March 30 2008

Dan wrote:

March 30 2008

We celebrated Ty's birthday early so he could have one last fling at the "glory park".

We are in Yucca Valley just outside of Joshua Tree National Park. The ward we found on the lds website meets in the afternoon. It seemed like it took all of the time we had to get ready. The ward was really nice.

We were able to do some nice exploring in Joshua Tree National Park.

Yesterday was a lot of fun but felt totally out of control. We started the day with the idea that we would see how fast we could get ready, go straight to Joshua Tree and then get in half a day of work and school. The first part went according to plan we saw how fast we could get ready, not nearly fast enough.

A few days earlier Dallin somehow popped the front tire on his bike. This is a moderate to full sized tragedy for someone his age. We bought him a tire and tube at WalMart earlier but found that there was a 26” tube in a 16” box. Taking the trailer anywhere in the San Diego area is its own little drama because of the traffic but we found out decided to venture a Sports Authority to track down a tube. The sporting good store happened to be by a Barnes and Noble bookstore. So in the end the $4 tube wound up costing closer to $200 but we have some great reading material now. I laugh because I have heard that when a person goes into the wilderness their first concern is starvation. I think our aggressive buy at Barnes and Noble was related to the thought of possibly being in a place with out cell signal and hence internet access, a kind of stock piling against mental starvation. The other vector in the purchase was that Ty and Dallin really have out grown the little kid book library we have. They still like to listen to the stories but they are ready for older books. We bought a couple from the Star Wars series that were written above their reading level but that didn’t deter them. They both used the rest of the car ride to get as much reading done from the books as they could. They both got a charge out of reading a book that was labeled for an 11 or 12 year old.

We found out that we had not done enough research about Joshua Tree. I had imagined the park to be much smaller than it is. We wound up coming in on the south entrance which didn’t leave us near anywhere to go to church and also found that all of the campgrounds were full. We were able to take a nice quarter mile loop trail that had a lot of information about desert plants. I was particularly impressed with the ocotillo which will shed its leaves up to five times a year in response to drought conditions. When the rain comes the ocotillo can regrow its leaves within a few days. There is a place in the park called the cholla garden which has an amazing number of cholla cacti. I wasn’t able to get a picture because I was driving and the parking lot was jammed full but I will get a picture if I get back to it. We were curious to know why the bottom parts of the cholla were brown that is something else we will need to look up. I was surprised not to see more obvious places to rock climb. The ranger told us that Hidden Valley is the most popular spot so we will head over there Monday.

We drove through the park to Twentynine Palms and then over to Yucca Valley because there is a Wal-Mart in Yucca Valley. Wal-Marts generally have free overnight parking for RV’s. It was late by the time we pulled in and were happy to see several RV’s already there making us feel more comfortable about the idea that parking there was OK. There was one RV that even had lawn chairs set out in front of their rig. Just as we were getting the kids out to get into bed Lexie noticed we were parked right under a “NO OVERNIGHT RV PARKING” sign. Our neighbor assured us that they just put the sign up for “people who were no ‘darn’ good” and that he had been here two weeks without any trouble. After some brief discussion we decided that it wasn’t a good example to our kids to disobey a sign like that so we went for plan B which was to see if there was a similar sign at the church parking lot. Much to our surprise there was much more than a sign there was a fence around the entire parking lot. The parking lot was also landscaped such that it would be a real trick to get an RV into it. We were starting to get the feeling that RV parking was its own little issue in Yucca Valley. Knowing that the plan of taking the trailer to church probably wouldn’t work out very well we went to plan C and found the first RV park we could. I have yet to find much redeeming about this RV park other than it is a place to park and has a couple of pretty Joshua trees.

Back to Wednesday the trip to the San Diego Wild Animal park was fabulous. I couldn’t decide if I like the Wild Animal park or the Zoo better but I definitely know I like both. The highlight of the trip for me is that the Wild Animal park displays California Condors. I had become excited to see one since reading about them in the LA zoo. I was also impressed with all of the babies. Spring really is a great time to go to a wild animal breeding facility. The two female lions had 7 cubs between them. The cubs were a few months old but still absolutely darling. There was also a baby gibbon that was one of the cutest things I have ever seen. I think David’s highlight was the butterfly house. I would smile and point all over. A very large butterfly landed on Natalyn which really excited here. When we looked at the picture it became more obvious to us why the butterfly had chosen Natalyn for a landing pad. Not only did she possess her stunning beauty but also the better part of her lunch all over her shirt.

