A Corn Maze In Encino

We found a great corn maze nice and close in Encino right by where Nolan plays baseball. It was totally fun and we had a great time and FINALLY found our way out!!!

 

Checkers On Route 66

Our family is just plain ole suckers for a checker or chess table....checkers were always out at our last duty station in NC and we got used to just stopping wherever we were and playing a quick or long game or two. There was a checker board set up in the Route 66 Mother Road Museum, so we stopped and played a few rounds. I lost as usual.....i remember when i used to win..... 

Lunch At Ruby's!

Wow!!! It has been a VERY, VERY LONG TIME since we walked the pier to eat at Ruby's!!!! When we first moved into our Parker House on Camp Pendleton and would walk the pier we were just a poor Lance Corporal family making basically nothing. We just thought Ruby's was an expensive restaurant and we never dared even open the door! One day as a Corporal family I guess we were feeling a little braver and opened the door. We were just going to look at the menu.....WELL!!!!! When we looked inside we gasped and started cracking up!!!! It was a 50's Diner!!!! Yeah, we ate there, lots of times! The first place I ever heard of a chocolate coke! It was delicious!!!

Today.......

Yesterday ooops, I mean yesterYEARS.......Spring 1999...

Dry Cleaners From Years Ago...

It was just like wow to be driving down these streets of Oceanside today.....these were the streets we were on regularly, atleast once a week and usually more often than that between the hair cuts, picking up dry cleaning, and just zipping around as young Marines and their families do......It was just quite a unique feeling to see my now much older Marine carrying one of his uniforms into one of the dry cleaners he used to go to with a child we hadn't even thought about yet following right behind him.....yes, it was a look back and smile kinda moment, and I ain't gonna lie, my smile also had some misty eyes too.....but I wear great big sunglasses so nobody noticed.....but wow.....it seems like yesterday that cammies were dry cleaned.....and we as well as all Marines were always on these little side streets at the many dry cleaners dropping off and picking up cammies....endless cammies....it was one of my 'W" jobs. I hadn't earned my I or F yet, still waiting on my E!!!! Back in the day the wife's ID card had a W on it and The Dude In Cammies lovingly referred to me as the "W" Gosh......seems like yesterday and a life time ago all smooshed together......

Selfies Getting Crowded!

 

I LOVE watching them taking pictures of themselves. It is hilarious!!! Love seeing the end result, even if someone's face is cut off....

The Parker House Today

Sgt. York

I fell in love with this horse when we were at Ft Myers. We were in and out of the stables often feeding, checking on the horses, and taking them out of their stalls to walk around.  The Army has several horses, alot more than the Marines have, but they need a larger number due to the services they do just at Arlington alone. There are 4 Platoons of horses. The Platoons are either all white or all black. One Platoon is always gone. Each platoon gets a one week liberty pass to go to pasture each month and run around and be a horse! Lucky for me Sgt York wasn't on liberty. Since Sgt York wasn't on liberty i was able to spend quite a bit of time with him. He always poked his head out when i came by so i would stop and we would have some good chit chats. He thought he should chew on my hair while we were having these awesome discussions though.....Sgt York has some pretty incredible history. I loved his original name to start with. He came to the Army as a race horse who had slowed down and was not considered a winner anymore. His name was All Aboard Jules. Yep, that name just did NOT blend in with the other names in the stables so he had a name change to Sgt York. Being a race horse the guys at the stable weren't exactly sure what Sgt York's job was going to be. They decided to see how he would do with some mock combat training. The soldiers fired machine guns from his back and threw grenades along side him and he basically didn't even blink. Sgt York had secured himself a job! He is most famously known for being the riderless horse for President Reagan. He had Reagan's boots in the stirrups, turned backwards and made the famous walk seen around the world.  We talked about that day. I told him i watched him from Okinawa and that i thought he had done a beautiful job and he was a darn special horse to have had that honor for President Reagan.  I might have some better pictures of him on my real camera. The lighting in the stables isn't the greatest and the sun coming in reflecting off of everything made it hard to get some crisp pictures. But these are on my phone and i am blogging from my phone right now....But he is a beautiful horse. 

