Most of the local Ladd clan made it to Grandma’s 92nd birthday dinner and party. I heard that the final count was 27 family members! My sister Courtney and her daughter made it down from Portland and our family came up from San Diego. Hopefully we will get to celebrate many more birthdays for our family’s matriarch.
We were hoping to see our favorite Dodger players crush the Padres. Unfortunately for us, the Dodgers clenched their postseason spot the game before the one we attended. So, instead of seeing our Dodgers we saw the 4th string guys trying to remember how to play baseball. At least there was a nice fireworks show at the end of the game.
We took the boys to explore the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier. It was impressively large. Luckily, we didn’t loose any of them inside of it.
The boys liked sitting inside of the various aircraft the best. I loved seeing the old UNIVAC computer and core memory… because I’m a geek.
Most of all, the trip made me think of my Grandpa Ladd, who was a Seabee in World War II and would have loved to see the Midway.
My father-in-law Eddie wanted to take all his grandkids to Knott’s Berry Farm to celebrate his birthday. Most of the Loera clan was able to make it.
Gavin and Connor earned us all free tickets into the San Diego Air and Space Museum though our local library’s reading program. So, we decided to check it out.
I didn’t have a good lens to get many pictures (everything was too large to get in frame), but we all had fun. The Transformer robot was for a special exhibit we didn’t pay to get into, but Connor needed a picture in front of his beloved robot. Connor also loved all the NASA spacecraft… future astronaut?
This Halloween Gavin dressed up as a pirate and Connor was Plex, the robot from Yo Gabba Gabba.
Gavin got to dress up at school with all his friends. His kindergarten teacher looked like she was having a good time dressed up like a gorilla.
Connor is still wearing his robot costume many months later (as I write this). He really wants to be a robot some day.
We took the boys on their first trip to Disneyland. Unsurprisingly, it blew their minds and they had a blast. Connor even got to meet his favorite person in the world, Mickey Mouse.
Visiting California Adventures the day after you just spent 13 hours at Disneyland is exhausting. California Adventures was amazing though; along with the boys it was also my first time visiting.
Each ‘land’ really made you feel like you were in a completely different world. It was surreal being able to walk out of the Cars movie’s Radiator Springs and right into Cannery Row. From the desert to a beach boardwalk to the Sierra mountains, the park does a magical job recreating the experiences.
Gavin earned his white belt in karate through an after school program put on by his kindergarten teacher. He won’t be continuing on with karate, at least right now, but he had a blast in the program.