The baby gibbon was adorable

Seeing a California Condor was the highlight of the trip for me.

Davey had fun on the train tour

We were able to get some great views of several animals

March 26 2008

Dan wrote:

March 26 2008

We are headed to the San Diego Wild Animal Park today.  There was someone in the RV park that came by and offered us 4 CityPass tickets to the park that they said they were not going to use.  We gratefully accepted them.  I can’t quite justify spending the entrance fee on its own having already spent so much on that kind of recreation but 20% of the entrance fee to pick up a ticket for one of the kids is pretty easy to justify.

So far I have liked having Wednesday as the play day instead of Saturday.  More things are open, crowds are lower at play destinations and it breaks up the week better.  With a mid week break and a Sunday break one is never more than 3 days from their next break.  Something we haven’t resolved yet is how we are going to make schedules work while we are moving.  Things have been almost dream like here in San Diego with full hook ups, high speed internet and a basic knowledge of where to find things like gas groceries and the beach.  I was pretty pleased yesterday to realize that after 3 weeks here I could find 3 different beaches without looking at directions but finding Wal-Mart still took a map.  I like the little glimpses in life one gets from time to time where the way things are line up well with the way things should be.

 

March 23 2008

Dan wrote:

March 23 2008

Wednesday was pretty much a recovery day that we used to shop, clean the trailer and get caught up on laundry instead of play.

I used Thursday morning to get some extra accommodations made for my “suburban office”.  I had been using towels and blankets over the windows to control the light.  With Wednesday’s shopping I picked up some car shades which I cut out to fit the windows and added Velcro to hold them in place.  I also bought a couple more traditional shades for the middle windows.  In the afternoon the kids had a primary activity at the park.  Lexie doesn’t want to have much to do with driving in the San Diego traffic so she asked me to drive her.  I was very pleasantly surprised how well my new window covers worked while she was at the park.  The middle windows are covered with a dark mesh which allows me to roll down the windows without producing a glare.

I am getting a lot more comfortable with programming with Action Script which by itself is a huge stress relief in as much as I decided early on that Action Script would be my target language for game development.  I have spent the last couple of days working on an image browser as a training project and also as a piece of my personal website.  I am very excited about the result.  I am also very excited that I may actually get started working on my first game as soon as next week.

The setup really has taken a lot longer than I anticipated however I feel very good about the process.  I firmly believe that it is more important that one be heading the right direction than it is how fast one is moving.  So far even though things are going more slowly than I would like I feel that they are going in the right direction.

Friday night we took a picnic to Pacific Beach after work.  The water was moving faster and the waves were not as high as the last time I went swimming but it was still a lot of fun.  The body board didn’t quite work the way I expected it to however the kids had a ball playing with it.

Saturday afternoon there was a 3:30PM low tide at Point Loma so we went out to look for beach creatures.  This was a lot of fun.  Point Loma is very beautiful.  We were able to find dozens of small hermit crabs and some other small crabs that look more like dungeness crabs but are much smaller.

David had trouble sleeping last night so out of generosity rather than hoard his troubles to himself he decided to share them with me and Lexie.  David’s middle of the night party made the 7:00AM alarm for church seem much too early and we were once again successful in almost making it to church on time.  I know it isn’t fair to blame a 2 year old but he’s the sinless one so if I can shuffle a couple of my short coming his way it give me less to deal with.

The Easter program at church was simply amazing.  There was a combination of some very strong musical talent and very though preparation in the program.  We have truly enjoyed the Sunday School teachers here.  I don’t know their names but I have enjoyed learning from them.  I have never met anyone with as quick a whit as today’s teacher.  As he was talking about the Atonement he lead into a part of his discussion explaining how the next part of his lesson was only for people who sinned so the sinless people wouldn’t need to pay attention.  At that time a small baby decided that it was time to have a meal and shared the decision with its mother.  As the baby and mother left the teacher smiled and said “I wish I could be going with them but I am part of the group that needs to listen!”.

