Opening Day for "42"

Today I took my boys Jonathan and Caleb on "Opening Day" for the new movie about Jackie Robinson, "42". His jersey number is the only one to be retired for all of baseball, but that doesn't keep my boys from wearing it. Caleb has worn it every year in all-stars, and it is his regular season number in Juniors this year. When Caleb was young, Robinson was the subject of one of the first book reports that he did, a small book I had in my collection. On April 15th, 2007, the 60th anniversary of his rookie year, we went to Dodger stadium for the game. He has always been one of my favorite baseball players. The movie was really good, though a bit 40's cheesy at points, but very accurate at least according to my knowledge of baseball history. I even teared up a few times over the great triumph that he had in his life. But I am also known to tear up in other baseball-related moments (World Series win in '88, visit to Cooperstown and getting a custom bat made, heck I even teared up on opening day this year as Sandy Koufax came out to throw the first pitch at Dodger stadium). The movie even referenced one of my favorite episodes of Jackie Robinson's life outside of baseball when he was in the army and nearly court-martialed that I posted HERE. It was great to share the movie with my boys, it made us proud to be Dodgers and baseball fans. 42 lives on.

Medieval Times 5-6 Jan 2013

We have our annual tradition over the holidays of making graham cracker houses for Christmas, and then when New Years comes we stage a large battle scene with fire and soldiers to destroy them. This year we had a Medieval theme for which I built a castle that ended up pretty cool, and others gave it a more castle-type theme. Brittany & Matt were down for the holidays, and even my son-in-law  made a miniature Minas Tirith from LOTR. The fire that rains from the sky (napalm in our army scenarios) we determined was dragon fire and flamed ordinance from catapults. In reality we use a lengthy piece of plastic to drip the flame down from a ladder with a zipping sound - our whiffle bat worked quite well and we also mixed in a plastic sand shovel. An old set of Weapons and Warriors that we were going to throw out served well for our red & blue medieval soldiers, and the catapults and ballista added a nice touch along with some trees. We didn't use any fireworks this year, but Hannah, Jonathan, Caleb and Sarah all got to drip the fire to cool effect. The fire raged pretty quick and my castle was reduced to complete rubble and few soldiers survived. But with the glow of the flames I captured all the carnage with my camera.

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Family Games - Get a Clue!

Sarah had been playing with our edition of Clue most of the afternoon so we played it as our activity for family night. Jonathan was not in a good mood so we had a hard time convincing him to play, but he grudgingly agreed finally. He loves Xbox and computer games, so of course a boardgame is much more tedious for him and he rarely has the patience though he does have good gaming skills. So we began and most of us were into it except for Jonathan but he made a few notes. We went around on the first turn and some got to make some accusations to narrow it down, but on my turn (going last) I only rolled enough to move but not enter a room to make a guess. Jonathan was still not into the game, but on his second turn he put in a guess for the room, suspect and weapon. And he nailed it! HE WON BEFORE I GOT MY SECOND TURN OR WAS EVEN ABLE TO ENTER A ROOM! Hannah was stunned with mouth open as Jonathan just got up and walked away. I think he gleefully enjoyed that, but was even more happy that he didn't havce to play that long.
(As a side note, that is probably a reason why I don't like that game as much, but will still play it. I prefer and recommend Mystery Express for a murder mystery deduction game.)

Rockets Red Glare

Our family has always enjoyed doing our own fireworks show. It reminds me of when I was young and we did them in front of our house. We have made it a tradition since we moved back to California to do a family fireworks show in my work parking lot in Costa Mesa. We did it mainly because fireworks have been illegal in HB/FV, but even though they are legal in HB this year, we like our traditions. A few families join us for our small celebration, and as our kids get older they have taken the reigns from dad in lighting up the event. So I got to sit back and take a few pictures:

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CHAMPIONS!!!!!

For the first time in over a decade on any level for Fountain Valley Little League, Jonathan's Juniors team won the Tournament of Champions for 2012. They beat the Huntington Valley team in the championship game today 8-4. They jumped to an 8-0 lead in the first few innings and then held on through some tense moments as Huntington loaded the bases in the last two innings, escaping by doubling the runner off of third on a line drive in the 6th, and then striking out the last batter in the 7th who represented the tying run. Even more remarkable was that this FV team knocked out both Ocean View teams in the first two rounds, the same league that has represented in the Little League world series the past few years. Congratulations to Jonathan and Fountain Valley!

Surf and Turf

Believe it or not, there are other activities my boys are involved in besides baseball. Today was a great day in which I was able to see both of them involved in other things that they enjoy. This morning I took Jonathan to one of his last classes for the FVHS surf team at the beach. The swell was not too big, but it was a beautiful morning. Jonathan is growing up way too fast. At 14 he is nearly my height.

Then today I went to the Middle school track meet, where Caleb was competing in the 100. Because Caleb attends the K-8 school Moiola, it is usually dominated by the other 6-8 middle schools. You can see how much smaller he is than the other runners (he hasn't hit a Jonathan-like growth spurt yet), but he has heart and determination and held his own.

Dizzyland

Good times at Disneyland with the family. We miss Brittany, but we can still have a good time with the rest of the family in Cali!

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