Not to be outdone by the previous morning’s breakfast selections, July 5th brought this:
Ezra approved.
After breakfast we packed up the car and headed to the North Sea, specifically to the town of Bremerhaven. Here’s Bruce driving on the Autobahn (insert scary face here!).
I think he got the car up to 190 km/h (118 mph) which I was not comfortable with at all. Finn was. The whole rest of the trip he kept asking when we were going back on the “autobond.”
Bremerhaven is a port city from which lots of Germans emigrated. Here are some photos, including the memorial to emigrants.
After a bit, we started walking to another part of town. On the way we saw a U-Boat museum and stopped in. I learned immediately that I would never make it on a submarine. The boys, all three of them, loved it.
After the U-Boat we continued our walk. Finn and Jokke had a lot to chat about.
Here are a few shots from the journey.
We finally made it to our destination and had a great fish lunch. After lunch the boys played a little impromptu whiffle ball game while we waited for a taxi (that never showed up).
We finally decided to take the bus back and, after a mad dash, we made it onto the bus. The boys were very happy to not be walking back.
Our next destination was first, coffee, and then the German Emigration Museum.
This museum was really a fabulous experience. It took us through all of the steps of emigration and showed the various travel accommodations (or lack thereof). Here are some shots from our visit there.
At the end of our visit we spent some time in their research room and Bruce found the records for Paul Meyer, his great grandfather who emigrated to America.
What a great day trip! Here’s a slideshow of the rest of my photos.
Feeling a bit out of whack from jet lag, we managed to pull ourselves together Saturday morning with the help of good coffee and a delicious breakfast. As if the sausages the night before weren’t enough, the boys were pretty pleased to see their morning selections — bread with honey, chocolate, and/or Nutella.
After breakfast, we set off on a walking tour of Nienburg. The first photo is Jokke and Merja’s house.
We stopped at the bank to get some Euros and then made our way to the “downtown” area.
We saw the first of many churches we would see on our trip.
Finn’s face here sort of sums up how the boys feel about visiting churches.
We continued on …
… and made an impromptu stop at their police museum.
They gave the boys some police car shaped gummy candy.
And then we moved on to the Saturday market and saw this ode to asparagus farming fountain.
We made our way to a cafe for a much needed cold drink.
In the evening, Emi and Jakob came over (although I have no pictures of Jakob — he’s camera shy, I think).
Jokke, Bruce and Finn played horseshoes on the side yard.
Ezra enjoyed the pond and the fish.
Later, he and Jokke stuck their feet in, hoping for a little nibble.
We also enjoyed some cherries that the boys picked from a neighbor’s tree. Yum!
It was a great day! At some point, we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer and we gave in, hoping for a good night’s rest.
Here’s a slideshow of all of my photos from this day.
Ever since Jokke and Merja’s visit in 2010, we’ve been talking about taking a big vacation to Germany and Finland. This year, we finally made it happen. We returned three days ago and I’ve finally organized my photos (I took nearly 1,500!) and am ready to start posting about our days. First, of course, was just getting there. We flew out of San Francisco in the evening of Thursday, July 2nd. We had a long overnight flight to Copenhagen.
The flight was, as we’d expected, fairly cramped and unpleasant, but most of us got a little sleep and made it through OK. Finn liked the games and we all enjoyed the front- and downward-facing cameras when we were taking off and landing, as well as the overall map display of our journey.
Those are the only pictures I have. When we landed in Copenhagen, Finn wasn’t feeling too good and ended up leaving the contents of his queazy (or “weezy” as he calls it) stomach all over the floor of the Copenhagen airport. He was convinced it was the airline food (he’s probably right) and will most likely swear off cheesecake for the rest of his life. I think it was the food and the rocky ending to the flight.
We continued on from Copenhagen to Hannover, landing about 4:00 in the afternoon of Friday, July 3rd. Jokke and Emi met us at the airport, where we rented a car and made our way (with one stop for Finn who was feeling weezy again) to Jokke and Merja’s house Nienburg. We had a lovely dinner in their backyard; Finn was immediately won over by German sausages and bread. Actually, we all were.
Back in April after our short trip to Laguna, Cari and I picked out the week of June 15th as a good time for a longer return trip. (Four days, two of which are full-day driving days, is just not enough time!) We planned that the boys and I would come down on Monday and Bruce would fly down Friday night, knowing he’d never be able to take any time off work. As we got closer to the date, and Bruce’s work schedule got crazier and crazier, we realized he may not be able to come at all, but we remained hopeful. At any rate, after returning on Sunday the 14th from Big Basin, I hurriedly did a bunch of laundry and packed up the three of us so we could leave bright and early Monday morning on our long journey. As usual, there was a traffic snafu — repaving on the 5, but it didn’t cost us too much time.