I am disappointed that we will be leaving San Diego so soon but I am also excited to be moving along.  It is amazing how much we haven’t done for the time we have been here but we have seen more of San Diego than we would have if we weren’t here.  On of the troubles with life is that it truly is to short to do and see everything.

 

nice people and other odd things

Lexie wrote:

Nice people and other odd things:

Primary report: 

           Tyrell - perfect

            Dallin – great!  There were more girls than boys, but at least I wasn't the only boy.

            Natalyn - a boy in my class kept calling me Emma.  We got to stand and they singed to us.

            David - happy as usual 

Primary report:  

           Tyrell - I was the best one in my class.  I was the only boy in my class.  The girls were pretty.

            Dallin - I was the best one in my class.  The only thing that is important to me is that the girls are pretty!

            Natalyn - I colored a picture.  I writed Natalyn and family on my picture.  A boy in my class kept calling me Emma, but I’m NOT his girlfriend!

            David - teacher said he was perfect.   

Nice people we've met: 

Brian, Angela, and Hazer - our neighbors in Las Vegas.  Hazer is a giant Rotweiller that the kids attached to immediately.  Brian and Angela were very friendly sharing their long drain hose and oranges.  They were very fun to talk with.

Lady from Michigan who comes to Vegas every year for 1 month to 3 months.  Visiting her son who just had a baby.  Had 7? kids.

Huge guy with tattoos all over his arms in the laundry room that was all but giggling watching Davey help me fold clothes.  He even let Davey open his dryers and close them for him as he switched laundry.

Lady from Boise who comes every year to San Diego and then goes on to Arizona was very fun to talk with and more than willing to share information about where to stay.

Unofficial welcoming committee at mission bay RV resort.  One man let us borrow walkie - talkies for backing in the dark, lady moved her truck to make it easier for us, man helped back Dan in while I held Davey who was tired and disoriented.  The next day they gave us some fun ideas for places to visit and tried to give us directions.                     

Big black guy at Circus-Circus who was overjoyed to give us directions to the shuttle car (I only mention black because there are few black people in Pocatello that we ever see).

Family going on a walk to the bay at the same time as us and she helped Dallin fix his helmet while the guy noticed something rubbing on Dallin's tire and got it out of the way.

Guy who was out with his remote control helicopter and was very nice to the kids as they watched him fly his "toy"

In every ward we visit we are greeted with smiles and introductions.  The kids love the hello song (at least Natalyn does).  I've had a good time meeting people in each ward and realizing that people are the same all over, and the church is the same all over.  Dan thinks that’s not true, he thinks people in San Diego have things figured out better because they still play tournament basketball (it was cancelled in our stake).

If you say hello and smile you have instant friends wherever you are.  People are social creatures.  We all want people to like us.  We may not even always have something to say to each other, but a welcoming smile (even a shy smile) is usually greeting in recognition of friendship.

Gigi who insisted that she drive by the last place she got her hair cut so that I would have the exact address instead of just going by a description   

A nice family that camped next to us were ready to go home and were done with their vacation, but they hadn't used their wildlife animal park pass and gave us four!  All we have to pay for is one child ticket!!

An older couple that pulled in today told us of their favorite places they  have visited and places they thought the kids would love.  They also gave us brochures and maps.

Family we met - the kids were playing and adults were talking.  Nero and Candy were their names.  They were grilling linguisa (a Portuguese sausage).  They couldn't believe we'd never had it so gave us a piece as we left to get our dinner.  Later they brought over their leftovers.  They were gone in seconds!

 Mike P. from the Sea Food section in Ralph's (A grocery store).  Mike has a degree in Marine Biology and was able to tell us lots of interesting things about the critters he was selling and was also able to tell us of points of interest in San Diego.

Random thought and inquiries: 

I am adjusting to cooking in a smaller, gas stove and oven.  I am burning things less, but still often burn the bottom of especially muffins or cookies.  Are there any suggestions from people who have cooked with gas ovens?

