Friday Family Flashback-So Cal Fair

It's starting to feel like fall in our neck of the woods. At least for a couple of days. And that means that it is almost time for the Southern California Fair aka: So Cal Fair in Perris, CA. Eric said it used to be called the Harvest Fair. For the past 2 years, my family & Eric's family have gone to the fair together.

So for Friday Family Flashback, I thought I would repost about our trip to last years fair in anticipation of going to the fair again in the next couple of weeks. This originally posted on 10/12/08.

Enjoy!!!

Yesterday we went to the So Cal Fair in Perris, CA with Eric's family. This is a small town fair that is held the beginning of October each year. Eric's family goes every year & this is the 2nd year my family has attended.

Mike, Jesse & I met up with Eric, Jeannette & Cade at the fairgrounds around 4:30pm. Brandon stayed home & so did Jase from Eric's family. Taylor was going with her girlfriends and we met up with her a couple of times throughout the evening.

We spent about 5 hours enjoying everything at the fair. We shopped, ate, looked at all the displays, saw the animals, went on rides (well Cade & Taylor did), went to the hypnotist show, had hot chocolate & funnel cake. All in all, we had a real good time.

Here are some photos of our good time at the fair.



And as a bonus, here are a couple of videos from our trip to last years fair that I didn't share with you last year.

Warning: If you are at work or anywhere other than home, you might want to turn down your volume on the pig video. Pigs get quite loud when food is involved. I can totally relate.



I also found a photo of Taylor (Eric's daughter) with her 1st place art at the 2007 So Cal Fair.

Well I hope you enjoyed our little trip back in time. Even if it was a short trip. I love going to this fair. It's small & intimate. The way country fairs should be.


This years fair is Oct 10-18. Can't wait to have funnel cake, see the pig races, and eat, eat, eat. I'll be sure to post about this years trip to the fair in a few weeks.

Summer Vacation Flashback 2001-Day 14 New Mexico

For Friday Family Flashback I thought I would continue with the past vacations theme. I thought I would continue with our vacation from 2001. Today I will feature day 14, which is New Mexico.

I also want to remind you that back in 2001 while on vacation we had a website where we posted what are plans were for the day & then at the end of the day, we posted what we actually did. It was like we were blogging without knowing what blogging was. So this entry is a copy from our website back then.

Objectives: We'll be in Albuquerque, New Mexico all day and see what there is to do in the area. We also may drive up to Santa Fe, and see some of the historic sites up there.

Our Experience: Mike, Brandon, Jesse & Kim drove up to Santa Fe, New Mexico & took a tour of the city. We learned all about the history of Santa Fe & saw some old churches, art galleries & residential areas. It was very informative. Made it easier to walk around afterwards to see what we really wanted to see. We went to this old chapel called Loretto Chapel which has a miraculous staircase. Back in the 1800's the chapel was built with a choir loft with no way to reach it. The sisters wanted a spiral staircase built as there wasn't room for regular stairs. All the builders & architects said it couldn't be done. So the sisters prayed. Along came a man who said he could build their spiral staircase which he did. Took 7 months & had no center support, nor braced to wall. No nails were used, only wooden pegs. When the sisters tried to pay the man, he wouldn't take any money & mysteriously disappeared. When the sisters went to the only lumber yard around to pay for the wood, they were told the wood didn't come from them. The sisters said this was a miracle.

On the way back to Albuquerque we stopped at Sandia Peak to ride the Sandia Peak Tram to the top of the mountain. This tram is the longest tram ride in the world. We went from about 6000 feet up to almost 11,000 feet. Kim kind of got altitude sickness. It was very beautiful up on top of the mountain. Brandon & Jesse thought this was the best.

We didn't do anything in Albuquerque. Guess we may have to come back someday. It's kind of sad that our vacation is winding down. We only have 1 more fun day & then it's back to reality. We wish we could afford to be on vacation & travel all the time.

Photos:

St. Francis cathedral in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Some buffalo sculpture.

The New Mexico state capital building.

The miraculous staircase at Loretto Chapel.

Inside of Loretto Chapel.

Jesse, Kim, and Brandon standing outside of Loretto Chapel.