Sgt York is also a fun horse with a sense of humor. Sticking out his tongue at me when i told him my hair was off limits! My hair must really resemble hay....all the horses kept trying to lick and nibble on my head!

The Volcano!

Ed and I rode The Volcano with Vicki. Was NOT expecting the blast off at the start! It was a totally fun roller coaster! LOVED it, as you can tell by my face!!!! 

Lions, Tigers, &....Wait A Minute!!!

We went to Barefoot Landing today.  I took the kids last year when The Dude in Cammies was in Afghanistan, so this year Vicki and I took him to see the tiger cubs. We were totally surprised to find that they had LIGERS there today!!! I remember wondering if ligers were really real when the Napoleon Dynamite movie came out when we were stationed on Okinawa. Ty wrote a poem about them and confirmed to me that they were in fact real not too long after seeing the movie. Today we got to hold 2 of them! Vicki is holding a one month old liger that doesn't have any teeth yet, but VERY sharp claws, that is why she is holding that cute little fur ball sooooo far away from her!!! I would have had her cuddled up under my chin not caring about her lil daggers!!! I'm holding the 3 month old liger cub that had LOTS of teeth and who happened to be VERY hungry at the moment and VERY content with his bottle!!! He was HEAVY! His fur was sooooo soft!!! I just wanted to cuddle up with him!!! Ed has my new boyfriend. It was love at first sight.....the next post will explain......but it was definitely totally fun interacting with these sweet animals before we posed for this picture with them! Wish we lived closer, i would totally volunteer to work at this place and help care for these animals!!!    

Show Me The Money

We went out for a late lunch early dinner with the boys to Red Robin.  Ty had the lemon in his mouth and was being silly.  Ed dared him to walk around the restaurant and say hello to everyone with the lemon in his mouth and wave to each table.  He said he would pay him a dollar to each person he said hi to and waved at with the dollar in his mouth.  Ryan double dared him  Ty thought long and hard about it and even practiced at our table.  But, than he chickened out and didn't do it.....

Cold Stone On A Cold Night!

We were out running errands tonight and it was FREEEEEEEEZING!!!! Ty thought it would be great to go get ice cream at Stone Cold. Soooo, we went and got ice cream, why not?! Love my guys!!!!  

Dinner

After the gym tonight we showered and changed clothes and went out to dinner. Ed's dad had sent us a gift card for Cracker Barrel to go out to dinner when The Dude in Cammies came home. It was a perfect night to have dinner together. The food was delicious and of course the boys had to challenge each other at checkers! It was a perfect Friday night!

Thor

Waiting to see Thor.....Ty wanted to see this for his birthday today!!! Sounds good to me!!!

Thor did not disappoint!!! It was great! There will be another one!!! Yay!!!

We Found Baldy!

I am not sure how we have NEVER seen this nest before!

One of the things we wanted to accomplish over Spring Break was find the Bald Eagle by Ed's work.  He knew approximatley where it was located.....we just had to find the right dead tree....on the water.....amongs all the other trees..... once we left the base and were on the bridge.....If you know where we live you would know why i laughed when he gave me our first clues to find this awesome bird!  We had spent the day at the beach on base so we went out the gate at Court House Bay and began looking for a dead tree amongs all the other trees along the water.....BAM!!!  There is was!  Like how have we always missed it?!!!  Soo cool!  The boys aren't interested in our next adventure to get closer to this giant nest, but Ed and i are going so i can get some good pictures!  We were lucky that Baldy was home, sitting there all proud in his mansion looking out over America!


Just sitting and looking.....



Surprise! Merry Christmas Baby!!



It was the most perfectly beautiful day to go to Alcatraz!  Coming in on the boat.

