Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sadness Part 6
My father in law had moved in with us a few weeks ago. After being with us for about a week, he passed away suddenly due to pneumonia on the 18th of November. His funeral is on the 25th.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
How You Doin'?
It's been a while, so I thought I would give an update on what's been happening in our lives.
I have been able to take advantage of some time between clients to work on what my company calls "The Bench." This is time when I get to learn new technologies and skills to make myself more marketable while my company both pays my salary and tries to get me lined up with another client as soon as possible. I hear from my management that it's likely that I'll be on the bench through the end of the year, and after that, lots of clients will have new budgets and no more holiday slowdowns to deal with, and engagements should pick up again. It's been nice to be able to learn new things while also not having a lot of deadlines to deal with because my family has been having other issues to deal with. It's also been nice because I have been able to take some more time to learn from some investing classes, one that I bought about two years ago and have been slowly working on, and another from the same company that they asked me to beta test for them in exchange for free access to the class. I feel bad that I haven't taken better advantage of the opportunities to learn that I've had over the past few years, so I've been working harder to take advantage of these opportunities now.
My wife has been dealing with her online business, www.ctr-ring.com, taking care of our four kids with special needs, helping her father deal with his medical and work issues, and dealing with her own health problems. She has been dealing with a chronic sinus infection, along with other general aches and pains. She may need to have surgery at some point to straighten a deviated septum, but we've had so many medical bills this year that she is trying to postpone that for now. She is a real trooper to put up with all of the things going on, but I can tell that it exhausts her.
Her father is unable to pay his rent on the disability income he is getting from his employer right now, so he is going to work on getting loose ends tied up where he is and move in with us in the next month or so. We will charge him less rent and help with food and utilities expenses while he works on getting his pain management and disability issues ironed out. The hope is that he can be settled down and into a new job based on the amount of social security disability income he can get in 3 to 4 months.
My oldest son has had emotional ups and downs as we deal with new medicines, a new school year, and new routines. We've switched off from one of his two new medicines as it seemed to make him more anxious rather than less, and we've put him back onto his old medicine for the time being. The other new medicine continues to appear to be working well for him. He is trying to learn how to deal with the way the Aspergers causes him to interpret the things that are happening in his life, and that can be a stress for him and us. Overall, though, he seems to be much more like his old, wonderful self, with far less inclination to carry thoughts to extremes.
My second son has had emotional ups and downs as we deal with my older son, a new school year, and new routines. He sometimes seems to have middle child syndrome, where he feels that he is being overlooked since so many other things require so much of our attention. He loves to go on dates with us, but he also likes to try to avoid doing his chores and other responsibilities in order to earn those dates and other rewards. He is a good worker when he puts his mind to the task, though. He recently got to move to the basement along with his baby brother, and he seems to be enjoying being the one "in control" of the room, except when he has to clean it. He continues to do very well in school and being the charmer in his classes.
My daughter has been getting several evaluations recently to see if she has Asperger Syndrome, now that we know what it looks like. All indications so far point to her having it. She scored higher in the academic testing than any other child her age that this doctor had ever tested, and she scored pretty low in the social skills testing, which is very typical of Aspergers. We don't think that she has the Tourette Syndrome that our oldest has, so at least it's a little bit easier in that regard. At this point, there doesn't appear to be any need for medications, but we continue to work toward getting an official diagnosis so that we can arrange other services for her help, especially once she starts school next fall. She loves to dance and be a princess, and she is usually quite helpful when she's not tired. She too loves to go on dates, especially when she can convince us to take her to McDonald's so she can play in the playground and eat ice cream.
My youngest son continues to have occasional bouts with asthma, though we are getting a little better at treating him before we have to end up in the ER for oxygen. The last time we went to the ER, his oxygen levels were low, but not quite low enough to keep him there for as long as we have had to in the past. He was given oxygen as a preventative measure while the medicines kicked in to open up his airways. He is learning to talk a lot more, though, as the youngest, he doesn't feel a lot of drive to learn everything right now. He says what he wants to say, and he just goes and does what he feels like he wants to do if he has to. He has learned to push chairs and other objects to where ever he needs to climb up on something, and we find him having obtained many items we had thought to be out of his reach. We also notice a slow decline in the amount of our silverware as he tends to throw away his fork or spoon after using them, especially if he was having something off a paper plate or bowl. He hates diaper changes and struggles to escape them, but he loves the attention when we play with him to distract him from the changing.
Overall, we are certainly faced with our fair share of struggles and trials, but it's our fair share and not more. We feel the Lord blessing us each day. On the worst days, we manage stay alive AND not kill each other. Most days are even better than that! *grin* In all honesty, as I read over what I've reported, I recognize that I have called out a lot of the hardships and fewer of the blessings, but I have to say that, thanks to the Lord and His gospel, we are a happy family. We are blessed with the strength to make it through these trials, to continue striving to do better each day, and to help those around us as we are able. I'm very thankful to have these blessings - they are the glue that keeps us together.
On that note, I share with you a picture of a pamphlet we received from a local Christian church that we do not belong to that made me laugh.
I have been able to take advantage of some time between clients to work on what my company calls "The Bench." This is time when I get to learn new technologies and skills to make myself more marketable while my company both pays my salary and tries to get me lined up with another client as soon as possible. I hear from my management that it's likely that I'll be on the bench through the end of the year, and after that, lots of clients will have new budgets and no more holiday slowdowns to deal with, and engagements should pick up again. It's been nice to be able to learn new things while also not having a lot of deadlines to deal with because my family has been having other issues to deal with. It's also been nice because I have been able to take some more time to learn from some investing classes, one that I bought about two years ago and have been slowly working on, and another from the same company that they asked me to beta test for them in exchange for free access to the class. I feel bad that I haven't taken better advantage of the opportunities to learn that I've had over the past few years, so I've been working harder to take advantage of these opportunities now.
