The Free World...

Can Uncle Chuck Dunk?

No, but Robert Thurman, forward with Cal Bears can...doesn't he look like Uncle Chuck, though? says Ethan.

Mashup of Top 2012 Songs

Here's a mashup of the top 50 pop songs of 2012, many of which Ryan likes to sing.

Planes! Planes! Boss, planes!!!!

The day after Thanksgiving at San Diego International Airport.

That Was Awesome!

That was the phrase of the trip. Or was it, "That was cool!"  These were the two most common phrases during our recent trip to The Happiest Place on Earth.  The new attraction was Cars Land and the remodeled entrance to the California Adventure theme park.  Gone are the giant letters spelling out C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A. Gone too is the Golden Gate Bridge near the entrance to the park. In its place are stores and eateries.

We posted a clip of one of our rides on the Radiator Springs Racers earlier so I won't go into much details now.  Besides the racers, Cars Land has two other rides: Luigi's Flying Tires (apparently this ride included giant beach balls originally, but there were no beach balls for our ride) and Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.  Both very tame, easy going rides which we checked out once each.

In Hollywood Land, parts of our group checked out Muppet Vision 3D (which has a show running called "Prep and Landing" during the holidays with the Muppets on vacation), Monster's Inc. and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

In "a bug's land," the boys chaperoned by Cousin Bill flew on Flik's Flyers and bumped around on Francis' Ladybug Boogie.

On Paradise Pier, a couple of us screamed on California Screamin' at the end of the day when the wait time was down under 20 minutes.  Mickey's Fun Wheel has stationary cars and cars that swing back and forth.  Let's just say that we went the more adventuresome route and some of us rode on what is about an 8-minute ferris wheel ride with eyes mostly closed.  The rest of took in the sights as we swayed back and forth.  The longest line that we endured during our whole trip was the 75-minute wait for the Toy Story Midway Mania on Paradise Pier.  The final ride in this area that we rode as a group was Ariel's Undersea Adventure.

In Condor Flats, we soared on Soarin' Over California, a family favorite that includes sights of the Bay Area.

The last event in California Adventure for us was the World of Color show that includes Disney characters projected onto water spouts and sprays over the Paradise Pier waterfront.

In Disneyland, one of our favorites turned out to be the remodeled Star Tours.  According to Cousin Bill, this ride has something like 54 possible journey from the 11 random segments of the story.  We went on the ride three times and each ride was slightly different from the next. Cousin Bill and Auntie Susan went on their own once and repeated a journey so it's possible that one could experience the same journey more than once in one visit to the park.

In Adventureland, we went on the Jungle Cruise, climbed Tarzan's Treehouse and sat through a show at the Enchanted Tiki Room.  One of the highlights was the Dole Pineapple Whip before the show at the Tiki Room. 

In Critter Country, some of us who were splash-worthy rode on Splash Mountain.  Ryan wanted to be at the front of the ride so he could sort of get wet, although he made sure to cover his cast with his rain coat.   Those us who were less splash-worthy rode on the dryer, gentler The Many Adventures of Winnie of Pooh and got a workout on Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes.

In New Orleans Square, the main attraction for us was the Pirates of the Caribbean which passes by the indoor Blue Bayou Restaurant, where we had a later reservation under Ryan's name.  Kimmie was the only one willing to try out the restaurant's famous Monte Cristo sandwich, which is a deep fried sandwich.  Cousin Bill and Auntie Susan survived the Haunted Mansion holiday edition on their own at the end of one day.

Frontierland kept us busy with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (more than once) and the Sailing Ship Columbia. 

As the kids have gotten older, Fantasyland has grown to be a less popular part of the park.  However, "it's a small world" is still a favorite that we made it to once this time.  The Matterhorn does not have a FASTPASS option so lines were still quite long allowing us to make it through this ride once.  The only other rides in this area that we took part in were Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan's Flight and Storybook Land Canal Boats. Quite a change from past years, where we would spend a considerable part of our time just in Fantasyland.

We didn't even make it to Mickey's Toontown.

We probably spent the most time in Tomrrowland because of Star Tours and Space Mountain.  Other attractions in this area that we visited were Autopia and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

One of the last activities for us was Fantasmic which apparently is now 20 years old.  Due to Cousin Kimmie's excellent knowledge of the park, we got spots for Fantasmic that were basically right at the railing straight in front of the show's stage.  The kids were amazed and had a great time.

I think we're ready now to move up to Disney World next time.

 

Cars Land Racers

Here we are on the new Cars Land racers at Disneyland.  The attraction actually has two variations.  There's one route that goes through the paint shop and another one that goes through the tire shop (so we hear).  We were able to go on the ride twice and both times it was through the paint shop.  Others in our party were lucky enough to experience both variations.  It just depends on which car you get.  The cars seat six people at a time.  If you're able to, definitely get FastPasses for this ride.  The options are to go late in the evening near closing time when the wait time might be down to under 30 minutes or go on as a single rider (which means that you get in the line for single riders and opt to get into what ever car has empty seats).

