Ladd Photos

The Twisted Colossus was an insane rush!

We rung in the New Year freezing in the rain at Knott’s Berry Farm. It didn’t rain too much while the sun was up, and the park was very empty, so we got to ride on lots of rides. Our friends Jeanette and Niko joined us for part of the day.

Luckily, it was warm and dry inside where we watched two shows, first Snoppy On Ice and later a funny comedian magician named Chipper Lowell.

The rain was coming down hard for the last few hours before midnight, but the awesome fireworks show made it worth it.

Supposedly, the Whaley House is the most haunted home in America. I didn’t see any ghosts, but the boys swear they felt the little girl who haunts the place grab at their legs.

My niece turned 14 and we celebrated with lots of food and piñatas. The party was 80’s themed, but I’m too young to remember the 80’s.

I’m not so sure it is ice skating when you are just sliding on very hard plastic, but it was just as tough to do as I imagine ice would be. The skates were real, and it certainly didn’t seem like the easiest form of locomotion.

Just wandering around our beautiful city.

The space shuttle Endeavour was super cool to see and was much larger than I expected. There was a lot more to this museum, covering space history, science of various ecosystems, biology, and even fire safety. And, the boys and I lifted a full-sized truck. This museum is definitely worth the trip up to LA.

A few shots from Gavin’s first Winter Ball game, which is off-season practice for the regular Spring season. He pitched his first ever high school inning, and couldn’t have done better. He faced 3 batters and struck them all out looking. I didn’t get any pictures of him actually facing batters, because I didn’t want to distract him. Great job Bub!

Out enjoying a day of sunshine during a week of rain.

We spent a nice afternoon exploring the new Above and Beyond exhibit at the Air & Space Museum. The boys learned to fly like birds and design their own jets to race.

This winter has been a wild one! We found snow to play in at the Santa Ysabel Open Space, about 30 miles up into the mountains east of our neighborhood. The boys had fun building a snowman.

Both Connor and Gavin had their first games of the season today. Unfortunately, they overlapped, so we had to split who watched which game. Connor is on the Padres this year in Little League and Gavin is on the Del Norte Nighthawks freshman team.

In the morning, Gavin had a game in Encinitas, in which he threw 3 scoreless innings. His team, the Del Norte Nighthawks, won with a score of 8 to 2.

In the afternoon, it was Connor’s turn to take the field. He did well playing 3rd base and left field, and the Padres won 7 to 2.

We decided to give Gavin his birthday present nearly 3 weeks early, so he could use it in his upcoming games.

During the construction of the giant Diamond Valley reservoir in Hemet, archaeologists excavated the area before it was covered by water. We spent he day at the Western Science Center, which was created to display resulting ice age fossils and native artifacts.