Saturday, October 23, 2010

Uncle Dan & Aunt Debby

Dan's brother & sister-in-law, Tim & Dawn, and our three nephews, Benjamin, Nathan, and Aaron came to visit us for a week! We had so much fun with them and loved getting to spend one-on-one time with their family. The boys grow up so quickly, there are new aspects to their personalities every time we see them. The week was full of fun activities, and we had a blast seeing everything through their eyes.



We set up our camping tent & sleeping bags in the office so Benjamin & Nathan would have their own "room." Nathan was sleeping hard when I took this photo!

Benjamin's rubber fish became infamous - you never knew when it would fly across the room and hit you! Dan kept putting it in the fridge and threatening to eat it for dinner. :)

Aaron's favorite room in the house - so much toilet paper, so little time!

Our first big adventure was Legoland! Benjamin and Nathan love playing with Legos, and Legoland is tailored for children under the age of 7, so it was the pefect place to spend a fun day!

This ride was actually a lot of hard work! You had to pull yourself up with the rope before getting to free-fall to the bottom.


We raced down the slides and Nathan beat us all!

The guys raced against some other teams in a fireman challenge, where they had to drive their firetruck to a burning building and extinguish the fire. We all got our exercise at Legoland!

Crashed out in the car at the end of the day!

On Sunday afternoon, we spent the afternoon at a playground on the bay

Everyone enjoyed playing in the water & sand, except for Aaron

This sums up his feelings about the wet, sticky sand between his toes! He had a lot more fun on the swings.

On Sunday night, we went to the roller hockey game to cheer Uncle Dan's team

Dan's team won 11-2 and Dan scored 3 goals! Whoo hoo!


I was able to get off from work a little early on Monday and meet them at Old Town

Nathan got to dress up like a soldier

Then we went panning for gold. Dan's excited about all the gold they're finding! Maybe Nathan and Aaron will buy dinner tonight.

Tim & Dawn took the boys to the zoo one day

Watching the animals

Joining the animals

Those days without naps are a killer!

Dan got to spend a day with Tim & Dawn & the boys at Balboa Park, Coronado, and Torrey Pines

Benjamin & Nathan love exploring and climbing things, so they had fun wherever we went!



This is one of the only shots we got of everyone. We saw a "Lego Jester" at Legoland and had to get a group photo!
San Diego has a ton of family-friendly places, and Tim, Dawn, & the boys had a great vacation. We enjoyed spending as much time as we could with them, and hearing about their adventures each day. We miss them and wish we all lived closer so we could see them more often. But we counted the days until Christmas, and we'll see them again in 70 days! We can't wait!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Miramar Air Show

Dan and I went to the Miramar Air Show last night at Miramar MCAS to see their twilight show for the first time. We had been to the daytime show years ago with Dan's parents, and I had seen it again since then with my coworkers. It's a fantastic show that culminates with the Navy Blue Angels' performance. They run the show for three days every year in Oct., and last night they had a one-night-only twilight show, which we (well, mainly me, but Dan was game) wanted to check out. We got to the base just as the Blue Angels performed at the end of the daytime air show, then waited through a long intermission while they set up for the night show. It did not disappoint! Here are a few highlights we enjoyed.

They added lights and sparkler effects on the planes and people who performed during the night show. Here's a video of a guy (the announcer said he was a paraplegic) flying a hang glider that was shooting off fireworks. The effect was beautiful!

The night took a turn towards redneck when they strapped jet engines to this truck and ran it down the runway at full speed. Awesomeness. You can hear Dan laughing at the end of the video. :)

They had a big fireworks show set to patriotic music at the end of the evening, and the grand finale was the "Wall of Fire." Fun times!