My wife has been dealing with her online business, www.ctr-ring.com, taking care of our four kids with special needs, helping her father deal with his medical and work issues, and dealing with her own health problems. She has been dealing with a chronic sinus infection, along with other general aches and pains. She may need to have surgery at some point to straighten a deviated septum, but we've had so many medical bills this year that she is trying to postpone that for now. She is a real trooper to put up with all of the things going on, but I can tell that it exhausts her.
Her father is unable to pay his rent on the disability income he is getting from his employer right now, so he is going to work on getting loose ends tied up where he is and move in with us in the next month or so. We will charge him less rent and help with food and utilities expenses while he works on getting his pain management and disability issues ironed out. The hope is that he can be settled down and into a new job based on the amount of social security disability income he can get in 3 to 4 months.
My oldest son has had emotional ups and downs as we deal with new medicines, a new school year, and new routines. We've switched off from one of his two new medicines as it seemed to make him more anxious rather than less, and we've put him back onto his old medicine for the time being. The other new medicine continues to appear to be working well for him. He is trying to learn how to deal with the way the Aspergers causes him to interpret the things that are happening in his life, and that can be a stress for him and us. Overall, though, he seems to be much more like his old, wonderful self, with far less inclination to carry thoughts to extremes.
My second son has had emotional ups and downs as we deal with my older son, a new school year, and new routines. He sometimes seems to have middle child syndrome, where he feels that he is being overlooked since so many other things require so much of our attention. He loves to go on dates with us, but he also likes to try to avoid doing his chores and other responsibilities in order to earn those dates and other rewards. He is a good worker when he puts his mind to the task, though. He recently got to move to the basement along with his baby brother, and he seems to be enjoying being the one "in control" of the room, except when he has to clean it. He continues to do very well in school and being the charmer in his classes.
My daughter has been getting several evaluations recently to see if she has Asperger Syndrome, now that we know what it looks like. All indications so far point to her having it. She scored higher in the academic testing than any other child her age that this doctor had ever tested, and she scored pretty low in the social skills testing, which is very typical of Aspergers. We don't think that she has the Tourette Syndrome that our oldest has, so at least it's a little bit easier in that regard. At this point, there doesn't appear to be any need for medications, but we continue to work toward getting an official diagnosis so that we can arrange other services for her help, especially once she starts school next fall. She loves to dance and be a princess, and she is usually quite helpful when she's not tired. She too loves to go on dates, especially when she can convince us to take her to McDonald's so she can play in the playground and eat ice cream.
My youngest son continues to have occasional bouts with asthma, though we are getting a little better at treating him before we have to end up in the ER for oxygen. The last time we went to the ER, his oxygen levels were low, but not quite low enough to keep him there for as long as we have had to in the past. He was given oxygen as a preventative measure while the medicines kicked in to open up his airways. He is learning to talk a lot more, though, as the youngest, he doesn't feel a lot of drive to learn everything right now. He says what he wants to say, and he just goes and does what he feels like he wants to do if he has to. He has learned to push chairs and other objects to where ever he needs to climb up on something, and we find him having obtained many items we had thought to be out of his reach. We also notice a slow decline in the amount of our silverware as he tends to throw away his fork or spoon after using them, especially if he was having something off a paper plate or bowl. He hates diaper changes and struggles to escape them, but he loves the attention when we play with him to distract him from the changing.
Overall, we are certainly faced with our fair share of struggles and trials, but it's our fair share and not more. We feel the Lord blessing us each day. On the worst days, we manage stay alive AND not kill each other. Most days are even better than that! *grin* In all honesty, as I read over what I've reported, I recognize that I have called out a lot of the hardships and fewer of the blessings, but I have to say that, thanks to the Lord and His gospel, we are a happy family. We are blessed with the strength to make it through these trials, to continue striving to do better each day, and to help those around us as we are able. I'm very thankful to have these blessings - they are the glue that keeps us together.
On that note, I share with you a picture of a pamphlet we received from a local Christian church that we do not belong to that made me laugh.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Don't Panic Redux
You may remember a post from nearly a year ago, found here. In it, I explained how you can know for sure when the market is in an uptrend and when it is in a downtrend by watching what the 20 week moving average is doing compared to the 40 week moving average.
The 20 week moving average is very close to crossing from below to above the 40 week moving average now. I'll include some pictures below.
This picture shows a 2 year time frame. I've circled where the averages crossed at the end of 2007 to start the down trend and where we are now.
This picture is the last year of time (so the last half of the above picture), which makes it easier to see that the averages are close to crossing again.
Just wanted to point out that we might be changing the major trend.
The 20 week moving average is very close to crossing from below to above the 40 week moving average now. I'll include some pictures below.
This picture shows a 2 year time frame. I've circled where the averages crossed at the end of 2007 to start the down trend and where we are now.
This picture is the last year of time (so the last half of the above picture), which makes it easier to see that the averages are close to crossing again.
Just wanted to point out that we might be changing the major trend.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
A Long Month
It seems odd to realize that it's only been 31 days since this all started - it seems like a lot longer.