We were happy to arrive while it was still light out and everyone was still awake! The next day, we got started with beach time. It was cloudy but no one cared.
Ezra buried himself for the first of many times.
So did Chapin.
Finn and Ruby outlasted Ezra and Chapin by a couple of hours, spending the whole afternoon in the water.
When we finally did get everyone back up to the house, we had a nice dinner and three of the four kids crashed quickly. Ezra, the lone holdout, finally found his happy place … with Chester.
The next morning (Wednesday) we had a visit from Jamma who was coincidentally in SoCal for some paperwork issues. The boys (and I) had a grand time catching up with her, and playing Life.
In the afternoon, everyone but Ezra wanted to go kayaking. So, Ezra and I headed off to Jiffy Lube and Target to take care of some pressing matters, and everyone else kayaked in Dana Point for several hours. I think they got the better end of the deal, but for the life of me I couldn’t talk Ezra into going. It turned out OK — a little mother/son bonding time over errands. When we were done I took him down to the beach and caught this lovely shot of him running along the shoreline.
On Thursday we went to Discovery Cube and learned about science for a few hours. Here are the kids on the Dino Quest, which unfortunately turned out to be a bust when no one could find anything on the scavenger hunt-like list. And it was HOT!
Well, Finn and Chapin found one thing on their list.
We headed back inside for wind tunnels, hockey displays (sadly, Ducks only), and much more.
Once we were done with the museum, we drove up to Altadena for a barbecue that Jerri had thrown together so we could visit with some of our besties. The kids swam forever and jumped on the trampoline, while the adults chatted and enjoyed great food and drink. I had such a good time that I have only one photo — Finn and Lucy in the pool.
We left Altadena pretty late and had an emergency stop in Pomona at 10:00 for Finn to use the bathroom. By this time, my ankle, which I had twisted the previous day, was pretty swollen and painful and I was just looking forward to getting back home to Laguna. We eventually did.
On Friday we took our traditional trip to Balboa for lunch, arcade and bike riding, but this time we had the bonus of taking the ferry over. My kids, who’d never done this before, thought it was the coolest thing ever.
After lunch and the arcade, we rode bikes to The Wedge and the kids made up a skit about s’mores.
It involved lots of jumping.
Here’s a video.
In the evening we were joined for dinner and craziness by the Bondsmith clan. Ezra and Jenner were very happy to see each other. We were also joined by Rob and Cari’s friend Mike and his two girls.
And they wanted to be alone for their bonding so they didn’t sit with the rest of the kids for dinner.
During the week it had become abundantly clear that Bruce was not going to be able to join us, so Cari made version 2 of Paperplate Bruce. His arms were a little higher than the version 1, and since he was preparing for a field test, she nicknamed him Optimistic Paperplate Bruce (OPB).
We also did a little stargazing from the deck, and thanks to Jerri the night before, we knew that Venus and Jupiter were very close. Here’s a shot showing from top to bottom, Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon.
On Saturday morning, Mike took the kids down to the beach and sent up these two photos.
The kids had breakfast and then served the adults, restaurant style, while I monitored my phone for the play-by-play from Bruce about this field test. When we learned it was successful, we took this shot with newly-renamed Celebratory Paperplate Bruce (CPB).
Later we managed to squeeze in a trip to the candy store before Cari and I took Ruby and Ezra to Pasadena. Ruby went to play rehearsal and I dropped Ezra off at Jack’s for a play date. Cari and I had our own play date — over ham and butter sandwiches at Little Flower — before picking up the kids and heading back to Laguna.
After another wonderful dinner (including CPB) …
… the last bit of excitement for the day was “stackers” for dessert — creations of brownies, ice cream, fruit, and other delectables, smushed into shapes, rendering them magical to kids and adults.
Ezra went a little crazy with the whipped cream. Who can blame him?
Sunday was Father’s Day, so the dads got breakfast and CPB got a crown.
And then we had to say our goodbyes. I was a little worried about the drive home and wanted to get an early start to beat some of the traffic. The plan worked, but it’s still a good eight hours from start to finish, which is painful, but as always, well worth it.