Unsolicited and unpaid commercial- Dan bumped a bottle of Dove creamy oil body wash off the shelf last time we went shopping.  The top broke so we bought it.  I have no idea what it cost.  I normally just by the generic brands or cheapest I see.  Being the kind-hearted person I am, I told Dan that I knew he wouldn't mind finishing the old bottle of soap with the boys while I started the new bottle.  (so he's the kind-hearted one).  I love it!!  Now I'm scared to see how much it costs because I've been feeling spoiled with every shower.  P.S. I really like Pantene pro-v also.  I can tell a difference in just a couple of days of switching back to it from a cheaper brand.

Disneyland

Lexie wrote:

Disneyland

(Dan's Disneyland writeup and more pitures are in the archive under early March and mid February).  We planned Disneyland to try to miss Spring Break.  Fortunately we did miss spring break, however for the first time ever in this part of California they let out all of the schools for a full week to celebrate president's day.  The lines were really reasonable still, and unbeknownst to us at first, the hours were longer also.  The weather was rainy so I was really excited that we have our kids 72 hour kits in the trailer.  I quickly located their .50 ponchos and we were on our way.  Rain at Disneyland isn't necessarily an emergency, but Disneyland prices for a new poncho in the rain dictates an emergency!  The ponchos worked well for Tyrell and Dan on Splash Mountain as well.  Lines are much shorter in the rain for the wet rides.

 

Tyrell Loved Splash Mountain

With the help of friends, especially Melinda and April, we were able to have a pretty good idea what we wanted to do our first day while we were still getting oriented.  Thanks to their advice we had plenty of snacks and drinks to avoid creating another emergency - paying Disneyland prices for food!  We were slow on the fast passes, but once we started using them we were really rolling!  I didn't go on any of the "extreme" rides because I don' want to take any unnecessary chances while I'm pregnant. 

David having fun at the Parade

By "extreme" I just mean the rides that have warnings about pregnant women riding.  Those are most of the famous rides like Splash Mountain and Space Mountain.  Before getting there I thought I would just be hanging around watching David and Natalyn ride all of the kiddy rides.  Even with all of the preparation from friends I was sorely lacking in what to expect!  I was able to go on all of the kiddy rides with the little ones and they had lots of family rides. 

David and Natalyn waiting for the Monsters Inc ride

Someone might be thinking, whoopdee doo; but it was really fun!  They have so many visual stimuli and sound effects that even the "little" rides are fun because they're like being catapulted inside a movie screen. 

Ty and Dallin just a little nervous at the start of a roller coaster

They also have a lot of 4-D shows and special programs throughout the day.  The whole family agreed that the Aladdin play was phenomenal and even the boys (with the temptation of California screamer close by) wanted to see the whole musical again!  We vetoed because it was our first day and we still hadn't been in the Disneyland part of the theme park.  (We started in California Adventure - where I'll admit were probably my favorite attractions).  Thanks April for suggesting the Aladdin show and Crush Talk.  That was a lot of fun too, and by the end of a rainy cold day, I was happy to take the little ones into the warm room and do it over and over again.  Unfortunately they close earlier than Disneyland.

Dan Dallin Natalyn David and Ty enjoying California Adventures

We had three days between the two parks and I felt like we covered most of the parks; to at least experience most things one time.

Everyone's top favorites were: 

        Dan - California Screamer

                                Lexie - Aladdin musical

                                Tyrell - Splash Mountain

                                Dallin - Star Tours

                                Natalyn – Buzz Light-year

        David - ladybugs (I think.  I may have put words into his mouth.                               He's still hard to understand.)

 

March 18 2008

Dan wrote:

March 18 2008

There aren't many limits on how hard you can party as a two year old.

I am not sure what Davey had in mind here.

Natalyn and Dallin had fun together.

The last few days have been pretty much straight work.  I have mixed feelings of elation and terror as I look at what I am getting done.  On the one hand I am learning a lot on the other I am seeing how much there is to learn and do.  I am getting a lot more confident doing database interfaces and working with PHP in general.  I was also able to get a local server setup so I can develop and test my things without needing to go online.  I expect that will be handy once we leave for Joshua Tree.  We may well have internet there but it will be nice to not need to depend on it.

