It's been a while since our last post.

Right now the big topic around here has to be the fires burning through out San Diego County. Thankfully the fires are not threatening us in the Tierrasanta area. The Ceder Fire of 2003 was nothing compared to the fires going right now... the Witch Creek Fire, Harris Fire, Rice Canyon Fire, and the Mt Miguel Fire. NBC 7/39 here in San Diego has dubbed this as FIRESTORM 2007. Over 300,000 people have been evacuated from there homes, ending up in evacuation sites like local high schools and Qualcomm Stadium right down the road from my house. Here is probably the most popular picture on the Internet right now... the satellite photo of the fires from yesterday.


Saturday, before all the hubbub started we spent the day up in Anaheim at Disneyland. We still had one day left on our passes from January, so Kristi figured this would be the day to use it. We were there from just after the park opened till around 10:30 pm. You can tell it's Halloween Time at Disneyland...

We got some really good pictures that day. These are the pumpkin characters on top of the entrance gates to the park.

Gabriella had to drag us on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party! Sean HATES any kind of ride that spins so he sat outside the fence and took a picture and this video...



Ya know I can ride just about any ride... roller coasters, log rides, those towers that take you like 200 feet up then drop you. I'll ride anything, but I know why Sean hates spinning rides. They just give me a headache.

Sean wanted to go over to Tom Sawyer's Island so we boarded the raft and found out that the island has been transformed in to a pirate hideout. Sean's sitting on a barrel of Dynamite munching an apple.

The kids got to see Captain Jack Sparrow over there. Kristi said this guy was so good she almost thought it was Johnny Depp.


On the way over to check the lines on the Indiana Jones ride we stopped to watch the show in New Orleans Square. Gabriella always gets picked out of the crowd for things like this, everyone knows how outgoing this girl is!

Kristi used a program called ridemax to plan our trip (January's and this one) and a hint she got for this trip was a good spot to catch the afternoon parade. We were front row and the other side of the street was the fence around the Matterhorn, so the whole parade was focused on us.

The last ride we did for the day was the new Finding Nemo Submarine Adventure. The original Submarine Adventure ride stopped running a few years back and Disneyworld went and filled in their lagoon with cement. Last year while we were here we saw the fence with the signs saying they were bringing back the subs and adding a Finding Nemo theme. We talked about saving a day on our passes and coming back to ride it a few months after it opened... Umm yeah right. Kristi put this one in the ridemax program and it said there was an average wait time of over 2 hours, but we decided to check the line right after the parade ended because we were close. The line looked a lot shorter than earlier so we jumped in. We got through the line in an hour and 15 minutes.

While we waited in line a Disney Cast Member handed out activity cards with puzzles and trivia questions about the ride. It said there are little Nemo's hidden around the area... i found a couple carved into a rock. Sean found one in the lagoon under the water. Some of the plants and rocks had been arranged to look like Nemo.

Here are the submarines... i remember the first time I went to Disneyland the subs were gray to look like navy subs. then the next time I came here back in '92 they had been changed to yellow. Pretty much from what I remember not much changed except for when you enter the grotto under the waterfall. Inside there they found a way to do holograms under water from the movie Finding Nemo... Kind of like the hologram ghosts in the haunted mansion.

Well that's all for now. I'll try to post some Pictures from Baseball here really soon. Sean's playing in the winter league here mostly playing catcher.

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~