Everyone loves a parade!

Last Saturday was Armed Forces Day. I'll have to be honest. When we lived up in the Bay Area, Armed Forces Day typically passed without so much as an "Oh, it's Armed Forces Day?" from me. Unless I happened to see a news clip, I probably didn't have a clue most years. Sad, but true. (I will add that I DO know when Flag Day is - June 14. Mark your calendar!!)

In Torrance, however? You can't miss it!! In fact, Torrance - from what I now understand - has one of the longest-running Armed Forces Day Parade in the nation. And that is no joke.

We live about a block from a major intersection and this is where the parade started. So practically all the participants in the parade were lined up along the street that crosses our street (Torrance Blvd. for those in the know). And Torrance PD used our street as the command post. (We are thankful that we had no plans on Saturday - we would have had a heck of a time trying to go anywhere!!)

Nick got to see some of the parade participants on his way back from the Farmer's Market with Daddy. So needless to say, he was quite excited for it! We walked down to the end of our street and waited for it to begin. (Please excuse the VERY dirty face - he'd been stuffing his face with an ENTIRE bag of grapes as well as a peach - have I mentioned before how much he loves fruit???)


A view down the street of all the participants...


They had an actual Navy jet that was being towed - unfortunately that wasn't parked on Torrance, but around the corner. You can just see it behind the soldiers.


A big truck carrying all sortsa missles & stuff...


If you click on the picture, it will enlarge and you can read the signs. Tells about what the Tomahawk's and other missles destroyed.


A very large gun...


A very large... uh... something...


Biiiiig truck-thing. I must note that once Nick saw me taking pictures, he turned around and said "Take a picture, Mommy" at EVERY new thing that passed by us. And a lot of stuff passed by - I won't bore you with ALL the pictures!!


A local regiment - they all looked so young!!


A tank! (Hey, at least I know what THAT is!!)


They had a number of flyovers, all which flew down Torrance Blvd. Here are some jets.


Nick waving at all the soldiers & their crew.


A big WWII truck and Japanese WWII vets.


They had a lot of bands - military and school bands. Nick loved them.


The parade was supposed to start at 1:30 but it started a bit late (very UN-military!) Nick's normal nap time is about 12:30-1 PM. So after a while it was clear that he needed to CRASH. And crash he did - he even slept through the Civil War re-enactment soldiers who fired their muskets!!


Very different from the last parade that I saw, which, if memory serves, was the Gay Pride parade in SF! Quite different, wouldn't you say?

Dam-baid

So as I was getting Nick changed this morning, he kept saying "Dam-baid, dam-baid, Mommy!!" He was getting pretty insistent about it and I was getting a little irked because I had no idea what he was talking about. Of course he is looking at me as if I'm the most dense person in the world. And I'm wondering what sort of swear-word laced sentence I used that somehow translated into "Dam-baid".

After a bit of back & forth - me naming random things that sort of sounded like "Dam-baid" and him looking like he's about to have a major meltdown - success.

Band-Aid. He wanted to put a Band-Aid on his "boo-boo". A phantom boo-boo at that, no boo-boo's anywhere. He just wanted to put a Band-Aid on his arm. So put one on we did and he walked around saying "Nick has a boo-boo with a Dam-Baid".

Another lesson in Nickish.

Bat Day at Disneyland

Yea, sounds weird, huh? Last Sunday, we joined up with our friends the Prendergast's and headed over to Disneyland. I jokingly called it Administrative-Day at Disney, because it initially felt like we spent all of our time in line getting our annual passes, taking the pictures for the passes, etc. But, thankfully, once that was all done we were having fun!

It seemed oddly crowded for a non-summer Sunday (confirmed by the P-gasts who are regulars). Parking took forever, long lines, etc. As we were communicating our arrival to the P-gasts (who arrived a bit before us), they mentioned that they were seeing a lot of goth-types walking around. Sure enough, it was Bat Day at the Park! Yep, they have a web site and everything. We saw on their web site the agenda for the day, which included a group photo shoot in front of the castle.


It was very strange. I don't claim to know a whole lot about the goth culture, but doesn't "The Happiest Place on Earth" sort of go against the grain of goth-types? I dunno. But we sure saw some interesting characters. And this from someone who lived many years in San Francisco.