The kids have discovered there is a bigger park a little over twice as far away as the one to which I had been running with them.  I am not able to maintain a run all the way there yet but I had nice run/walks with each of the kids there.  My pace seems to match Dallin on his bike pretty well for that distance I am also pretty close to Natalyn on her bike if I am pushing David.  I told the kids that we won’t be going that far every day from now on though because the distance really is above my current fitness level and the last thing I want to do is injure myself.  I think my knees are already doing better with the little bit of exercise and stretching that I have been able to do.  My sleep was doing really well until Sunday night.  For some reason I couldn’t get to sleep at all.  At midnight I justified that it wasn’t Sunday any more and worked for a couple of hours trying to get the PHP/mysql/apache installations done.  Last night I had a really neck ache so I took an excederinePM and that took care of the sleep as well as the pain.

Once again Davey's mind finds itself in a place to far away for us to track its path or final destination.

I have really enjoyed having the Mission Bay Park right next door for runs.

I am hoping to be able to start actual game work next week.  A lot of what I am doing now will lay a good foundation for the work and also a foundation for any contract work that may come up.  I have been able to brush away a bunch of the cob webs related to web development.  I have also been able to learn some new cool things.

 

March 12 2008

Dan wrote:

March 12 2008

Happy Birthday Dad, Happy Birthday Patrick.

Dallin’s birthday was yesterday.  We had a lot of fun.  One of our traditions is that we go out to eat to celebrate a birthday.  Dallin was very meticulous in his choice.  He had spent the last few weeks discussing the merits of various possibilities.  He finally decided that what he wanted was something like Golden Corral breakfast.  We found that there wasn’t a golden corral for over a hundred miles in the area.  We bargained with him that if he went to IHOP we would let him order as much food as he wanted as long as he was still hungry.  This turned out to be a bit expensive for us.  Dallin and Tyrell are both now disqualified from a kids menu.  They both made it through two kids meals.  The waitress was very surprised to see little boys eating so much.  Dallin spent a good part of the meal thanking mom for telling him about IHOP and trying to decide if IHOP or Pizza Hut was his favorite restaurant.

After the restaurant we were right across the street from a grocery store so we decided to take the opportunity to shop.  It was very interesting to talk with the butcher.  The butcher had a degree in marine biology and was able to tell us quite a bit about the different sea creatures.  He also gave us free samples of muscles and shrimp. He was very friendly and very helpful.  We bought a pound of muscles because Dallin kept raving about much he liked muscles.

We did the cook and read the directions sequence in exactly that order with the muscles which turned out to be less than optimal.  We wound up boiling and over cooking the muscles to the point where we lost a lot of the flavor was gone.  The next time we’ll know not to boil them and to just steam them.  Also you are supposed to take them out of the steam just after they open. 

With both Dallin and Natalyn’s birthdays we have had birthday cupcakes in lieu of birthday cake.  The cup cakes have worked out great in that they have been simple and don’t leave the left over cake that is just good enough to eat but not good enough to be worth the calories.  The ice cream of course is in a different class.  It is too good not to eat and worth every calorie.  Dallin kept talking about what a great birthday he was having and how he said “I’ll bet no one has had a party this good in years”.  I was very please he liked his birthday so well.

We closed out Dallin’s birthday by him and me going on a bike ride, run to the parks on mission bay.  I have been taking Ty, Dallin and Natalyn one at a time on my runs where they ride their bike and I run.  Dallin’s birthday also happened to be his turn to run.  The trip to IHOP conflicted with a morning run but the evening run proved to be quite enjoyable.  Normally I stretch while the kids take a break to play on the toys at the park but because it was Dallin’s birthday I played with him in the park.  It was some great time with him.

Today as Wednesday is our virtual Saturday.  We decided to move our play day to the middle of the week to break things up and avoid weekend crowds.  The kids and I were all very excited to get back to the beach after not getting quite enough play in at La Jolla.  We decided to go to Point Loma because we hadn’t been there yet.  Point Loma is in the Cabrillo National Monument National Park.  We were happy it was a national park as opposed to a state park because that meant that our Yellowstone pass got us access. 

Just before the park is a large military cemetery.  It was a very beautiful.  It was sobering to see scale of the cemetery.  Cemeteries also of course get me thinking about the finality of life and the fact the music will eventually stop.