The best part is that my wife and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on the day this all started. We went to a wonderful dinner about an hour away from our home, and as we were paying the bill, we got a phone call that our oldest had been accused of starting a fire in an empty lot across the street. We hurried home and questioned him, and every indication we knew to look for indicated that he was not responsible. The next day, another fire was started in a neighbor's back yard. We again questioned our oldest, and every indication was that he was not involved, not to mention that he would have only had about a 10 minute window in which to do it about half an hour before the fire was reported. The next day there were no fires, but the day after, there was a fire in one of our flowerbeds and in another neighbor's bush. There now began to be indications that our oldest was lying to us, at least about the last two fires.
In an attempt to remain somewhat brief, I'll just mention that there was lots of discussion with various neighbors in which information came out that our oldest had been seen outside of our backyard when we thought he'd been in the back yard the whole time. In addition, the following morning, I double checked the safe where we kept the only fire-starting implements we had in the house to find that one of our lighters was missing.
While all of this was going on, my father in law was staying with us in preparation for a major neck surgery he was having. We hardly slept the night before I found the lighter missing due to worrying about father in law and son. While my wife was getting her father into surgery, I again questioned my son about the fires, and armed with the information that he had been seen outside of the backyard and that a lighter was missing, he confessed to starting all four fires. After many calls to the Fire Chief, my son's counselor, and many others, it was determined that the best thing for the time being was to have him admitted to an inpatient program at a neuro-psychiatric hospital. Some wonderful neighbors took our younger children so that I could spend the next 8 hours or so getting my son admitted while my wife was with her father at his surgery in a nearby hospital.
Again, in an attempt to be more brief, my oldest son was in the inpatient program for 5 days, while my father in law was in the hospital for 3.5 days. My father in law came back to our house to recover, and my son was moved from the inpatient program to a day program where I would drop him off by 8:30 every morning and pick him up by 4:00 every afternoon. My father in law remained with us for another week, and my son has been in the out patient program the past 3 weeks.
For those who haven't heard, my son had been previously diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. After his time at the hospital, his diagnosis has been updated to Asperger Syndrome primarily with a secondary diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome. The OCD seems to just be anxiety in connection with the Aspergers. He's been put on new medications and we've all been given counseling on understanding the way his mind works and how we can work with him. While we still have our struggles, things have been improving a lot as we move forward with the new meds and information.
This has put a lot of load on our family, and we are glad that things are starting to come to a close as far as the daily driving to the hospitals and counseling sessions. We hope that the extra effort we are having to put forth to best help our son, as well as the rest of our children, won't drive us crazy!
Through all of this, we have truly felt the hand of the Lord sustaining us through family, friends, neighbors, and employer that have all worked with us to allow us to accomplish the things that have needed to be done. We are grateful for that help and support, without which we could not have made it this far.
Lastly, I want to tell my wife how much I love and appreciate her. Even with a long month like this, I would rather go through it with her than an easy month without her. She is my best friend and greatest blessing, and that just grows more true each day.
The best part is that my wife and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on the day this all started. We went to a wonderful dinner about an hour away from our home, and as we were paying the bill, we got a phone call that our oldest had been accused of starting a fire in an empty lot across the street. We hurried home and questioned him, and every indication we knew to look for indicated that he was not responsible. The next day, another fire was started in a neighbor's back yard. We again questioned our oldest, and every indication was that he was not involved, not to mention that he would have only had about a 10 minute window in which to do it about half an hour before the fire was reported. The next day there were no fires, but the day after, there was a fire in one of our flowerbeds and in another neighbor's bush. There now began to be indications that our oldest was lying to us, at least about the last two fires.
In an attempt to remain somewhat brief, I'll just mention that there was lots of discussion with various neighbors in which information came out that our oldest had been seen outside of our backyard when we thought he'd been in the back yard the whole time. In addition, the following morning, I double checked the safe where we kept the only fire-starting implements we had in the house to find that one of our lighters was missing.
While all of this was going on, my father in law was staying with us in preparation for a major neck surgery he was having. We hardly slept the night before I found the lighter missing due to worrying about father in law and son. While my wife was getting her father into surgery, I again questioned my son about the fires, and armed with the information that he had been seen outside of the backyard and that a lighter was missing, he confessed to starting all four fires. After many calls to the Fire Chief, my son's counselor, and many others, it was determined that the best thing for the time being was to have him admitted to an inpatient program at a neuro-psychiatric hospital. Some wonderful neighbors took our younger children so that I could spend the next 8 hours or so getting my son admitted while my wife was with her father at his surgery in a nearby hospital.
Again, in an attempt to be more brief, my oldest son was in the inpatient program for 5 days, while my father in law was in the hospital for 3.5 days. My father in law came back to our house to recover, and my son was moved from the inpatient program to a day program where I would drop him off by 8:30 every morning and pick him up by 4:00 every afternoon. My father in law remained with us for another week, and my son has been in the out patient program the past 3 weeks.
For those who haven't heard, my son had been previously diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. After his time at the hospital, his diagnosis has been updated to Asperger Syndrome primarily with a secondary diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome. The OCD seems to just be anxiety in connection with the Aspergers. He's been put on new medications and we've all been given counseling on understanding the way his mind works and how we can work with him. While we still have our struggles, things have been improving a lot as we move forward with the new meds and information.
This has put a lot of load on our family, and we are glad that things are starting to come to a close as far as the daily driving to the hospitals and counseling sessions. We hope that the extra effort we are having to put forth to best help our son, as well as the rest of our children, won't drive us crazy!