 Ed has wanted to go to Alcatraz since he heard about it as a little boy....my family is just 45 minutes away from The Rock...you would think i had taken him there sometime in the last 16 years....nope, unfortunately it hasn't happened....It has been a long standing joke anytime we see reference to it on TV or in a movie or a conversation...going something like this; 

Ed, "Wow, wish i knew somebody from up there so I could have a reason to go to Alcatraz....."  "Too bad i didn't marry a girl who had family near Alcatraz so when we visited i could go there..."  "Wish we had an excuse to go up to Northern California so i could go to Alcatraz...."  "I've seen pictures of the place, looks really cool..."  "How many times have you been there?"  "Wow, my kids have even been there..."

So, yes, the teasing has been horrendous.....and every San Francisco's sports team always shows shots of it when their home games are aired....there has been no escaping the snide remarks....I honestly did not know Ed had wanted to go to Alcatraz our first couple of years of marriage....when something is in your backyard and you have gone multiple times you just don't realize someone might want to go there, so that part wasn't my fault.  Once Ed let me know he wanted to visit Alcatraz I did try to make that happen.  Unfortunately, when visiting, the days available for going didn't correspond with plans already made on visiting with everyone...so the joke turned to he just wanted to go there before he died.  We tried to go in 2007 when we were visiting from Okinawa, but the only slots they had available were a couple days after he was flying back out to our own rock in the Pacific.  The kids and i were staying longer, so we went, again...without him....Soooo, i knew this trip i really needed to get that guy to Alcatraz!  He's fought in 2 wars in 2 different countries and so i really wanted to get this in before his next deployment!  I called home and told them about the plans i had for Ed's Christmas present.  Grandma and Grandpa thought it would be really fun and wanted to go with us!  Perfect!  I reserved all our tickets for our 2nd day there and mum was the word.  Ed brought up Alcatraz a few times as our fly date got closer.  I told him i was pretty sure it was closed this time of year and that it would be really cold, windy, probably rainy, and just plain miserable to go this time of year.  It was soooo hard to watch his face get that expression of a little kid who just watched his dog die...but i wanted to surprise him!  We flew to Cali on Wednesday and Thursday morning we got up and i told Ed we were going into the City for the day and were going to have fun on Fisherman's Wharf and just enjoy all the Christmas festivities in the City.  He asked about Alcatraz.  I said it was closed. Again, the 'my dog just died' look...i almost caved and told him, but didn't.  As we were driving across the Bay Bridge he was looking out the window and asking if that was Alcatraz out there in the water.  We went on and on about how clear it was outside and that it is sooo cool he is able to see it from the bridge, and again about it being closed during the holidays and how cold it would be out there.  He just looked out the window....the kids knew where we were going and i was sooo proud of them for not spilling the beans!!!  We parked and began walking over to the water and the boats.  We found where we were supposed to board and Ed was just looking at the boat that said Alcatraz Tours and said, "I think they are open..."  I said, "They are!  Merry Christmas Baby!  Our boat leaves in an hour!!!"  He was sooo happy and the kids were all full of giggles!  Sooo, Ed finally got to go to Alcatraz!  I think it was everything he thought it would be.....I am just sooo glad i was finally able to do something on HIS bucket list since he is ALWAYS taking care of my bucket list....scuba certified, elephant riding in the jungles of Thailand, hiking The Great Wall of China, shark cage diving, visiting Guam where my Mom lived as a military brat, family vacation to Hawaii, The Grand Hotel, my famous ferris wheel addiction, family tandem bike riding...the list goes on, maybe i will blog about my bucket list someday....but anyways, 16 years worth of him making my simple and not so simple dreams come true....sooo glad i could take care of one of his, especially since his job is waaaaay more dangerous than mine!!!  We had a great day on Alcatraz!  The audio tour is amazing as it it takes you through the prison and the grounds.  You have your own head set and so you can pause it if you want to stay longer on any given part of the tour.  Or, you can take one in a different language and test your skills!  Haha!  I am sure the tours with the Park Rangers are still just as good as they have always been, but it was nice with the audio tour on how you got all the sound effects to go along with all the stories and the different voices in the narration..it was a perfect day to visit Alcatraz and relive all the history on The Rock!



