Sean Leaves for camp!

Another right of passage... Sean left this morning at 8:45 a 3 days at Mount Palomar. He earned his way there being part of his school's safety patrol. sorry this pictures is sideways I posted it to the blog from my cell phone.
~Chuck~

Let's catch up to date...

I'll start with the beginning of the year. The first big thing that happened was our trip to Disneyland. We tried this after my first westpac, but it just didn't work out that well. the kids had more fun in the hotel pool then at the park that year. Kristi and I were sure it would go allot better this time around.

The family in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle at
Disneyland

It was awesome this time. The kids wanted to ride the rides and see everything in both parks (Disneyland & California Adventure). Gabriella's favorite ride was Space Mountain, where they where playing a special version of the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Higher Ground through speakers in the seats, and Sean liked Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters ride, which was more like a video game than a ride. We stayed late at the park a few times to catch the night time shows like Fantasmic and the Block Party Bash parade. During the parade Gabriella got to become part of the show when she got out in front of everybody and danced with one of the green army men from Toy Story. All in all we spent 3 days there and decided to save the last day on our passes to come back in the fall and ride the Finding Nemo Submarine Adventure after it opens.

Then comes Little League Baseball season. This was were our whole family spent the majority of it's time... I'm on the board, managed one team (the Storm) and helped coach anther team (the Hooks). Kristi was the team mom of the Storm and helped out allot with the Hooks. Sean started out on the Storm but ended up being drafted up to a majors team, the Rockies. He ended up playing first base for most part, but got to play catcher a few games and pitch and inning in one game.

The Murphy Canyon Little League Rockies

So there are three separate practices a week and at least three games or more if there are inter-league games scheduled and time to help work the snack bar or work on the fields. Sean's team came so close to winning the second half of the season forcing a playoff for first place of the whole season. With the regular season over we rolled in to Allstars. Sean got voted on to the 9/10 year old team and I got voted in as a coach.

The MCLL Allstars from the Storm

Tanner, Sean, Jacqui, Coach Chuck

Allstars was great. We practiced Monday thru Friday for two weeks til the tournament. Our team looked really good on the field... but the other teams weren't slouches either. We got beat in both games that weekend. So now baseball is over till around October when winterball starts.

for the last month now Kristi has been working at Target and when she has time off on the weekends we have been going to the pool or the beach.

Kristi and Gabriella ride a wave all the way in on boogie boards at
Torrey Pines State Reserve beach in La Jolla.

This past weekend we spent most of Sunday at the beach in La Jolla even though 15 minutes after we got on the sand I broke my one of my toes running into our cooler... So what does the navy give you for a broken toe? Some Motrin and a roll of medical tape.

~Chuck~

Someplace to start...

It's been just over four years since we packed up the red mini van and left my duty station in Bangor, Maine for duty on a ship in San Diego, California.

So much has happened in that time. It's hard to let everyone back home know whats going on in our lives out here. There are the phone calls and an email here and there, but in close to five years we've only come home once.

So I figured this blog has to be the best way to show family and friends what's going on in our lives... Stay tuned, because I'm going to post some pictures from last few months and work forward from there.

~Chuck~