Through all of this, we have truly felt the hand of the Lord sustaining us through family, friends, neighbors, and employer that have all worked with us to allow us to accomplish the things that have needed to be done. We are grateful for that help and support, without which we could not have made it this far.
Lastly, I want to tell my wife how much I love and appreciate her. Even with a long month like this, I would rather go through it with her than an easy month without her. She is my best friend and greatest blessing, and that just grows more true each day.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 7
We didn't take any pictures on our way back home, but that doesn't mean that we didn't have a good time!
We started off our Saturday by going for a swim one last time as a family. Once that was done, it was time to get cleaned up, packed up, eat breakfast, and checked out by noon. At 1:00 PM, we were finally leaving the resort. *grin* After stopping for some gas (silly Costco pump only filled us up to about 3/4 tank, though), we headed back toward Las Vegas. Since we had eaten so late and brought leftovers with us, we hoped to be able to make it to Las Vegas without stopping to eat. Since we had forgotten to enforce bathroom trips before leaving in our rush, we stopped after a few hours to truly top off the tank, get some snacks, and hit the bathrooms. It was only a 10 minute stop, though, so that was nice.
One exciting moment came as we were driving on a section of I-215 in the right hand lane, about 100 feet behind a jeep pulling a trailer that was just in front of a semi. Suddenly, the jeep and trailer started fishtailing back and forth, with each swerve getting larger and larger. The semi, ourselves, and all the traffic behind us started slowing down sharply as we watched the jeep eventually swerve off the left of the road into the median, continue to fishtail, and finally come to a stop completely perpendicular to the direction of travel, blocking both lanes of traffic. It quickly moved to the right shoulder so the driver could check his vehicles. He waved us on to show that he was okay. It was amazing that no one was hit by another vehicle and that everyone drove away safely.
The kids hardly noticed the excitement as they variously slept, watched movies on the laptop, read books, and snacked. We were able to travel to Las Vegas without any other excitement and arrive shortly before sun down. The kids were glad to see my wife's aunt, uncle, and their rabbit again.
That night we ate a lovely casserole, got the kids to bed, and looked up a place to go to church the next day. We also listened to the party going on at the Cuban restaurant right behind the house, with our room being the closest to it. We were tired enough that we fell asleep anyway, although my wife was struggling as she had been getting hit by allergies all day.
On Sunday, we tried to make my wife feel extra special for her birthday as we got up and ready to go to church. This time, we arrived at the normal meetings and were greeted quite warmly. In fact, when we told people where we were from, we were surprised at how many people were familiar with our little corner of the world - it seemed like nearly half the people we talked to knew the town we live in from having passed through at some point. The kids enjoyed making new friends in the Primary classes, and we enjoyed feeling the joys of our worship services.
We returned to the house for a pizza and birthday cake party that my wife's aunt had planned for her. We all had a nice time together, and many of us napped or watched a movie for a while afterward. We finished the day by being treated to my one of my wife's favorite meals, prime rib, which her aunt had asked me about several times in preparation for the day. We were all able to enjoy the benefits of her birthday, and if you really think about it, we do that every day. She is a wonderful woman, and I'm the luckiest man in the world to have her.
On Monday, we got away pretty early to allow my wife's aunt and uncle to get on the road for their own vacation. We had breakfast at IHOP as a last hurrah, and we again traveled safely with only one stop for gas and a bathroom break before arriving home a little after 4:00 PM. We did a little unpacking and had some dinner and just generally tried to relax to the fullest before the normal routine began again the next day.
Vacation. It was AWESOME!
We started off our Saturday by going for a swim one last time as a family. Once that was done, it was time to get cleaned up, packed up, eat breakfast, and checked out by noon. At 1:00 PM, we were finally leaving the resort. *grin* After stopping for some gas (silly Costco pump only filled us up to about 3/4 tank, though), we headed back toward Las Vegas. Since we had eaten so late and brought leftovers with us, we hoped to be able to make it to Las Vegas without stopping to eat. Since we had forgotten to enforce bathroom trips before leaving in our rush, we stopped after a few hours to truly top off the tank, get some snacks, and hit the bathrooms. It was only a 10 minute stop, though, so that was nice.
One exciting moment came as we were driving on a section of I-215 in the right hand lane, about 100 feet behind a jeep pulling a trailer that was just in front of a semi. Suddenly, the jeep and trailer started fishtailing back and forth, with each swerve getting larger and larger. The semi, ourselves, and all the traffic behind us started slowing down sharply as we watched the jeep eventually swerve off the left of the road into the median, continue to fishtail, and finally come to a stop completely perpendicular to the direction of travel, blocking both lanes of traffic. It quickly moved to the right shoulder so the driver could check his vehicles. He waved us on to show that he was okay. It was amazing that no one was hit by another vehicle and that everyone drove away safely.
The kids hardly noticed the excitement as they variously slept, watched movies on the laptop, read books, and snacked. We were able to travel to Las Vegas without any other excitement and arrive shortly before sun down. The kids were glad to see my wife's aunt, uncle, and their rabbit again.
That night we ate a lovely casserole, got the kids to bed, and looked up a place to go to church the next day. We also listened to the party going on at the Cuban restaurant right behind the house, with our room being the closest to it. We were tired enough that we fell asleep anyway, although my wife was struggling as she had been getting hit by allergies all day.
On Sunday, we tried to make my wife feel extra special for her birthday as we got up and ready to go to church. This time, we arrived at the normal meetings and were greeted quite warmly. In fact, when we told people where we were from, we were surprised at how many people were familiar with our little corner of the world - it seemed like nearly half the people we talked to knew the town we live in from having passed through at some point. The kids enjoyed making new friends in the Primary classes, and we enjoyed feeling the joys of our worship services.