A couple of months ago we were invited to join a group camping trip to Big Basin the weekend after school ended. It was mostly families from our school, although we only knew the one family who invited us. Bruce ended up having to work all weekend, so I took the boys by myself. Thank goodness we had a tent cabin and it was only one night. I am a reluctant camper, especially without Bruce there to do all the hard stuff. In a weird coincidence, we ended up in the same exact campsite we had when we stayed there last year. It was still beautiful.
I didn’t take a ton of pictures, because it was a short time and the boys were pretty much roaming around with a pack of wild kids most of the time. Ezra was thrilled to have so much time with his best friend, Henry.
Here they are in a rare quiet moment building Minecraft LEGOs at our campsite.
Here are Henry and Finn with the centipede they found.
Extreme closeup:
Ezra built a fire and we had dinner (hotdogs roasted on the fire and fruit) at our campsite, and then later we had s’mores at Henry’s.
The next morning, the boys built another fire to warm us up while we had breakfast. Finn danced.
Ezra, as always, enjoyed the fire.
Before we left, Ezra took my phone to take some pictures of the fort they had discovered. They called it Fake Fake because they were going to use it as a fake fort but then realized it was actually better than the fort they’d previously chosen. It was this very cool partially hollowed out tree.
When he was done with the documentation of Fake Fake, he left with Henry and his dad, Chris, on a 12 mile (!) hike from the campsite to the ocean. Chris sent me a bunch of pictures from the hike; here are a few.
In the meantime, Finn and I headed back home. Poor carsick-stricken Finn was dreading the drive after being super miserable the previous day, but I took an easier-on-the-stomach route back and let him sit in the front seat. Luckily he was fine.
While Bruce toiled away on Project Loon, the boys and I spent the last half of Spring Break week in lovely Laguna Beach with the Bannings. My plan was to leave early-ish on Thursday so that we would arrive by evening. As always, we didn’t get moving fast enough and while we made good time most of the way, we hit a traffic standstill as soon as we got to the 210 freeway. I was pretty depressed when I checked Google Maps only to find out that it was going to take another four hours to get to Laguna. So, we improvised and we stopped in Altadena and had a visit with the Heffernans. Or at least some of them — Jerri was at work and couldn’t get out of it, as valiantly as she tried. The kids had a great time on the trampoline …
… and the three youngest crazies went in the pool. After that we went to Yang Chow for dinner and had some fun with chopsticks.
We finally hit the road again a little after 8:00 and we still hit traffic. We did finally make it though and after a good night’s sleep all four of the kids were raring to go on Friday and we spent some great time at the beach.
Later we enjoyed a ridiculously beautiful sunset on the deck.
On Saturday we ventured to Newport Beach and had our traditional visit to the pier and lunch at Ruby’s Diner.
Then a visit to the arcade.
Then we rode bikes to The Wedge.
There was, of course, another beautiful sunset.
And a birthday dinner for Finn who turned eight the next day.
(That’s Paper Plate Bruce in the picture — Cari’s solution to Bruce not being able to be there in reality.)
On Sunday, we packed up and everyone took a little time to hang out with Chester, the world’s most patient dog.
Then we took a trip to the candy store for road trip supplies. Finn got to have his first legal drive without a booster seat.
We left around noon and stopped in Pasadena at Zankou Chicken for lunch. Oh, how we’ve missed Zankou. I told Bruce we may have to move back for Zankou alone.
We hit tons of traffic on the way home too, including a brush fire on the 5 which caused quite a delay. We arrived home a little after 9:00, totally exhausted. But, as always, the time with friends is well worth the hours on the road.
After being told countless times that we should visit Half Moon Bay, we finally got over there a couple of weeks ago. Our plan was to take our bikes and cycle along the Coastside Trail, grab some lunch, and let the boys play in the sand for a while. Finn was ready.
The trail is paved and the landscape beautiful. We did have a bit of a detour because a bridge on the trail is out of service, but although it added mileage it wasn’t a bad ride. I have very few pictures because it’s hard to ride and shoot at the same time, but here’s one from my handlebar cam (AKA my iPhone on its bike mount).
After lunch, we headed back the same way we came and stopped off for a little beach play. Here are some shots of the scenery.
We then decided to ride back to where our car was parked to put the bikes away and let the boys play some more there. The boys were definitely in their happy place.
Holes were dug.
Naps were taken. Finn wrote out some Do Not Disturb signs for Bruce and me.
Sunday — our last road trip day — started with an early morning visit from the dinosaurs. Still funny after all these years.
After breakfast at the hotel, we packed up and went to Bob and Vanessa’s, where we spent a couple of hours getting a bunch of bikes ready and in/on the cars for a bike ride at the beach. Along with the four of us and Bob, Vanessa and Thomas, we were joined by Reba and Michelle and Michael.