2012 Basketball Season Opens Ceremoniously

The Cal men's basketball season opened with a little bit of pomp and circumstance being that it was Veterans' Day weekend. The Bears won fairly easily, but the highlight was the gigantic flag that was unfurled for the usual singing of the Star Spangled Banner.
 

Coyotes Soccer with Mt. Diablo AYSO U10

Ryan just completed his soccer season. His scocer skills improved and he even scored his first goal ever. He played in the Mt. Diablo AYSO Under 10 Boys Division. This is the first time he's played competitively where the teams had goalies.
 

Three Hits on One Swing!

Have you ever seen a ball hit the bat three times on one swing?  This happened in Game 7 of the NLCS with Hunter Pence of the Giants batting.  Maybe it was the multiple hits that caused the ball to have a strange spin on the ball, but the ball that was hit right at the short stop took a strange hop past the infielder and into the outfield for a double that drove in 3 runs.

Darth "Ryan" Vader Dances!

Ryan in his Halloween costume for this year dancing to a tune from One Direction. He wanted us to record this.

Just Dance 4

Late night talk show host Conan O'Brien reviews the latest video game offering from the "Just Dance" series with Alex Morgan, soccer gold medalist and former Cal Bear.

Naomi's Art 2011-12

Final Flight of Space Shuttle

It was fitting that the final shuttle flight was completed on the last day of summer.  It was also fitting that the flight that left from Edwards Air Force Base was delayed by an hour to make sure that the fog would have lifted by the time the shuttle passed by the Golden Gate Bridge.  Isn't a photo-op flight in the Bay Area not complete if it didn't include the Golden Gate Bridge?

One Direction

Do You Drop Zone?

Naomi tried out the Drop Zone at Great America recently with her cousin Kimberly.  Actually, they went on the ride (I guess it's a ride) twice. Here's one of the drops.
 

Getting Ready for Cal Basketball

Maybe this will help you Cal Bears fans forget about the awful football loss yesterday at Cal's return to Memorial Stadium...maybe not. Or for others like me, this should help you get ready for the upcoming basketball season.

This was probably one of the top two or three games that John and I ever attended in our 18 seasons or so of attending Cal basketball together, especially so because the comeback was against Stanford. The best part was that the comeback took the entire game to accomplish, which lengthened the suspense even more. Imagine a good novel with the reveal at the very end. Once the comeback started, it wasn't a certainty that the Bears would make it all the way back. It was not like Stanford played poorly. They were just in a boat with a slow leak.

Ryan's Road Trip - Part II

Ryan continues his tour of the San Diego area. The latest information from yesterday is:

Old Town SD today after visit to first CA Mission in SD. Pool for hours, finally off to Legoland tomorrow.

Below is a picture of Ryan with his friend Brooks and Brooks' siblings.

Call Me Maybe?

At the A's game this weekend, Jimmy Fallon appeared on the Diamond Vision screen at the Coliseum with a singer that looked familiar. Then the song started and was instantly recognizable to me because my kids have been singing to this song all summer.

The crowd was over 30,000 which is a lot for an A's game so it was quite the sight to see all the people bopping to the song. I noticed that they were doing some sort of hand motion to the song but it was not what was happening on the video with Jimmy Fallon. Now I know the rest of the story.

Ryan's Road Trip - Part I

Ryan is on his road trip to Legoland and the San Diego area with his buddy Brooks and Brooks' family. This is suppose to be a birthday present for Brooks, but Ryan seems to be getting a good deal out of this too. Brooks is Ryan's friend from preschool. Although we don't live near each other, somehow the two of them have been able to maintain a good friendship that has resulted in Brooks' request to have Ryan join them on their family trip.

The trip included some creative scheduling as Brooks' older brother was in a soccer tournament in Sacramento which meant that they would be traveling north to go south. They had contingencies for their travel south depending on the results of the tournament. We have not heard about this, but we do know that they are approximately in the intended destination. We received the following text messages and photo from Brooks' mom.

Monday morning: On the grapevine. Kids doing great!

Monday during the day: Hi mom! Went swimming, shopping at wharf, eating Mexican now. Built B's presents and loving it! Drove by Legoland and cried, "we want to go now!"



Monday evening reply to Ryan: Hope ya'll had a relaxing day today after that drive.  Give Ryan a big hug for us and tell him we love him : )

Monday evening reply back: He says I love you too....I haven't forgotten about you yet dad.

Flight to Columbia

The last week of school Ethan had quite the treat. It was a delayed birthday gift of flight. A good friend of his, Ben, has a father who is a pilot and has his own plane. Ethan's birthday gift was a voucher for a plane ride. So on June 10, Ethan was able to collect this most unique gift.

The original flight plan was to fly to Willows in northern California with the goal being a game of helipad baseball. This was game that Ben and his family had invented while on one of these day flight excursions. However, the weather gods were not in a cooperative mood and travel plans were changed to Columbia, a small former gold rush town in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

On the flight over to Columbia, Ethan was given the chance to pilot the plane. What a treat indeed!