Anyway, after we got our picture of the "goth group", we headed over to California Adventure. Much to our surprise and joy, it was the Food & Wine Festival! This was our first time at CA Adventure. They have a Boudin Sourdough Bread restaurant, so I was able to get some yummy sourdough bread that I have been missing terribly. Even bought a Mickey Mouse shaped loaf to bring home (actually, I wanted a regular loaf, but they were out by the time we got back).


One of the highlights of the day was that we got to do a whiskey tasting sponsored by Bushmills. You'd never think you'd get to do that at Disneyland, would you?! But, yep, we did. It was fun, tasty and informative.

Nick had a good time too. Toward the end of the day as we were leaving, he got a second wind and was chasing Rowan & Riley all over the place. And by chasing, I mean running as fast as his little toddler legs would take him. Running into strangers, tripping, it was too funny. He crashed no more than 10 minutes after driving away. A good day all around!!

Aww, first haircut...

As evidenced by the picture below, it was time for a haircut. I suppose I shouldn't complain. After all, he's gone two whole years without one, so I guess it's about time!! I was a bit nervous as Nick HATES it when I do anything with or to his hair.


We took him to a place that had rocket-ship chairs. His expression seems a bit grumpy (his nap was cut short by our neighbor's lovely construction guy fixing a roof that was recently added to their house that hung over into our sideyard... another story...)


They also had flat screen TV's where he was able to watch Thomas & Friends.


He did wonderfully well. The only time he freaked out was when she used the hair dryer to blow the hair off of him. He's not a big fan of loud noises, but calmed down almost immediately after she turned it off. "Nick no like loud noise", he said.


I realized I didn't get any good pictures of post-haircut (partly due to the hairdryer incident). The hair-cut place is up the hill from us at a mall where they also have an ice rink. Nick likes to watch "pockey", so he hung out at the window for a while watching them play.


It was a kids league - maybe 10-12 year olds or so - the poor goalie you see in the picture above gave up about five goals in a matter of 15 minutes. Poor kid. But Nick liked it!!

"Dinneylan!!!"

The same weekend our friends Hope, Joel & Emma were here (see previous posts) we also went to Disneyland. Or, as Nick calls it, Dinneylan!! It was his first visit. We knew it was going to be a warm weekend, be honestly had no idea it would get that hot. HOT, I tell you. Blech!! But we didn't let that get us down (well, maybe a little bit...)

Here is Nick on his first ride (we don't count the tram from the parking lot to the park, although Nick thought it was a fun 'choo-choo'). Dumbo!!


They're a bit hard to see, but here are Emma & Hope.


Nick had fun on the carousel - not that you can tell from his expression.


Emma really liked her horsey - you can also see Hope acting as the 'photographer in action'


Kevin prepping Nick on all the excitement that is about to take place...


You'd laugh if you saw all the action pictures I tried to take. Most of them show the front or back half of the horse, and, if I was lucky, maybe Nick's or Kevin's hand as it passes in a blur. But I did get one that was OK - you can even see the beginning of a smile!!


Nick on the train ride that goes all around Disneyland. He really liked the ride, although his expression is more like "why in the heck are they dragging me around this sweltering, crowded place that has all these weird, costumed people acting all happy when they really must be miserable it's so hot?!?!"


I kid you not, it was really hot. Middle of April and it's 100+ degrees that day. NOT what we had planned for. At. All. Nick, the lucky boy, finally got to crash for a nap in the luxury of his shaded stroller. The rest of us had to fight for shade with all the other crazies who thought it would be a good day to go to the Park!!


We made do, however, and - after a couple of hours where I think we were all ready to throw in the towel and leave - it finally started to cool down thanks to a bit of a breeze. We also hunted out all that we could do that was air conditioned. Here is Hope & Emma on It's a Small World. Yep, air conditioned!



Nick seemed to like all the rides that we took him on. Toward the end of the day, he went on Pirates of Caribbean and the Jungle Cruise. Neither of the rides freaked him out, but he was certainly pressed as close as he could get to Mommy on both of them. He seemed utterly fascinated by the whole thing. So, even though it was crazy hot, we had a great time!!