Wheels Off......

Yes it's official. Our little girl has gone training wheel free. Saturday evening she was riding her bike with her training wheels on and they were so bent and wobbly that she was completely frustrated with them. Maybe that was a good thing after all. She was complaining to me about the training wheels so I casually said...well maybe we should just take them off. That was all she needed to hear. She said yeah...let's take them off. So Sunday afternoon without my knowledge, Kayla convinced Nathan to take the training wheels off. I was in the house and the next thing I knew Nathan was handing me the training wheels. So outside we went to begin the process.

Nathan was such a great big brother. He really helped Kayla with learning how to ride her bike. After about 4 or 5 attempts on my part to be "helpful", Kayla made it known that she prefered Nathan to help her. So the two of them spent about 40 minutes practicing and practicing. I couldn't believe how fast Kayla got the hang of it. I'm so proud of them both. Nathan is such a sweet kid. He gave her so much encouragement and cheered for her every time she did well. It was a really neat opportunity to see them two of them work so great together. She still prefers Nathan to help her get started. She says that I don't do it right. I can handle that.

San Diego Maritime Museum

We took another day and went to the San Diego Maritime Museum. We actually an advertisement on the TV on day talking about the US Dolphin Submarine. I've always wanted to see a sub, so we thought this was our chance. It was really neat. A lot, lot smaller than I expected. Of course the US Dolphin was a research sub, so maybe that has something to do with it.




This sub is the Russian Foxtrot B-39. It was a lot longer and quite a bit bigger than the Dolphin.


This is Robert inside the US Dolphin. This really is what it looks like. There is nothing on either side of the picture that you're missing, well except the hull. It's only wide enough for one person to walk at a time.

The boys at the periscope inside the Dolphin. I'm not sure what I expected, but it was nice to actually see for ourselves what it's like. It was really interesting. Even the kids thought so.

Kayla's driving this sub....we're all in a lot of trouble. Can you imagine? There was only room enough for one person to squeen themselves into this hole where they steer the sub. Talk about being claustraphobic. Not for me. No thanks....I like land.

Then of course there were lots and lots of other ships to tour. There was the Star on India, Berkeley, Medea, Californian, HMS Surprise, Pilot and the then 2 subs.

Of course we went to Sea World :)

Just when we thought we had all had enough of walking and walking then we headed off to Sea World. We hadn't been there since Kayla was just about 3. She didn't remember it at all, so this trip was really for her. The crowds at Sea World were so much better. We all enjoyed the shows and had a great time. It was a lot of fun trying to get SHAMU to take a picture with the kids. I don't even know how many times we snapped the camera trying to get it just right.

Kyle and Nathan are in the front with Robert and Kayla in the next seat. You can just barely make out Kayla's head in the pink rain poncho.

I don't know if you can see Kyle's face, but it's priceless. Kayla is by far our Roller Coast QUEEN. She loves them all.

Taking advantage of every moment

Yes....we took advantage of every possible moment of Fall Break. The kids got out of school at 12:30 on Friday and we were out of here by 1:30 on our way to Disneyland. We decided to start this time at Disneyland and work our way down to San Diego. We arrived at Disneyland on Friday evening and got a good night sleep so we could hit Disneyland first thing Saturday morning. It was a bit crowded though...we weren't thinking of it being the weekend and then a holiday weekend on top of it. Oh well....we just joined in with everyone else. It really helped that we had been there 2 years ago and learned how the "fast pass" system worked. So this time we were really on top of things. In fact the 2nd day we hit the jackpot. For some reason when we went through the gates at California Adventure the computer system didn't scan our tickets correctly. We didn't know that though until we went to get out first set of fast passes. The dispenser gave us voided tickets and said that our park tickets hadn't been scanned into the system. So we went up to customer service and explained the problem. They were puzzeled why the tickets hadn't scanned, but gave us an all day fast pass card for each of us. So that was 5 all day fast passes. At lunch we left the park and went to get something to eat. When we returned to the park we scanned our park tickets again. Then when we went to get fast passes, we could actually get 10 at a time. JACKPOT. That made it so much fun for the older boys and Robert to ride California Screamin' over and over and over and over again. They rode that thing like 10 times between the 2 days we spent in California Adventure. So Kayla and I spent a lot of time on the Merry go round. That's all I can handle, I'm a wimp. Oh well....



















On Monday we left Disneyland around 3:00 in the afternoon and went to get something to eat and then we headed to Oceanside where our condo was. About 1/2 way to Oceanside I turned around to check on the kidos and this is what I found. Robert and I laughed and laughed. The boys were zonked out and Kayla was just bright eyed watching Little Mermaid. She didn't sleep at all. I guess we can see who is the strongest in our family.

I couldn't resist. I had to take pictures of them.