Today we had a gingerbreaad house party. Four friends of Katy’s and Margaret’s came over an they all made gingerbread houses. Elizabeth made the houses from kits, but the kids glued a bunch of candy to them with icing. They all had fun. Also, check out Sam’s new Bolivian vest. Friends of ours gave it to him. He has only taken it off for baths. He slept in it the first night.
The whole reason for this trip was to see the change of command on the Nimitz. The son of a friend of my dad’s from college was getting command, Capt. Ted Branch. The ceremony was about an hour long and our kids were wonderful. They were all dress up and behaved very well. After the ceremony on the deck of the carrier, we had lunch on the hangar deck and then had a tour of the carrier. It was very interesting. Katy liked riding the elevators most of all. Sam liked driving the boat as well as the fact that the arms on the chairs in the radar control room went up and down.
After the ceremony today, the kids came back and played on the beach some more. Here are those pictures together with the ones from yesterday.
Spent the day at the San Diego Wildlife Park. The park is huge, there is really no way to cover the whole thing in a day. It is really nice with lots of open spaces and lots of different kinds of animals. However, for me I think about 3 different types of antelope is enough.
They have a train that takes you on a big tour around most of the park that you can’t actually walk to and see. This is really nice, they have a tour guide that tells you a lot about the animals. Ours had the worst attitude of any tree hugger I have ever met. She mostly just complained about how this animal is extinct, how bad that is, and how it is somehow my fault.
The park needs to get rid of a few tree huggers and hire some good capitalists. There were almost no signs from the freeway to the park, everything at the park that involved money took absolutely forever. I was also amazed how much erosion was in the park. The pretty valley that the park is in seems to be pretty arid. Anywhere that there were animals, there seemed to be lots of erosion. I guess if you care about animals, you don’t really care about the soil.
When we got back, the kids played on the beach for a little while. We are staying at the Navy Lodge on North Island NAS. It is about $35 a night and right on the beach. Here are a few pictures.
Today was Legoland. Everyone had a great time. Katy and Margaret rode all of the roller coasters. They are becoming pros at it. It rained last night, and the Santa Ana mountains were covered in snow – it must have been one of the coldest days of the year in Carlsbad. We froze. Rusty wore a blanket like a cape part of the time we were at Legoland. My cousin, Jeremy, and his daughter, and Julie, Rusty’s high school classmate, and her two children, joined us in Legoland. All the children ran around together. We opened the park at 10 and closed it at 5 so it was another long day.
Now we are on North Island NAS with Rusty’s parents. Tomorrow we’ll visit the San Diego Wild Animal Park. And hopefully we won’t freeze.
Today was Disneyland. We got there at about 8:30am and left about 10pm. It was a long day. We got there early and stayed through the fireworks and snow. We all went on the small rollercoaster in Toontown. Sam loved it and laughed the entire way. The girls both loved it. Margaret’s favorite thing of the day was seeing all of the princesses. Katy liked driving the cars in Autopia and she liked Big Thunder Mountain, her first real big rollercoaster ride.
We rode lots and lots of rides this time. Luckily, we only did “It’s a Small World” once. But we did see it decorated for Christmas and at night. There are just a few lights there. The girls were a lot braver and Sam is a trooper. I think that we rode all of the means of transportation available. Train, monorail, boat, … We did Pirates of the Carribean, that was a little scrary for Sam.
Disneyland was all decked out for Christmas because after all, it is November. We are all a very tired bunch. I think that the kids went to sleep faster tonight than I have ever seen them fall asleep.
Day one of the trip to southern California. We spent most of the day in the car. We drove from Los Gatos, made a quick stop to see Venice Beach (Pokie had never been, and it is one of the few places that is exactly like it is on TV). We saw the necessary things in Venice Beach. We saw street performers and muscle beach and the kids played on the play structure on the beach. We got to experience the real L.A. as well. We were stuck in traffice for a couple of hours between Venice Beach and Anaheim. Finally, we ended up at our hotel across from Disneyland. Len and Pat came down and had dinner with us and we took a quick trip through Downtown Disney. The only store we went in was the Lego store. We also went through the Grand California Hotel. Probably the best description of it is, “Disney’s version of the Ahwahnee”. Right as we were arriving back at the hotel, we were treated to a good view of the fireworks over Disneyland. I think it was the first time Sam has seen fireworks, somehow he knew to say, “Oooh, aaah” and “That one is pretty”. We will see plenty of Legos on Sunday. Disneyland tomorrow.
Sam went ice skating for the first time the other day. Margaret went too, but we didn’t get any pictures of her. Above is a picture of Katy and Olivia helping Sam go around the rink.
Katy at the top.
Look at Margaret go