Our timing didn’t work out well with respect to tides.  We got to the tide pools at high tide which didn’t leave much in the way of tide pools.  Our fall back plan of playing in the water was also spoiled in as much as we couldn’t find a place that the water wasn’t slamming into rock cliffs on the edge of the water.  Even though it wasn’t what we had planned it was truly amazing.  The waves were the highest waves Lexie and I could remember ever seeing.  I don’t know how high they were but they were high enough the larger ones were forming tubes as they broke.

The visitor center had a very interesting video about gray whales.  We may need to get down to Baja some winter to see the calving grounds. 

The kids enjoyed the light house.  I was very impressed with the view of the ocean and of San Diego.  There were also some interesting Navy ships in the water and military air craft of some sort or other in the air.

We decided to push our day a little and go back to Pacific Beach for a chance to play in the water.  I was curious to see if the ocean would be cold without a wet suit or if it was the sort of thing one would get used to.  I was pleased to find that after playing in the water for a while I wasn’t noticing the temperature at all.  I was able to swim on top of a couple of waves for a while.  I was also pleased to find that if I could swim into a wave just before it broke I would float right up the wave.  If get a wave in the break you just get it over you head.  After the beach we bought a body board from one of the local shops in part because we wanted on and in part because for the $16 purchase of the body board we were able to validate $8 of parking.  Body boards and wet suits rent for $16 for a half day so I saw the balance of $8 and the inconvenience of a little extra cold to be a good trade.  I think I am going to rent a surf board for a half day once before we leave but for the most part I think we are going to get some great play out of the body board.

 

March 10 2008

 

Happy Birthday Mary.

We decided to stay in San Diego for the rest of March. We have found that RV parks give pretty large discounts for monthly stays and it is hard to find a reason to leave San Diego right now. It is so beautiful here.  We are parked right next to Mission Bay park which has a walk several miles long right along the bay.  I haven’t run more than a mile or so on it but it has been more than plenty as I am working myself back into a running routine.  I have been taking the kids one at a time with me as I go on my runs.  They bike and I run.  So far it has been working out pretty well for me in that it varies the intensity of my runs.  Today I am going with Tyrell so it will be a high intensity run.  He can bike a lot faster than I can run.

 

School and work have been going really well.  The first day of school back from break was almost perfect.  The kids worked really hard on their studies and obeyed really well.  It was a true blessing to us in as much as having school work on the road is a big part of our overall plan.

I have been working on infrastructure issues almost continuously but I think I am about to be able to start back into some development work.  I have a good enough back up system in place that we will be in fine shape if we lose a hard drive or two and will be in OK shape if we lose all of them in that I am mirroring the most important documents to a remote server.

Yesterday was the first time we went to church in the same ward two weeks in a row since January.  It was comfortable to know where all of the meetings were and even recognize a couple of people. 

I decided last Tuesday not to play basket ball with the elders because I really don’t want to sprain anything before I am in a bit better shape at which point I hope that I am less likely to sprain something.  I really am missing basketball but for now running is going to be my exercise of choice.  My right knee hasn’t been behaving since the Grand climb but as I am doing my stretches and focusing on keeping my hips tight it seems to be getting better.

I spent most of my free time Sunday moving things that weren’t to personal from my Journal to the blog.  I am still struggling with figuring out how to get pictures on to the blog in a nice way.  Hopefully I will get my image data base functional in the next couple of days.

March 6, 2008

Thursday, March 06, 2008 4:56:53 AM

Well I guess I wasn’t as ready to stop playing as I had originally supposed.  Yesterday was Wednesday which according to our schedule which we are trying to migrate into is a recharge day which for my understanding means a play day.  I was really excited to get to the beach.  We didn’t know the exact way to the beach but had seen a sign that said “beaches” so we decided to just follow that.  Our decision worked out great.  We found free parking.  On our way to the beach we passed a surf shop that advertised surf lessons.  The shop was closed when we went by but I was very interested to find out how much the lessons cost.  After spending some time at the beach I gave into my curiosity and went and talked to the person at the counter about lesson prices.  I was originally a bit put off by the price of $85 for a single 90 minute lesson but decided that it would be a great experience and a good way to kick start into a sport that looked like a lot of fun.

The lesson didn’t start until one o’clock in the afternoon so it extended our beach visit a bit more than the four hour parking we had found allowed so we reparked under the surf shop where they could validate the parking.