We returned to the house for a pizza and birthday cake party that my wife's aunt had planned for her. We all had a nice time together, and many of us napped or watched a movie for a while afterward. We finished the day by being treated to my one of my wife's favorite meals, prime rib, which her aunt had asked me about several times in preparation for the day. We were all able to enjoy the benefits of her birthday, and if you really think about it, we do that every day. She is a wonderful woman, and I'm the luckiest man in the world to have her.
On Monday, we got away pretty early to allow my wife's aunt and uncle to get on the road for their own vacation. We had breakfast at IHOP as a last hurrah, and we again traveled safely with only one stop for gas and a bathroom break before arriving home a little after 4:00 PM. We did a little unpacking and had some dinner and just generally tried to relax to the fullest before the normal routine began again the next day.
Vacation. It was AWESOME!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 6
On Friday, we returned to Sea World as we had determined that it was the most exciting for us. We also had bought new batteries for the camera, so I'll jump right into the pictures.
When we first walked into the park, we saw this costumed polar bear taking pictures with tourists. Being tourists, we decided to get our picture taken with it too.
The polar bear was pretty playful!
After seeing the polar bear, we already knew that the first thing we wanted to do was go to see the Clydesdale horses (Anheuser Busch owns Sea World) on our way to the watery roller coaster ride "Journey to Atlantis." My oldest son had an upset stomach the previous time we were at Sea World, and so my second son and wife had gone then. My son could hardly stop talking about how awesome it was, and that it was his first time on a "grown up ride." He had the whole family excited to see it when we went back.
We had a pleasant time seeing the horses up close and learning a little bit about them. For instance, in order to be on one of the teams that gets to pull the famed Budweiser wagons, the horse has to be at least 6 ft tall at the shoulder (I think that's 15 to 16 hands in horse measurements), be a certain shade of tan or brown, and have a white stripe on its face and head. We also saw a comparison of a standard horse shoe to a Clydesdale horse shoe. A standard horse shoe is about 3 to 4 inches across. A Clydesdale horse shoe is about 12 to 14 inches across. They are roughly the size of frisbees, and even the oversized horse shoes I've used to play the tossing game of horse shoes are smaller, not to mention far lighter. It was fun to see.
After the horses, we made our way to "Journey to Atlantis." We had determined that I would go on the ride with the older boys while my wife, daughter, and youngest waited for us. As this was the Friday before Memorial Day, it was much busier than it had been on Tuesday. While enduring the nearly half hour wait in line, I noticed several signs saying that you had to be at least 42 inches tall to ride the roller coaster. I thought that my daughter was nearly that tall, so I had the boys go and get her. We put her against the sign, and it appeared that she was about 41.5 inches tall, which I thought would be good enough.
When we reached the boarding area, we saw a man who, judging by his baseball cap, is a fan of the University of New Mexico. He was arguing with the park employees about getting his little boy onto the ride. The employees brought out a yardstick to measure in addition to the signs, and the kid was obviously no more than 39 inches tall. This man, however, was determined to show the park employees who was boss. We spent at least 5 minutes as the line moved watching him make a fool of himself trying to get his son on the ride. Questions like, "What if I can make him look like he's 42 inches tall? Would you let him ride then?" escaped his mouth, among other oddities. When we reached the head of the line, the employees had no choice but to check my daughter's height and deny her entry to the ride due to the poor sport, who was still wheedling nearby.
I couldn't just send my girl back to her mother with her hopes crushed, so I sent the boys on the roller coaster and waited my turn behind Mr. Belligerent for the head employee to talk to me. After finally offering Mr. Belligerent many benefits elsewhere in the park and getting him to leave, she came up to me and asked how many were in my group. I replied that there were six of us, and she gave us her business card with the following benefits written on the back: Front-of-the-line passes to the Sesame Street kids rides in the playground area of the park, free sky tram passes for the whole family, and free tower ride passes for the whole family. I thanked her kindly and took my daughter back to my wife, arriving just in time to see my boys come splashing down the final descent of the roller coaster. My daughter was pretty quickly mollified to learn that we'd be getting to go on the sky tram and tower rides, as we had planned on skipping those due to the extra cost.
I still think Mr. Belligerent was in the wrong in the way he acted, but I didn't turn down the extra benefits as I thought it was nice of the employee to offer them for having to put up with his antics while waiting for her.
We made our way over to the killer whale show, making sure to sit close enough to get splashed this time. We were fortunate that we were near one of the sides, as the majority of the splashing occurs in the middle of the arena. We were splashed once, lightly, and that was just about right for us. The show followed the same pattern as the previous time, but with several different tricks performed by the whales. Once again, it was a true delight to watch.
Following the whale show, my oldest and I went on a white water rapids type of ride while the younger kids petted starfish. We saw sea turtles, rode the sky tram over the bay, rode the tower ride, and went to see the sharks.
The shark exhibit has a tunnel going through the middle of their pool, so you get to be surrounded by them and see them from underwater. This picture shows just how close they get!
We made sure to visit the Sesame Street 4D movie that was showing at the park. I quickly discovered that a 4D movie is one that is in 3D on the screen and also has seating that vibrates and shoots water and air bursts on you at the correct times. It was pretty fun.
As the day started to wind down, we wanted to see the penguins and the Wild Arctic exhibits, as well as visit the Sesame Street play area and rides. This is when the part of our day that I will call "crappy" began.