It was another glorious day.
We rode along the Strand into Manhattan Beach and when we stopped Ezra couldn’t wait to dig in the sand.
We got some lunch …
… and then rode back, stopping at this swing set at Ezra’s request.
I knew we had a long drive ahead of us but I still didn’t want to leave the beach.
But we finally did, packing up the bikes again and get back on the road.
It was after midnight when we finally got home, both kids already asleep and grownups not far behind.
Saturday was the day we had originally planned to head back to NorCal, but somewhere along the line Bruce decided to take a couple more vacation days so we changed our plan. We still had to leave Palm Springs so we said goodbye to Jamma and wished her safe travels back to Belize. We headed into Pasadena to see friends at a park date at Hamilton Park. My pictures are few and not very good because I was too busy chatting and catching up with friends but here are some of the kids riding bikes, etc. and loving the rocket launcher the Bondsmiths brought.
After Hamilton Park, we went to Pasadena’s new restaurant, Lincoln, for a sweet snack and coffee before getting back on the road to Redondo Beach to visit the South Bay Moisions. We checked into the Redondo Beach Hotel and immediately took advantage of their pool and jacuzzi before going to get some dinner at The Standing Room.
Then we were all off to bed to get some rest before the next day’s activities.
The day after Christmas would have been a nice day to take a rest. But this is a Bruce Moision vacation — there is no rest! So, ignoring the boys’ protests of “no more driving!” we headed out to Twentynine Palms and met Baris and Alexandra for a hike up the Fortynine Palms Oasis Trail.
It was a chilly but beautiful day.
We made it to the Oasis and took a break for lunch.
We had a few complaints and some rest times on the way back.
Keep in mind that the temps were in the 40s when you see Finn in shorts and a t-shirt. I don’t know how he does it.
After some debate about driving a little further to get to Joshua Tree, we decided everyone was pretty wiped out and we just went back to the condo. Finn fell asleep in the car, as did I. When we got back, Jamma and I high-tailed it over to the jacuzzi. It was beautiful and relaxing. The perfect end to another great day.
Christmas Day started early, although not unreasonably so, with two boys very excited to see if Santa had found us in Palm Springs. I think they were both a little stunned with their gifts — a bike for Finn and a laptop for Ezra. Santa did go a bit off the rails this year in the gift department, but he was probably just trying to make up for moving the kids away from their home.
They enjoyed their stockings too.
And then started working on the rest of their presents.
Finn was particularly happy with Jamma’s gift.
A little while later we drove down to San Diego to spend the afternoon with Bill and Therese and this whole crew.
Finn couldn’t wait to show Uncle Bob his new bike.
And they had a race … that was too close to call.
A little later in the evening Laura and Eric came by for a quick visit. So great to see them!
Before we left there was time for a few rousing rounds of Just Dance! Here’s Bruce, Finn and Thomas cutting a rug.
After the last two years of being sick as a dog on Christmas, this year was a total success!
On Tuesday we had several events but I have no pictures. Bruce and I had breakfast with Michelle and Michael, who were visiting from New York (and enjoying the desert weather just like us!). Jamma and I got a pedicure and, more importantly, some rare one-on-one time in our busy week. And in the afternoon, Bruce and I drove in to L.A. to go to the Magic Castle with the Heffernans. After snafus with our unacceptable clothing choices, we were finally allowed in with borrowed shoes for Bruce and a jacket for me. Despite the rough start, it was a super fun night. Bruce and I stayed overnight in Pasadena and on Christmas Eve Jamma drove in with the boys.
The first order of business was a quick visit to the San Gabriel Mission.
Ezra is doing his fourth grade Mission project and his teacher assigned him the San Gabriel Mission knowing he is from Pasadena. We didn’t get to go in, but we walked around the grounds for a while.
Next up was dinner at the Bannings’ house — yay, our tradition continues! The kids had a great time running around and being crazy, and occasionally settling down to do some drawing.
I even remembered to get a picture of the adults!
Later in the evening, Cari and I took a walk with the kids to see a particularly festive house in their neighborhood. It was good to let the kids burn off some energy. The photos are a little dark …
I tried to get a nice one of Ezra and Ruby. Of course, only Ruby cooperated.
After a delicious dinner and dessert, we hit the road back to Palm Springs. Finn was fast asleep in the car and stayed that way once we got to the condo. Santa came and we were all ready for the morning.