He didn't know until we walked up to our boat!



Home sweet home for the Michigan boy!



Playing a mock baseball game in the rec yard




The tourist picture...



Is this your first time behind bars? Um, dont answer that!



Ty reading about an escape attempt that happened at that very spot

Temple Lights

We were just about 40 minutes away from the Oakland Temple, so we zipped over there one evening to see the Christmas Lights, it was beautiful!

Camping on Mothers Day

I found pictures from our Mothers Day Camping Trip on my work computer!!  Not alot, but a few!!

Ed  and the kids took me camping for Mothers Day this year.  It was fun to just sit back while they loaded the truck and i just packed my own little bag.  (I did pay close attention and picked up some of the important things they were forgetting.....bug spray, stuff for smores, you know the stuff ya just can't forget camping!!!)  We got a great spot right on the water at New River!  Ed and the kids set up the tents while i just sat in the chair....i think Ed was a little purterbed that i was taking this "sit down and relax Mothers Day thing" just a little too far.....but i sat and listened to some grumbles about how he had never put up this tent before, blah blah blah.....yes, i am the only one that has ever put this tent up, pretty much by myself and i think Ed was really wondering how i had done that since the kids werent making it very easy for him.....I did finally get up and help as it was looking like he might just have us sleep in the back of the truck under the stars.....i guess he is only used to the Marine tents which are always missing parts and he gets to just improvise and make it stand up or something.....or maybe, just maaaaaaybeeeeeee he has been spoiled with Jr Marines always doing the work of setting up tents....that is just a speculation and probably wrong, but just a thought....tent was up, we went for a walk, had fun watching the fish jumping out of the water.  There was only one other camp site taken, so it was relatively quiet.  we had decided since it was Mothers Day Camping that it would be as simple as possible for me, the MOTHER!  Sooooo, Vicki went with me to get food from Wendy's drive thru!!!  PERFECT!!!  Burgers and i didn't have to prepare anything at home before we left or sweat to death grilling them!  WONDERFUL, except for the incompetant peeps working the drive thru.  I started to check our order to see if it was right but the girl at the drive thru was giving me the EVIL EYE, so i drove back to camp.  Vicki and i saw a HUGE deer as were turning into our camp ground.  We were having soo much fun on our drive back! She loves it when i do my silly voice and talk about crazy stuff.  Our stomaches were hurting from laughing soo hard by the time we got back to camp.  Yes, we were missing like 4 things and the things that were supposed to be plain were loaded and the stuff supposed to be loaded was plain, so Vixs and I drove back to ge the missing items and the wrong things fixed.....i asked for the manager when i got to the drive-thru.  I explained what happened showed her our reciept and she began fixing everything with many apoligies.  Things were still messed up but oh well, that is just society these days, dumb people too self absorbed to really do anything right.  But, there was enough that everyone was full and we had SMORES still to come!  We had a fabulous night, not too many bug bites, totally fun being in the tent with everyone as we crowded around the itty bitty DVD player and watched Beverly Hills Ninja's.  Ryan brought his BB Gun, he is soo funny.  He always has a weapon on him!  We convinced him that he should surrender the weapon to Dad and he could sleep without worries of an intruder!  Our tent was full of giggles and peaceful dreams as we drifted off to sleep.....it was a Fabulous Mothers Day Weekend!  Memories to treasure forever!



Vicki was awesome in getting everyone packed and ready to go!



Ryan, all excited and giving a sweet face for a change!



Our Campsite



Setting up the tent....



Frustration mounting....hee hee hee hee hee



Ty showing us his ninja balancing talents



Vicki watching, slightly amused....

What would they do without ME?!!!  Mwahahahahaha!!!



Again, why is there NOT a rotate button on here?!!!



Down by the water the next day, hoping to see NO alligators!!!



He loves me.....



They love me!!!



Ready to go!  I wish blogger would let you rotate pixs!  Oh well! lol  I got my bag packed and my favorite camping clothes on!  Ready to sit back and relax for the first time EVER on a cmaping trip as a Mom!