Christmastime at Disneyland

Yesterday we went to Disneyland as usual. We saw the Christmas parade, Christmas fireworks and visited the special Christmas rides.

Mommy and Travis day at Universal Studios

Travis chose to go to Universal studios for his mommy and me day.

School pictures

The boys got their school pictures back.

Football is finally over

Travis is finally done with football. He ended up with 112 tackles, 3 touchdowns, 1 reception, 2 forced fumbles and a fumble recovery. They did not differentiate between tackles and sacks. He had a successful season but his team ended up 1 - 9.

Travis has been selected to the Youth All American West football team and will be traveling to Myrtle Beach Dec 28- Jan 1 for the all-star camp and all star game.

Football 9/4

Travis' football team lost again 14-7. Travis had 9 tackles, 1 reception and recovered a fumble and ran it back 45 yards for the touch down and also ran in the extra point. He is having a pretty good season just hope the team can win a few games.

Football 8/28

Football season is underway. Travis' team lost their first game 13-0. Travis had 14 tackles. He played every down of the game including special teams. He is also the place kicker.

Museum of the Lost City

We also visited the Museum of the Lost City. This museum has a rebuilt Anazi Indian Village on the actual foundations from an ancient village. It is unknown why the Anazi Indians disappeared.

Hoover Dam

We went to Hoover Dam on July 11, 2010 on the way home from Vegas. We went through the museum to see how the dam was built and learn about the people who built it. We also saw the Tillman Memorial Dam Bypass. Starting in October cars will not be able to drive over the Hoover dam any more. I think the high bridge would be scarier than the narrow road over the Dam.

Secret gardens at the Mirage

We went to the Mirage to the secret garden where they have the dolphin research center and the large cat exhibits. We got to see the trainers working with the dolphins and saw the rare white tigers and white lions as well as regular lions, tigers, and jaguars.

Swimming in Vegas

Travis, Ted, Lauren, Maddie, and Meryn loved the swimming pool at the time shares. They spent many hours playing in the water.

Long time no post

It has been awhile since I posted. The boys both went to a sports camp. Ted went to USC water polo camp and Travis went to O-D football camp where he won an award and was named to the Youth All American team.

Ted went to Idaho by himself and stayed with his cousins and grandma and grandpa.

We then went to a family reunion in Vegas.

Boys had 4 weeks of swim lessons they are both in pre-competitive (level 6) swimming.

Ted went to Junior Olympics for water polo. His team took 5th.

Travis has started football. They had their first scrimmage last night and it was not pretty. It looks like he will be the star on a losing team again. He has been turned into a running back which he is not sure he likes. He has been moved from linebacker to free safety and complained his teams would stand around in his way and he could not make the tackle. Truthfully the defense made very few tackles and the offense made very few blocks. The life of 7 and 8 yr old football.

I will try to get some phots posted in the next few days. I just downloaded the camera and need to back up the computer.

San Diego Wild Animal Park

After the water polo tournament was over we stopped at the San Diego Wild Animal Park on the way home for Travis.



Ted got the ducks to eat out of his hand. Travis was more interested in the geese and he got them to eat out of his hand.

We rode on the new journey into Africa tram. You can n longer see any of the Asian exhibits unless you go on a special savanna safari trip which costs more money of course. The lion camp exhibit was the boys favorite. We even got to see them up close and moving.

Water polo tournament - San Diego

Ted played goalie for the 10 and under team. They finished 15th in the tournament.
Here is one of his blocks from the tournament.
He also played for the 12 and under team. They took third in the tournament and got medals.

San Diego Zoo

We were at San Diego for a big water polo tournament over the weekend. We started are adventures by visiting the San Diego zoo before the games started. Travis loves zoos so we went since he had to go to water polo even though he doesn't play. We only spent 4 hours there. We never did get to see the pandas or the polar bears because it was not on Travis' agenda. He did like the gorillas though. The whole group was in the viewing window area. They also had a young gorilla about 6 months hold.


This is a dwarf crocodile in the background. The keepers have each one trained to come to a different object for feeding. It was fascinating to watch

Learning to skateboard

Down time between water polo games can get very boring. Not enough time to go anywhere but too long to just sit around. The boys spent their allowance on some skate boards and have been learning to skate at the tournaments. However, this particular outing ending in a small accident. But Ted had no idea anything had happened.

Travis the dancing machine

Ted insisted that I post a video of Travis dancing to embarrass him like I did with Ted's beach dancing video. This video was taken during a water polo tournament.

Winchester Mystery House

We visited the Winchester Mystery House. A little history for those of you who do not know. Sarah Winchester moved to San Jose after the death of her baby and husband. She believed she was being haunted by the spirits of those who were killed by the winchester guns. So she consulted the spirits nightly and built on her house 24 hours a day for 38 years to appease the spirits. To confuse them she had doors to nowhere (pictured to the right it drops 2 stories and does open from the inside), stairs to the ceiling, windows in the floors and other bizarre features. It can be seen on Haunted History, Secret passageways and the ghost hunters TV shows. Ted was excited and asked hundreds of questions and recited information he knew about the house on both tours we took today. I don't have many pictures because you can't take pictures in the house.

Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk

We spent the afternoon and evening at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and beach area. The rides closed at 8pm and the boys wanted to go down to the beach. Of course it was cold and cloudy. Not to mention the pacific Ocean off of California never gets above 65 ° F. The boys said that they would stay out of the water. But somehow by the time we left they were wet t their armpits.

Future dancing with the stars contestant

Ted didn't know I was video taping his dancing on the beach. He thought I was going to take a picture of one of his poses. Travis loves to watch the video over and over. You might like to check out his moves also.

Henry Cowell Redwood State Park

After our exciting train trip we walked across the tracks to a redwood state park. We were able to take a hiking path and view some of the great redwood trees. Since this is only the beginning of the redwood forest the trees aren't quite as large as some of the redwoods further North and inland. But they were still exciting for the boys to see.

Roaring camp railroad

Saturday morning we went up to the roaring camp railroad. We had planned to take the steam engine up to the top of Bear Mountain to the redwoods. Engine #7 was the engine that was pulling our train. When we hit the 8% grade going up the mountain the engine's front axle derailed and a little diesel rescue engine had to come up and take us back to the depot. Travis got to see how they manually uncouple the cars from the engine because we were sitting right behind the engine. Also check out the video with the boys explaining their experience. Remember Ted is always the dramatic one.