During the lesson I didn’t show any natural ability for surfing.  If the object of surfing were to fall off the board then my natural tendencies would have showed great benefit to me however as it was I found my instincts working against me.  I was able to get up on the board and ride out a wave once in the lesson about half way through.  I think by the second half of the lesson I knew what to do but just couldn’t get my body to do it because I was too fatigued.  I am anxious to get another chance on a surf board but I am not sure when time and money will allow it.  After a person buys a wet suit and a board the sport is virtually free other than the parking and transportation to the ocean.  For right now the transportation to the ocean part is preventing me from thinking a surfboard would be a good investment right now.  That and I really am trying to live without stuff and a surf board definitely falls into the “stuff” category.  I think next week we will rent body boards and wet suits.  I think that surf boards are over kill for the kids right now but I think they would have a ball on a body board.  I let the kids play on my surf board after my lesson but they quickly lost interest.  I am sure one factor was the 57 degree water temperature.  The wet suits that come with the body board rentals will greatly help that.  I was very pleased at how comfortable the water was in a wet suit during my surfing lesson.

I am going through some stress points about my employment.  It has been hard seeing the money go only one way, well the one way part isn’t the hard part it is the fact that it is the wrong way that is the hard part.  I keep thinking about getting some temp work to sustain things but I don’t want to undermine the mission of what we are trying to do with our trip.  I also think about getting a real job in the San Diego area but again I don’t want to be too hasty with respect to a decision like that either.  A trick is that once we run out of money we will need work and need it fast.  Trying to get work fast will not likely lead to as good of a decision as a decision that has some more time behind it.  It is really difficult not knowing exactly when my efforts of game development will pay off in cash.  I think what I need to do is to make sure I get an honest effort of two months in toward the goal of finishing the image data base, finishing the game data base and getting a healthy start if not completion of my first game.  After that I think I need to find some way to get some money coming in at least on a part time basis.

March 4, 2008

Tuesday, March 4, 2008 8:30 PM

Happy Birthday Mom!

The kids really enjoyed a Scooby Doo movie Dallin bought

Wow.  Too much has happened to catch up on tonight but I’ll at least get started.  The hard drive on the other computer crashed or rather got corrupted some how.  I was afraid that I had lost the data including this journal however I was able to pay Fry’s $150 to do what they called data recovery.  I was unsuccessful with my tries to simply put the hard drive in an external enclosure.  I also bought another external hard drive for backups. I have plenty of space for backups now I just need to get the details and discipline of my new system worked out in short order.  Getting a backup system in place was high on my list but I had been putting it off until after vacation.  It is after vacation now so I guess we’ll get started.  I am glad that the crash didn’t cause more damage than it did.

As much fun as the City Pass was it is a big sense of relief to be done with it.  All in all we did three days of Disney Land, a day at Universal Studios, a day at the San Diego Zoo and a day at Sea World.  I can’t really say which was my favorite I enjoyed all of them.  The zoo is definitely the place I want to go back to the most because it left the most unseen.  The San Diego Zoo needs more than a single day to be properly explored.  The fact that Anheizer Busch owns Sea World really dampened my appreciation for the place but overall I was very impressed with Sea World and can say I like almost all of what they represent.  We were able to enjoy short lines in almost all of our activities confirming that February was indeed a good time to hit things.  A mistake we made was that it turns out many schools in California get the entire week of Presidents’ Day off.  The extra people out of school swelled the lines a little but the rain dampened them so all in all it came out about the same as the next week which had perfectly sunny weather but no holiday.  Actually I think the sunny day may have been even busier than the holiday.  By our third day at Disney Land we felt very comfortable there and were able to make good use of the fast passes.  Ty was particularly lucky in that the ride he chose to go on “Space Mountain” shut down right at the end of our ride so we wound up getting a couple of extra fast passes.  The luck also of course extends to the fact that we didn’t encounter any negative effects of what ever it was that caused the operators to shut down the ride.

Ty and Dallin watch Flamingos at SeaWorld.

The kids were able to feed the sea lions at SeaWorld

We were able to pet the dolphins at SeaWorld.

Natalyn was very suprised to get so wet at the Shamu show.