The penguins that require cold water (we learned that there are several species of penguins that live in the tropic and sub-tropic areas of the southern hemisphere and don't require cold) and southern hemisphere lighting (near darkness since it's getting to be winter down there) are behind this glass. You can see several penguins standing and some swimming. One of the swimming penguins that I happened to be watching suddenly emitted a brownish cloud behind it. Lucky me.
The polar bear in the Wild Arctic area was napping when we first arrived. As we watched, though, it slowly woke and stretched, shown here. After finally rising to its feet, it sauntered toward the back, where its cave was, when it decided to stop, rear end facing the window we were watching from, squat (if you can imagine a four legged animal squatting its hind legs), and let loose a large batch of material that it hadn't digested. The only thing missing was the steam that would have risen from the scat had we actually been in the Arctic. The kids all groaned and exclaimed "Eww, gross!" whilst the adults laughed.
The Wild Arctic exhibit also had walruses (one of which we saw pushing some brown clod-like thing around on the window right in front of us with its mouth until it managed to eat it) and some beluga whales (shown above, which we did not see do anything disgusting).
One really interesting aspect of several of the exhibits at Sea World is that they are designed to allow you to view the animals from both above and below water. This way, you get to see them as mankind has since the beginning of time, and you also get to see some of the sights normally reserved for divers. Seeing the ease of movement underwater easily made up for also happening to see their bodily functions. As I said at the time we witnessed the polar bear doing its business, "Hey, that's what I do after a nap, too, and it's not like they provided a toilet!"
We finished the day off playing at the playground and riding the kids rides. My youngest also got to have another of his "firsts" in life (hint: it's not going on a ride).
Cotton candy! I love it!
Getting ready to ride our last ride of the day. I Love Mommy!
As my wife's birthday would be during our traveling home part of our vacation, we decided to go to dinner at Tony Roma's to celebrate her after we left Sea World. We found a Tony Roma's right next to the beach a few miles from Sea World, and we happened to walk up to the wall separating the road from the beach just as two local entertainers started performing a fire juggling show. We watched for 3 or 4 minutes before heading into the restaurant, departing with my oldest shouting "You guys were great!" and one of them replying "Thank you!"
We used the last of our AMEX gift cards from Wednesday to help pay for the meal at Tony Roma's, and it took long enough that the kids were falling asleep at the table. We arrived back at the resort well and truly exhausted, but we also felt that we had enjoyed our time to the best of our ability!
One more to come later.
When we first walked into the park, we saw this costumed polar bear taking pictures with tourists. Being tourists, we decided to get our picture taken with it too.
The polar bear was pretty playful!
After seeing the polar bear, we already knew that the first thing we wanted to do was go to see the Clydesdale horses (Anheuser Busch owns Sea World) on our way to the watery roller coaster ride "Journey to Atlantis." My oldest son had an upset stomach the previous time we were at Sea World, and so my second son and wife had gone then. My son could hardly stop talking about how awesome it was, and that it was his first time on a "grown up ride." He had the whole family excited to see it when we went back.
We had a pleasant time seeing the horses up close and learning a little bit about them. For instance, in order to be on one of the teams that gets to pull the famed Budweiser wagons, the horse has to be at least 6 ft tall at the shoulder (I think that's 15 to 16 hands in horse measurements), be a certain shade of tan or brown, and have a white stripe on its face and head. We also saw a comparison of a standard horse shoe to a Clydesdale horse shoe. A standard horse shoe is about 3 to 4 inches across. A Clydesdale horse shoe is about 12 to 14 inches across. They are roughly the size of frisbees, and even the oversized horse shoes I've used to play the tossing game of horse shoes are smaller, not to mention far lighter. It was fun to see.
After the horses, we made our way to "Journey to Atlantis." We had determined that I would go on the ride with the older boys while my wife, daughter, and youngest waited for us. As this was the Friday before Memorial Day, it was much busier than it had been on Tuesday. While enduring the nearly half hour wait in line, I noticed several signs saying that you had to be at least 42 inches tall to ride the roller coaster. I thought that my daughter was nearly that tall, so I had the boys go and get her. We put her against the sign, and it appeared that she was about 41.5 inches tall, which I thought would be good enough.
When we reached the boarding area, we saw a man who, judging by his baseball cap, is a fan of the University of New Mexico. He was arguing with the park employees about getting his little boy onto the ride. The employees brought out a yardstick to measure in addition to the signs, and the kid was obviously no more than 39 inches tall. This man, however, was determined to show the park employees who was boss. We spent at least 5 minutes as the line moved watching him make a fool of himself trying to get his son on the ride. Questions like, "What if I can make him look like he's 42 inches tall? Would you let him ride then?" escaped his mouth, among other oddities. When we reached the head of the line, the employees had no choice but to check my daughter's height and deny her entry to the ride due to the poor sport, who was still wheedling nearby.
I couldn't just send my girl back to her mother with her hopes crushed, so I sent the boys on the roller coaster and waited my turn behind Mr. Belligerent for the head employee to talk to me. After finally offering Mr. Belligerent many benefits elsewhere in the park and getting him to leave, she came up to me and asked how many were in my group. I replied that there were six of us, and she gave us her business card with the following benefits written on the back: Front-of-the-line passes to the Sesame Street kids rides in the playground area of the park, free sky tram passes for the whole family, and free tower ride passes for the whole family. I thanked her kindly and took my daughter back to my wife, arriving just in time to see my boys come splashing down the final descent of the roller coaster. My daughter was pretty quickly mollified to learn that we'd be getting to go on the sky tram and tower rides, as we had planned on skipping those due to the extra cost.