On Monday we met the Bannings and Baris and Alexandra at the Palm Springs Aerial Tram to take a trip up to the top of the mountain. The boys rushed right to the windows to get the best view.
Ruby was much less enthusiastic about the tram part of the day, and each swing past the five towers brought closed eyes and a bit of terror. But she hung in there! (For the record, I’m with her on that swinging motion being unpleasant …)
We took the obligatory posed photo, which I like for keepsake purposes.
Once we made it to the top, the boys immediate found some patchy snow and started a much-anticipated snowball fight.
After a while, they came back for snacks.
Then they were back at it.
Finn found the back to a booster seat and tried to use it as a sled, with Chapin’s help.
It wasn’t the best ride, but he had a great time.
Then the big kids got into a snowball fight.
Once we finally moved away from the heavily traveled area, there was some better snow and the kids had a super fun time. Here are more pictures from the day.
After we got our fill of snow, we headed back down the mountain to warmer temps. The kids went swimming in Jamma’s pool and jacuzzi and we enjoyed a relaxing pizza dinner. The kids were all out like lights pretty quickly after hours and hours of snow play and swimming!
We jumped right into activities on our first day. I got in an early morning walk and bathed in the much-welcomed desert sunlight.
We rode our bikes over to Sherman’s Deli for breakfast. Here are the boys putting together their LEGO Advent Calendar pieces while we waited for our food.
A little while later we met Baris and Alexandra for a hike up the Lykken Trail in the local mountains. We didn’t have to go too far up before the views were stunning. We took a lot of photos.
The boys, especially Ezra, enjoyed scrambling up the rocks.
Here’s one of all three Moision boys.
We made it to the promised picnic tables at the top and had a snack.
After a rest, we made our way back down. The boys seemed to be much happier on the down slope. Here’s a picture from the bottom.
It was early afternoon and we were starting to worry that we weren’t prepared for the next day’s plan — a trip up the Palm Springs Tram to the top of the mountain, where there was snow. We hadn’t gotten snow pants for the boys, so we went on a bit of a wild goose chase looking for some. The first sporting goods store had a very small inventory left, but luckily we found what we needed at the second store.
By then it was dinner time and we met Baris and Alexandra for dinner in Palm Desert before heading to The Living Desert to see their Wild Lights holiday setup. The lights really were pretty spectacular.
And we saw this owl at their visitor’s center. It was creepy cool.
I don’t remember exactly what was happening in this shot, but clearly all three were having a good time! It was a great first day.
More pictures from the hike here and The Living Desert here.
We had our Christmas all planned. We were not going to travel this year and Jamma was coming to visit us. Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Jamma called and said her condo fell out of escrow and asked if we wanted to come to Palm Springs instead of her visiting us in NorCal. Having lived through a few dreary weeks of clouds and rain, and having come to the realization that we were going to miss out on our burgeoning tradition of Christmas Eve with the Bannings, it took us about five minutes to decide we were going on a road trip!
I mean, seriously, how could we refuse?
We sketched out a rough plan for the week and did some power shopping to make sure everything was done before we hit the road on the 20th. Our plan was to leave about 10:00 a.m. so we could meet the Heffs for a park date in the afternoon. But then this happened.
Let me back up and explain. I was in the house, busily packing, when I heard a knock on the back door. I opened the door to find Bruce, speckled with mud and asking for help. I had no idea what was going on, but apparently Ezra had been digging in the backyard (really? now??) and had accidentally broken a sprinkler pipe. As Bruce described the scene — he was getting something together in the garage when Finn started frantically calling for him. He looked over and there was water sprinkling down. In that moment of disconnect, he thought it was raining only on Ezra.
Alas, it wasn’t rain. And it wasn’t an easy fix either because it was an input pipe not an output pipe, so shutting off the sprinkler valve didn’t solve the problem. Four hours, a trip to the hardware store, tons of mud and some ruined clothes later, we finally hit the road at 2:00 p.m.
I have to say, I marvel at Bruce’s patience in these situations, which, with two boys, are more frequent than I would like. He says there are a lot of expletives running through his head, but what the boys and I see is a dad pretty calmly figuring out a fix to a problem and enlisting the perpetrator’s help.
We made it to El Patron (Finn’s pick) for dinner at 7:30 and ran into our friend Lisa and her husband Allen there. We ended up having a lovely dinner before driving the rest of the way to Palm Springs that night.
As a side note, on our way out of Altadena we drove by our old house. It looks great, no changes we could see and the drought-tolerant garden is flourishing. My heart hurt just seeing it again.
