the many fountains in the park.

Here is a link to the full album:

2009-08-13 Balboa Park

Sequoia and Kings Canyon

On August 6th we decided to head out on a little vacation and drove up to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Sequoia is about 350 miles north of San Diego, so Thursday was basically just a travel day.

(For those of you who are paying attention, this means we just skipped from April to August on the blog. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back and post some stuff from those four months someday, but I figured posting some current stuff might be more useful than remaining four months behind real time forever.)

On Friday we headed into Sequoia. Our plan was to see all of the most popular attractions on Friday before the big crowds showed up on the weekend. Here we are at the front entrance. (We also went back to Sequoia on Sunday, and I have included some of those pictures here.)

Our first stop was the General Sherman tree. It is believed to be the largest living thing on the face of the earth, by weight/volume.

It is also the most popular attraction at the park, so much so that they have paved a nice path through the woods to get to it. Here we are posing in front of it.

They have a cross section of a Giant Sequoia so you can get a better sense of how big around they truly are.

After seeing the General, we hiked around Big Trees Trail, where we saw a black bear walking through the meadow. He was probably only about 100 feet away so we were able to get a good view. (Although we kept looking over our shoulders in case there was an angry mama bear sneaking up on us!)

After our hike we drove around the park a little. We saw the Auto Log, which is a fallen Giant Sequoia that you used to be able to drive your car onto (now you can just walk on it.) We also saw the Tunnel Log, which is a fallen Sequoia that you can drive through (which you can still do.)

Our next stop was Moro Rock, a giant granite dome that overlooks the valley. There are stairs carved into the rock that you can climb to the top. Unfortunately, it was very overcast that day, so our view wasn’t quite as good as we hoped, but it was still quite impressive.

We also saw Tunnel Rock. The park road used to go under here, but has since been move to the side. (you can see the marks on the underside of the rock where people underestimated the height of either the rock or their cars.)

On Saturday, we headed up to Kings Canyon National Park. The two parks are adjacent, but a different road leads to the Kings Canyon entrance.

Our first stop was the General Grant tree. While not quite as big as the General Sherman, it is almost as big. It has been declared “America’s Christmas Tree” and is also the only living National Shrine.

After the General Grant Grove, we drove out to to Panoramic Point, where you can get a great view into the canyon.

The next thing we did was to drive down into Kings Canyon. The drive takes a couple of hours along some winding, steep roads, but the views were amazing.

Down at the bottom of the canyon, there were some short hikes to some interesting attractions. One was this old cabin, which was built back in the 20’s to store gear used for expeditions into the canyon.

There were also two different waterfalls at the bottom of the canyon. The first was Roaring River falls, which was an amazing waterfall that flowed into a large bowl area.

The other was Grizzly falls, which didn’t have nearly the same volume as Roaring River, but was much taller and cascaded down multiple levels.

Finally, after a long weekend of adventure, we stopped in at the Kings Canyon Inn for an ice cream cone!

Be sure to check out the full album for lots more pictures.

2009-08-07 Sequoia – Kings Canyon

Happy Birthday to Me!

Here we are, finally, at the one blog post all year that gets to be all about me.  (Oh, who are we kidding they are all about me!)

This year’s celebration took place over the weekend prior to the actual day.  We started out by doing the MS Walk on Saturday morning (see this post for details).

After the walk, I dropped Debbie and Sophie at home for their afternoon nap and headed up to the Wild Animal Park.  I met my friends Teri and Tom there so we could go on the Segway tour.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Segway, it is basically a two wheel scooter you stand up and drive around on. Tom demonstrates one in the photo below.

So, even though the Segway is ridiculously easy to use, they make you spend the first hour of the tour in a “training” session, which pretty much consists of doing figure-eights around little orange cones to prove you’re not a complete moron.

After we were fully trained, and had signed our 12 page waivers, we headed out on the tour. Our main route followed the old monorail path. When they took out the monorail, they removed the actual rail, but left the concrete pad. We followed this path around the perimeter of the park, stopping every once and a while to look at the animals.

On of the first animals we encountered was the Cheetah. There were three of them, and they were just lounging around in the shade having their afternoon nap.

We then circled around and followed the perimeter of the park, where we saw Rhinos, Giraffes and all the other assorted critters.

Finally it was time to pack it in and point our Segways home.

On our way out of the park, we went past the nursery, where they were feeding a baby cheetah. Very cool.

After our tour, we reconnected with Debbie, Sophie and a bunch of our friends at the On The Border in Escondido for a little birthday dinner.

Sophie was very cute in her party dress.

We wound up sitting out on the back patio, which was great because we had it all to ourselves, but it was a little sunny.

On Sunday, we went up to the Carlsbad 5000.  Check out this post for more details on that.

Finally, on the day of my actual birthday, we took our bikes and went down to Harbor Island and rode around.

We stopped at one of the restaurants at a marina for a little lunch overlooking the boats.

There are some great views of the downtown skyline from the shore of the island.

Well, that’s about it for this year’s birthday. Thanks everyone for making it a great one!

Click below for a link to the full album.

2009-04-06 Kevin Birthday

I Like Oatmeal!

2009-04-05 I Like Oatmeal

Carlsbad 5000

On April 5th we headed up to Carlsbad so that Debbie could take part in the Carlsbad 5000.  The Carlsbad 5000 is a very competitive 5k, with a lot of serious professional runners coming from all over the world to compete.  Fortunately, they divide up the start times into different groups so everyone can find one to match their pace.

Debbie had decided to enter the race with some other members of her walking group. They wanted a goal to work towards.

We met up with Debbie’s friend Joy as well as Elizabeth, Joe and Nicholas (and Roscoe of course!).

Of course after all of the socializing, it was time to get down to the serious business of walking.

Finally, after an arduous 5000 meters, the finish line was in sight.

Sophie helps Debbie and Joy make it across the finish line.

As with all races like this, a very interesting cast of characters tends to make an appearance.

(Note the third amigo with the baby stroller with the beer cooler strapped on.)

In the end, the best part of the walk was that you got two free beers in the beer garden with every paid entry!

Click below for a link to the full album.

2009-04-05 Carlsbad 5000

MS Walk 2009

This year’s MS Walk was held on April 4th down at Liberty Station in San Diego, which is down beside the airport.  We had a great team of walkers come out this year, including several junior walkers and one four-legged one.

It was a beautiful day and we had a great time walking. We brought along the jogging stroller, but Sophie decided she’s rather be in the backpack, where she promptly fell asleep.

Thanks to everyone who came out to walk as well as everyone who made a donation. I appreciate all the support!

Thanks again everyone. See you next year!

Here is a link to the full album.

2009-04-04 MS Walk