I still think Mr. Belligerent was in the wrong in the way he acted, but I didn't turn down the extra benefits as I thought it was nice of the employee to offer them for having to put up with his antics while waiting for her.
We made our way over to the killer whale show, making sure to sit close enough to get splashed this time. We were fortunate that we were near one of the sides, as the majority of the splashing occurs in the middle of the arena. We were splashed once, lightly, and that was just about right for us. The show followed the same pattern as the previous time, but with several different tricks performed by the whales. Once again, it was a true delight to watch.
Following the whale show, my oldest and I went on a white water rapids type of ride while the younger kids petted starfish. We saw sea turtles, rode the sky tram over the bay, rode the tower ride, and went to see the sharks.
The shark exhibit has a tunnel going through the middle of their pool, so you get to be surrounded by them and see them from underwater. This picture shows just how close they get!
We made sure to visit the Sesame Street 4D movie that was showing at the park. I quickly discovered that a 4D movie is one that is in 3D on the screen and also has seating that vibrates and shoots water and air bursts on you at the correct times. It was pretty fun.
As the day started to wind down, we wanted to see the penguins and the Wild Arctic exhibits, as well as visit the Sesame Street play area and rides. This is when the part of our day that I will call "crappy" began.
The penguins that require cold water (we learned that there are several species of penguins that live in the tropic and sub-tropic areas of the southern hemisphere and don't require cold) and southern hemisphere lighting (near darkness since it's getting to be winter down there) are behind this glass. You can see several penguins standing and some swimming. One of the swimming penguins that I happened to be watching suddenly emitted a brownish cloud behind it. Lucky me.
The polar bear in the Wild Arctic area was napping when we first arrived. As we watched, though, it slowly woke and stretched, shown here. After finally rising to its feet, it sauntered toward the back, where its cave was, when it decided to stop, rear end facing the window we were watching from, squat (if you can imagine a four legged animal squatting its hind legs), and let loose a large batch of material that it hadn't digested. The only thing missing was the steam that would have risen from the scat had we actually been in the Arctic. The kids all groaned and exclaimed "Eww, gross!" whilst the adults laughed.
The Wild Arctic exhibit also had walruses (one of which we saw pushing some brown clod-like thing around on the window right in front of us with its mouth until it managed to eat it) and some beluga whales (shown above, which we did not see do anything disgusting).
One really interesting aspect of several of the exhibits at Sea World is that they are designed to allow you to view the animals from both above and below water. This way, you get to see them as mankind has since the beginning of time, and you also get to see some of the sights normally reserved for divers. Seeing the ease of movement underwater easily made up for also happening to see their bodily functions. As I said at the time we witnessed the polar bear doing its business, "Hey, that's what I do after a nap, too, and it's not like they provided a toilet!"
We finished the day off playing at the playground and riding the kids rides. My youngest also got to have another of his "firsts" in life (hint: it's not going on a ride).
Cotton candy! I love it!
Getting ready to ride our last ride of the day. I Love Mommy!
As my wife's birthday would be during our traveling home part of our vacation, we decided to go to dinner at Tony Roma's to celebrate her after we left Sea World. We found a Tony Roma's right next to the beach a few miles from Sea World, and we happened to walk up to the wall separating the road from the beach just as two local entertainers started performing a fire juggling show. We watched for 3 or 4 minutes before heading into the restaurant, departing with my oldest shouting "You guys were great!" and one of them replying "Thank you!"
We used the last of our AMEX gift cards from Wednesday to help pay for the meal at Tony Roma's, and it took long enough that the kids were falling asleep at the table. We arrived back at the resort well and truly exhausted, but we also felt that we had enjoyed our time to the best of our ability!
One more to come later.
Monday, June 1, 2009
San Diego Vacation Part 5
After a nice, relaxing day on Wednesday, we piled into the van and drove about 20 miles to the Escondido area to get to the Wild Animal Park. As we were entering, we ran into some friends who live just a few blocks from us. We knew they were also vacationing in the area, and we'd known that they would be at Sea World on Tuesday, so we were surprised to run into them here instead. We had a quick chat, but the kids were anxious to go and see things, so off we went.
When you first enter the Wild Animal Park, it seems a lot like the zoo. I wondered why we had driven all the way out there for a while. We had decided that we would start with the bus tour (instead of leaving it for the end like we had with the zoo), and as we worked our way down toward the tour area, we stopped to ride a carousel (again, the 3 for 1 passes got us on this for free instead of having to pay a few dollars for it) and visit the discovery area, where they had a place for the adults to sit while the kids played with puzzles, toys, puppets, paper and crayons, etc, all under a nice, cool awning. The kids get to do that sort of thing fairly often when we're home, too, but we didn't mind taking a break. *grin*
We ended up taking the "short" way down to the bus tour, which involved a platform with an elevator to take us down about 30 feet in elevation. I was starting to realize how much bigger than the zoo this park was. We passed a bright yellow hot-air balloon that we thought about riding (it would have cost us about $70 for the whole family for a 4 or 5 minute ride, though), and made our way to the bus area. Once we were loaded on, we discovered that what makes the Wild Animal Park so different from the zoo is that they have large, multi-acre exhibits based on environment rather than animals. We saw the savanna area mostly, which had at least 10 different groups of animals all living together in the same exhibit. We saw a herd of antelope decide to take off running down one long hill and up another, all in unison. We saw two different kinds of rhinoceroses, about 10 giraffes, including a few babies, lots of antelope, gazelles, etc, and learned a lot about them from the tour guide. The tour guides sure seem to know their stuff, as they can tell us all about the animal's native behaviors, the status of their native environments as concerns habitat loss, and the names of most of the animals that live there.