The sea lion show at SeaWorld was great!

If you stood at the bottom of the Journey to Atlantis ride you could get a pretty good soaking.  I was the only one who went on the ride but the kids all got wet from it.  Davey got a little more water than he expected but eventually cheered up.

There was a really cute pet show where they had dozens of dogs and cats doing different tricks.

The dolphin show may have been my favorite in terms of it just being amazing how much the dolphins could do.  I had forgotten or never knew prior to SeaWorld that a dolphin could jump 16 feet out of the water.

This is a picture of our campsite at the Mission Bay RV Park in San Diego.

The Gorilla exhibit was quite something at the San Diego Zoo.

The zoo had a very neat rain forest walk.

The bird arboritums were amazing.

The kids had fun at the kids park in the zoo.  There wasn't much there but that is part of being a kid, it doesn't take much.

There was a wonderful amimal show.

We had lunch at the top of the tram.

We took a tour on the top floor of a two story bus.

The zoo had a great sea lion show.

There was a tram that would take us from one side of the zoo to the other.  Given the choice I think the kids would have spent their day at the zoo on the tram.

The polar bear display may have been my and Lexie's favorite part of the zoo trip.

We had an extra treat in that we were able to see a baby panda at the zoo.

It was neat to see the Panda's

Dallin started the day taking notes about the animals he was seeing. 

The entrance to the zoo has impresive elephant hedges.

 

David would have been in the previous picture but he ran off. Tigger proved to be a faster runner and caught him.  David loved playing with Tigger.

There was about an hour wait for the Finding Nemo ride.

We all live in a yellow submarine ... At least we lived in the line for one for quite a while.  The Nemo ride was by far our longest wait at DisneyLand but it proved to be well worth the wait, once.

This is Whoville at Universal Studios.

I think we all know this guy.

This is where they shoot a lot of flood scenes like the one in Evan Almighty.

The studio tour included an impressive flash flood.

The kids were a bit nervous about the studio tour.

Fortunately I was able to grab him in the nick of time.

Natalyn was amazingly shy around Dora.

Curious George wouldn't let Davey go by without saying hi.  We think it is very likely there was a nice little grandma in the Curious George costume.

This picture was taken for the benifeit of my brother in law Mike. When we saw a store dedicated to Raiders garbage we thought he would be impressed.  Many people suffer from mental conditions much more severe and debilitating than being a Raiders fan (aka Cowboy's fans). I thought it inocent enough to tribute the insanity.

Hollywood here we come!

 

We had a great evening a Newport Beach.  We had been intending to go to Huntington Beach but missed a turn on the way.  We were thrilled with Newport as it was.  The water was too cold to be comfortable but it was still fun to run in and out with the tide.  David took on the responsibility of chasing the seagulls away from our food.  He was quite good at it and seemed to have a lot of fun doing it.  I was surprised to learn that one doesn’t need a fishing license to fish off a man made structure such as a pier.  I want to get that from a more official source but it might be fun to try fishing some time.

You'll want to get the full view of this one to see Natalyn's expression.  I don't know what she was thinking but she was expressive.

Sand mom? WHERE?

Natalyn is showing us what she got for her Birthday.  The thing in her hand is from a kid's meal at the zoo.

Disneyland wore out the kids and the parents.

This simple rocket ride was one of the kids favorites.

Natalyn loved tea cups.  I actually have a video of our ride on this.  I took it mostly to participate in the sin of bad home video. If you find yourself in need of motion sickness e-mail me and I'll give you a link.

There was a fun little place to bang on things.

Once the kids found bumper cars we were in a loop lock for quite a while.  I am not sure how long we were there but it was plently long for me and not nearly long enough for the kids.  California traffic more than fills my need for this sort of thing.

The boys claimed they were not scared on the kiddy coaster.  Photographic evidence really is a bugger huh guys?

Are we having fun?

I believe the Buzz Lightyear ride was the kids overall favorite.  The ride allowed you to get shoot "laser" guns at targets to collect points through the ride.

Ty was feeling the power after some heavy duty laser blasting.

I really resonated with the "Year of a Million Dreams" theme at Disneyland because this feels like my dream year.

We had a wonderful campsite just a mile from the entrance to Disneyland.