A quick trip to Los Angeles, CA

I had a quick trip to LA on Monday and flew back on Friday. Not a great trip, but thought I would post a few images. On the flight out to LA, I sat in the last row on a smaller regional jet and had a nice view of the engine for 4.5 hours. Another advantage of sitting next to the engine is the constant loud roar drowning out the noise of any unruly babies. I am not sure if there were any babies on my flight, but if there had been...

I stayed at the Westin hotel next to LAX airport. I was really fascinated by the variety and volume of aircraft flying in and out all day and night long. By the second night, I hardly heard the jets taking off at 2 am anymore. I think if I had been there another week, I would have been able to identify most types of planes by the roar of their engines. Here's a image showing my room with a view of LAX.


A constant stream of jets could be seen all day (and night) long. Where are all these people going?


A few more images of the jets.



There is a park near the hotel where you can get a better vantage point. Also, the park is conveniently located next to a "In and Out " restaurant where you can get a great greasy burger to eat while watching the planes land.

OK, enough planes. I managed to get to Dodger stadium and watch LA crush the NY Mets. It is a pretty nice stadium and the weather in LA was just about perfect, low 60's, no humidity and a pleasant cool breeze off the pacific. In the early part of the game, the stadium is mostly empty as the fans are probably caught up in the infamous LA traffic.


A beautiful sunset at Dodger stadium.




I also took a quick tour of Venice beach, their canals and the pier at Santa Monica.



Also, there was no sign of Arnold Schwarzenegger or any other body builder at Venice's famed outdoor gym.


A nice sunset over the pacific. I did not see any Baywatch lifeguards though.

More lake pix

Norris Lake is loads of fun when the weather gets hot.

Nick contemplates the day


Sarah enjoys knee boarding. She is getting a bit braver and seems to really like it now.



Nick thought he would try walking on water.

He was not successful.



Of course, jumping off the roof is always fun too. Say cheese on your way down for me, would ya?




As the sun goes down, the boat returns to harbor and everyone looks exhausted, even the captain. Another beautiful sunset on the lake.

Some more kid pix - May/June 2007

Here are some recent pix of the Sarah. I've been busy taking pictures and have not been very good about posting.

We all went to Dollywood last week and since Sarah and I enjoy the same rides, we walked around together and she agreed to pose for a few images for me in exchange for playing a couple of the carnival games. I thought it was a pretty fair deal.

Well, we had a deal, so she got to play a few carnival games and "won" the green bear. She had a new best friend and the three of us had a blast playing around. One of the highlights was catching 12 baby bull frogs. Seems one of the scenic ponds at Dollywood has a momma bull frog and she had about 15,000 babies. Literally. They were about a 1/8" long and many were being stepped on and killed by people walking by who did not even see them. Well, Sarah did and we took a dozen home. We ended up keeping them overnight and then releasing them in a nearby stream the next day. All in all, a good day.

Weekend at Norris Lake

The kids got out of school on Friday, May 25 and have been at the lake nearly every day since. Yvonne took them to lake on Friday while I was at work and then we spent most of the day there Saturday and Sunday. Surprisingly, the water temp was pretty good. We've had a few cool nights, so I was expecting much colder water. It was definitely comfortable enough for swimming.

Yvonne's sister Betty and her family have a nice ski boat and the kids had a ball wakeboarding and tubing behind it. When we weren't on that boat, we were hanging out at the houseboat and I still feel like I am rocking with the waves as I sit at my desk and type

Anyway, on to a few images from the weekend.


Nick learned how to wake board on Saturday. He was a pretty quick learner, but was initially pretty cautious and did not want to go across the boat's wake. By Sunday though, he was getting braver.

Sarah watched Nick wake board on Saturday and had no interest. By Sunday, though, she knew she could do it and she did. She got up her first time and did great. She is a toughie.

And then we did some "hotdogging" on a large hotdog tube. Sarah gave it a try on Saturday, but the bigger kids like to go fast and Sarah was not so keen about that. I've got to agree with her. After about 20 minutes of shooting images out of the back of the boat and try to stay focused on the riders, I needed to head back to solid ground to give my stomach a rest. You can see in the first image below, Sarah is not too excited about the ride.




And finally, while I was on shore resting my stomach, I made a few new friends. These guys pretty much wandered right up to me and camped out for a while.

And, thanks to all of our Vets out there for serving on this beautiful Memorial Day weekend.

Sarah loses two teeth in two days

I said I would post some pictures of Sarah's missing teeth and here they are. We got to her game a few minutes early tonight and she was nice enough to model for me until her teammates showed up.
One action shot. It's been dry here, so she scoops dirt and ball at the same time. Oh well, she made a nice throw to 1st base on the play and got the batter out. Not exactly a routine play in this league.

Weekend Fun - May 19 and 20, 2007

We had a nice weekend. It was very pleasant and we played outdoors most of the weekend. Sarah had a game Friday night and she had fun and played well. Her team won again. On Saturday and Sunday, we did not have any sports games, so we mostly played around the house.

The big news is that Sarah lost her first two teeth (bottom middle teeth) and somewhat surprisingly, I don't have any pix of the big event. I'll upload some soon though. They pretty much fell out as her adult teeth were coming in and pushing out the baby teeth. She lost one Saturday night and second on Sunday morning. She did well with the tooth fairy.

On Saturday, Nick had a short practice and then we all went to an exotic animal farm / petting zoo. One of the highlights was a 17 foot Burmese Python that weighed as much as me. Well, OK, almost as much as me. No, we did not pet that thing.

Nick is not the animal lover Sarah is, but then who is. Here Nick reluctantly feeds a small, but ornery goat.

Sarah does love animals. Here she found a baby goat that could not outrun her.

I coaxed Yvonne into kissing camel.

On the other hand, Nick wanted no part in Camel kissing. Even when the camel was cool with the idea.

I got a bit too close to the ostrich. He (or she) was a bit peckish.

Another view.


Sarah still wants a puppy and this place had two puppies, but they were already sold. I told Sarah she could ask the owner if they were for sale and she very politely asked him if the puppies "were available?" She was disappointed to learn they were already sold, but somewhat heartened to hear that the dog wearing her hat is pregnant and due in two weeks and we could put our name on the waiting list.

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - Mother's Day

It's been hot around here so we've been trying our best to stay cool and stay outside. Here are some fun photos.

Yvonne cools off Cadbury, who returns the favor.

Nick sits by and cooly watches all the action around him. The new buzz cut and popsicle are helping.


Okay, so you are asking yourself. What is that child doing. Surely it's not Halloween yet.

Quite simple really. She is using the mask and racket as protection from the water. I can't say she had much success as she still got drenched.

Oh, Happy mother's day to all you moms and soon to be moms out there.

Oh, I just realized that when I upload high resolution images, you can click on the embedded images and see them much larger and more clearly. Give it a try.