We also saw several people who had paid (a lot) more money to either tour these various large exhibits on Segway scooters with off road tires or in a large, safari like pickup truck that drove inside the exhibit itself for extreme close up pictures.
These large exhibits are kind of a cross between a zoo and an actual safari. The animals are enclosed and (relatively) nearby, as with a zoo, but they are behaving as if they were in the wild and interacting with other animals, as with a safari. It was fascinating to me. I think the kids did a good job to not complain too much about how long it took. *grin*
After the bus tour, we made sure to see the elephants (and zoo keeper), the lions (the alpha male was sitting on top of a broken down jeep under a tree near the front of the exhibit), and we even managed to run across some native deer on our way back up that had made it into the park. We ate lunch at one of the restaurants (hot dogs and somewhat fancy sandwiches with the trimmings for nearly the cost of the balloon ride), stopped at an oasis that had water spraying out of kid friendly statues to help cool you down, and worked our way back up toward the front.
We stopped at a petting area, where my daughter very carefully made sure to pet every single specimin in the area, visited the discovery area again, where we had a lovely conversation with the employee on duty who complimented our kids highly (that always makes a parent feel good) and discussed our church (specifically, the San Diego Temple, which she had heard was closed for a while), and rode the carousel a few more times.
We learned that our good preparation of bringing water bottles that had been frozen overnight was even better when you remembered to do it. I guess our day off had caused us to forget our preparations.
I'm learning now, too, that without pictures, some of the specifics of the memories are fading kind of quickly (of course, the week that we've been back has been VERY hectic, so that contributes too).
In the end, I decided that the Wild Animal Park was worth visiting, but I don't know that I would want to go again with small children because they don't have the patience to enjoy the uniqueness of this attraction. At least, my kids don't seem to have that kind of patience.
More to come later.
When you first enter the Wild Animal Park, it seems a lot like the zoo. I wondered why we had driven all the way out there for a while. We had decided that we would start with the bus tour (instead of leaving it for the end like we had with the zoo), and as we worked our way down toward the tour area, we stopped to ride a carousel (again, the 3 for 1 passes got us on this for free instead of having to pay a few dollars for it) and visit the discovery area, where they had a place for the adults to sit while the kids played with puzzles, toys, puppets, paper and crayons, etc, all under a nice, cool awning. The kids get to do that sort of thing fairly often when we're home, too, but we didn't mind taking a break. *grin*
We ended up taking the "short" way down to the bus tour, which involved a platform with an elevator to take us down about 30 feet in elevation. I was starting to realize how much bigger than the zoo this park was. We passed a bright yellow hot-air balloon that we thought about riding (it would have cost us about $70 for the whole family for a 4 or 5 minute ride, though), and made our way to the bus area. Once we were loaded on, we discovered that what makes the Wild Animal Park so different from the zoo is that they have large, multi-acre exhibits based on environment rather than animals. We saw the savanna area mostly, which had at least 10 different groups of animals all living together in the same exhibit. We saw a herd of antelope decide to take off running down one long hill and up another, all in unison. We saw two different kinds of rhinoceroses, about 10 giraffes, including a few babies, lots of antelope, gazelles, etc, and learned a lot about them from the tour guide. The tour guides sure seem to know their stuff, as they can tell us all about the animal's native behaviors, the status of their native environments as concerns habitat loss, and the names of most of the animals that live there.
We also saw several people who had paid (a lot) more money to either tour these various large exhibits on Segway scooters with off road tires or in a large, safari like pickup truck that drove inside the exhibit itself for extreme close up pictures.
These large exhibits are kind of a cross between a zoo and an actual safari. The animals are enclosed and (relatively) nearby, as with a zoo, but they are behaving as if they were in the wild and interacting with other animals, as with a safari. It was fascinating to me. I think the kids did a good job to not complain too much about how long it took. *grin*
After the bus tour, we made sure to see the elephants (and zoo keeper), the lions (the alpha male was sitting on top of a broken down jeep under a tree near the front of the exhibit), and we even managed to run across some native deer on our way back up that had made it into the park. We ate lunch at one of the restaurants (hot dogs and somewhat fancy sandwiches with the trimmings for nearly the cost of the balloon ride), stopped at an oasis that had water spraying out of kid friendly statues to help cool you down, and worked our way back up toward the front.
We stopped at a petting area, where my daughter very carefully made sure to pet every single specimin in the area, visited the discovery area again, where we had a lovely conversation with the employee on duty who complimented our kids highly (that always makes a parent feel good) and discussed our church (specifically, the San Diego Temple, which she had heard was closed for a while), and rode the carousel a few more times.
We learned that our good preparation of bringing water bottles that had been frozen overnight was even better when you remembered to do it. I guess our day off had caused us to forget our preparations.
I'm learning now, too, that without pictures, some of the specifics of the memories are fading kind of quickly (of course, the week that we've been back has been VERY hectic, so that contributes too).
In the end, I decided that the Wild Animal Park was worth visiting, but I don't know that I would want to go again with small children because they don't have the patience to enjoy the uniqueness of this attraction. At least, my kids don't seem to have that kind of patience.
More to come later.
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