Baseball Trip: July 16-20

Many great pictures for July 16-20:
July 16 - San Diego, Padres game with Meghan Freeman (and Remy in her belly)!!!
These jalapeno hot-dogs are wrapped in bacon...
He's excited...
Great sandbox for the kids... just beware of those home run outta-here balls.
Meghan is one of my best friends - I was maid-of-honor (and only bridal attendant) in her wedding. She is married to Tyler, who is a Marine serving in Afghanistan. He was home for Christmas leave and won't be back until November... in this picture, Meghan is pregnant with their first baby - a girl, Remington Lee (born September 6). Please keep prayers going for Meghan in her adventures of motherhood and Tyler as he continues to serve over seas while his wife and new daughter are back home.
So great to see her!
July 17: Southern California vineyards, Hollywood fun and Farrell's for dinner
Bread bowl filled with brie -- really good!
A wine rack/hanger that we bought for Chris' sister and brother-in-law as a thank you for our using their car on our trip. Pretty cool.
Graumans Chinese Theater, Hollywood, California
Frank Sinatra and Julie Andrews
Chris and Clint Eastwood's prints
Bob Hope's prints and me
Chris hanging with Samuel L. Jackson
Beautiful women in Hollywood - Marilyn Monroe and me smiling pretty
We find awesome food EVERYWHERE - Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich - YUM!
Fun mosaic on the ground
Fun picture
I hope you can click to enlarge this picture to read the print. We stopped for dinner at an old-fashioned ice cream parlor (Farrell's - I guess there used to be many nation-wide) and the menu had great facts about ice cream:
July 18: San Francisco Giants game, AT&T Park, San Francisco Pier 39 and Seafood dinner
This was one of my favorite parks of the entire trip - hands down my favorite park on the West coast!
They say this park is "right on the water" - but SERIOUSLY it is right on the water!
These boats and kayaks were hoping to catch home-run balls
There were great painted quotes throughout the park!
I love this picture! We're in the park with the canal right behind us.
Yogi Berra quotes!
The Coca-Cola Bottle is actually a big slide - well, four big slides... this park was awesome!
The Giant's one-of-a-kind clean-up crew. The seagulls got to work in no time flat and had that place spotless soon thereafter.

We couldn't tour Alcatraz because they were completely booked, but I liked this quote:
Great picture of Alcatraz at dusk
Shrimp Lovers at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Restaurant - SOOO GOOD!
July 19 - IN-N-OUT lunch with my cousin, Dodger Game
Lunch with my cousin, Marc from Lancaster... I haven't seen him in 12-ish years (we kind of wondered if we'd recognize each other) :-D And my first time at IN-N-OUT
Any idea what stadium we're at here?
These tickets were free because we sat through a time-share presentation in exchange for 4 tickets... Chris was able to sell our extras so we actually made money on this game!
This Dodger-man explained to us the history of the franchise and let us in some back areas of the stadium! :-D


We slept in the car quite a bit on the West coast... as many as four nights in a row. I had a system by this point.
July 20: Sequioa National Park
We had to rely on an old-fashioned map - no GPS signal out here

We saw a total of 8 bears, 4 of which were cubs. One Mama came into the path to let us know to back off. While we were backing off, I look to my right and see another Mother sleeping soundly about 6 feet up in a tree... pretty near our heads.
Her cubs were sleeping above her
This little guy was out in the meadow grazing... man, once the bears were one feet into this grass you couldn't see them at all.
Who knows how many bears are behind us... 3 that we know of...
Sequoia tree named General Sherman

More pictures to come... then back to real blog posting.

Baseball Trip: July 11-15

So... remember that baseball trip of which I was going to post pictures - I still am. I decided to upload them all to facebook first because it was a faster process and then just choose a few for the blog.

So, this is my attempt to get back into blogging -- as soon as all the trip is accounted for:

July 11: Arlington Texas, visiting with cousins, Dallas Cowboy Stadium, Texas Rangers Game, IKEA fun...
Chicken-fried steak!!! Yum!
Cousin Tommy, Second-cousin Stephanie and me in the Cowboy end zone!Ready HIKE!Post game interview -- Describe how you made that awesome catch?!?!Texas Rangers' Stadium with Chris (and his parents, but I didn't have a good picture of all of us)Obinna and I thought of IKEA like a museum/fun house... we played pretend and took pictures:Peek-a-boo!July 12 - Driving through Texas and Texas adventures
Texas Bluebell Ice Cream! Yum!Texas sunset
Great restaurant on Route 66 -The Big Texas: Eat the 72oz steak meal in 1 hour and your meal is freeCheck out this appetizer on the menu:The steak was AMAZING!!!! We are definitely going back.If we had taken the 72oz steak challenge, this would have been our table.July 13: Petrified Forest National Park, Rock Slide State Park, surprising my grandmother and watching the Baseball All-Star game on tv
Petrified Forest National ParkDrawings on rock (through a telescope)Sliding down rocks in ArizonaBombs away!July 14: Driving Arizona to San Diego
The Wall between California and Mexico - and we're on the highway right next to it.
Click to enlarge the picture to read the sign: We Protect America and check out the statistics.
Heat-sensing cameras with border patrolJuly 15: Angles game
Anaheim Angels at batting practiceThe A rock formation/waterfall -- pretty coolFun times!There were a bunch of baseball mouses all around Southern California - we found two... this one is the Anaheim Angels mouse.More to come... and then back to actual blogging.

Happy Autumn and thanks for tuning back in to the trip and future blog posts.