Apr 2007

We sleep in after a late night at Disney and then drive down to San Diego to meet my brother Keith, his wife Debbie and my niece Danielle and her boyfriend for dinner. My nephew unfortunately had to work.

We got there a few hours early so we went to Cabrillo National Monument. Beautiful views of San Diego from there, plus they have a restored lighthouse to tour.

We also stopped at the tidepools at the monument. The tide was high so we couldn't really see many tidepools, but we did see a bunch of anemones and several crabs. Joe enjoyed walking along the stones and listening to his Dad tell him not to get his shoes wet :-)

We had a nice long dinner with Keith, Debbie, Danielle and David. We were at the restaurant over 3 hours, but it seemed shorter. Luckily, they didn't kick us out :-)

We spent a week at Disney World in February, but Joe still wants to go to Disneyland for his birthday. It's the only thing he really wants for his birthday, so we give in and take him to Disneyland. We get up early and pull into the parking lot at 7:55am. Joe is very very excited. He loves Disney.

Our first stop in the park is at the town hall to get his free -- yes I said free -- birthday button. The girl is very bubbly and wishes Joe a happy birthday and writes his name on his button. She then tells him to pick up the phone and Goofy wishes him a happy birthday. Very cute.

The button was great. All through the day the Disney employees would wish him Happy Birthday, some more excitedly than others, but it helped make the day special.

I asked him if he wanted one of the birthday cake hats that they sell there and he said definately not, but he did try one on:

As expected (it is Easter week) the park was crowded but we managed to ride all the rides we wanted to ride at least once, except the Matterhorn. The line for that was just too long.

Jere decided to ride on Joe's favorite ride with him, Space Mountain, since it was his birthday. BUT he felt sick afterwards and ended up going out to the truck for a nap afterwards -- no more Space Mountain for Jere :-)

The fireworks at night were great and Joe thought it was great to have fireworks on his birthday. We were hoping some of the lines would go down after the fireworks, but it remained crowded. Around 11pm or so, Joe started feeling sick (I think he was exhausted) so we left.

After a morning of chores, we head over to Angels Stadium. The traffic isn't bad so we stop at Anaheim to pick up tickets for Disneyland. We get there early to buy tickets and then wait for the gates to open. They're handing out bobbleheads for a guy who's not even playing this year. I can't remember the guy's name, but apparently he was an Angel for the last 13 years or something like that is referred to as Mr. Angel. There's a lot of people here tonight since they are honoring him. I'll have to check with Jere later to find out who it was and edit this blog later with his name.

We get our bobbleheads and walk around a bit before finding our seats. They are way way way up in the stands on the third base side. They aren't bad seats, except for the wind.

Jere's sister joins up with us for most of the game and we have a good time, except that it gets pretty darn cold by the end.

After a somewhat dreary weekend, this morning is sunny, so we decide to take a bikeride down to Santa Monica. We pass 3 different places along the way where a production company is shooting a movie or commercial. The strangest setup was in Marina del Rey where a crew of about 20 people were shooting a scene of a guy sitting in a big comfy chair in the middle of a grass strip beside the road. Unfortunately, we didn't see any actors that we recognize.

In the evening Jen and Jason come over for dinner and we go out to the beach for a campfire. Dockweiler Park has at least 30 campfire rings on the beach and all of the nights that we were there, most of them were being used for fires. The weekends were very busy with campfires, some of them quite large bonfires.

Joe was very excited about a campfire. Of course we had s'mores. It was very nice, except for the jets taking off above us and then eventually the cold chased us inside.

We attend early service at a Lutheran church in Venice. We're always a little nervous about attending a church we know very little about, but this church is a good choice. Very friendly and a nice service.

We pick up Jen and Jason and drive up to Malibu for Sunday brunch. We sit out on the patio and eat way too much food. Good food, but too much :-)

Then we go back to the RV and Jere's sister Judy stops in for a visit. We spend the rest of the evening 'catching up' with things and then take Jen and Jason home.