Looking west towards Albuquerque from Sandia Peak.

Looking to the top of Sandia Peak.

Jesse, Brandon, Kim, and Mike on top of Sandia Peak.

The Sandia tram ride.

Looking to the east down the ski slopes from Sandia Peak.

Coming down the mountain on the tram.
While I was writing this post I kept getting dejavu. It wasn't until after I finished writing this that I realized that I had put this post together already as a draft back in August. I just never posted it. Smack me in the head. I could have saved about an hour if I had only looked in advance. Oh well, you live and learn (or in my case, not).

Next Friday I will finish up with our family vacation from 2001. And I know I never finished up telling you about our Arizona vacation from this year. I'm a slacker, what can I say. So maybe I'll finish that vacation up as well this next week.

I've kind of been living a pretty boring life, so I have nothing else to blog about on the family blog. Plus I forgot to take any photos on Labor Day when Eric's family came over to swim & BBQ.

If you are interested in my decorating blog, Starshine Chic (shameless plug), you can click here to visit it to see what I've been up to around my house (decorating wise). I did post today about some family heirlooms other there.

And if anyone else in the family wants to post old family photos, or about anything from the past, please make a post on Friday's for Friday Family Flashback.

Have a good weekend everyone. It's going to be hot at our house. Anyone want to come swimming?

Kim

Friday Family Flashback-Remembering 9/11

Welcome to another edition of Friday Family Flashback. This week we are going to flashback to 9/11/01. I know it was not a great day to flashback to, but it is a day that changed us as Americans.

Today it has been 8 years since 9/11/01. Seems like yesterday when this happened. It will always be one of those days that you remember where you were & what you were doing when you heard the terrible news.

I was just waking up on the morning of 9/11/01. My radio had just come on & I was listening to the news people talking to a man in New York about a plane that had crashed into one of the twin towers. At the time, everyone thought it was a small plane & not an airliner. I wasn't paying much attention as the guy was explaining what he had witnessed from his apartment window.

What finally grabbed my attention was when the man's wife started screaming in the background that another plane had just slammed into the other tower. This started the man screaming & all the screaming got me up real quick. I turned on the TV to see what was going on. They should footage of an airliner slamming into one of the World Trade Center twin towers. I couldn't believe what I was seeing on my TV. They explained that both towers had been hit by 2 different airliners. Then they came on the TV & said that the Pentagon had been hit as well. I was in shock. This kind of stuff doesn't happen in America. It happens in Israel, and the other countries in the middle east, but not here.

I woke Brandon up to watch & then ran down to Mike's apartment to tell him about it and watch the TV with him. I couldn't believe my eyes when the twin towers came crashing down. It was almost more than I could bear. My heart ached for all the families that this tragedy would affect. Never realizing at the time how this would affect all of our lives as well.

Even writing about it now, takes me back to that precise moment in time. I still feel the same despair & denial that I felt that day. How could someone hate a country so much as to do this? How can there be such evil?

With so much bad, evil, pain & suffering that this event brought. It also brought some good. It brought this country together as one nation. There was no Democrat or Republican, Rich or Poor, black or white. It didn't matter what you were, we were all AMERICANS. And we were UNITED. That is the part of 9/11 I try to remember the most.

Too bad we didn't hang on to that for very long as a nation. We have now gone back to bickering with each other again. Let's hope that it doesn't take another 9/11 to remind us that we are the greatest country in the world.

I hope that all of you will take a moment today to thank God that you live in the USA and to remember those who lost their lives on that fateful day & praise the heroes of that day. And don't forget the soldiers who put their lives on the line in other parts of the world to protect our freedoms.

Never forget that freedom is not free.

What are your memories of 9/11? Where were you & what where you doing when you heard the news of that day? Write your responses in comments or you can write your own post with your tribute.

Kim

And if you missed this video from my Sunday post, you need to watch it now.



Added at 12:30pm: I just found this video on a friend Sue's blog that I thought was perfect for today. It is about saying thanks to those that serve in the armed forces to protect our freedoms. This is such an easy gesture. I think we can all handle doing this one.

Friday Family Flashback-last years trip to Arizona

It's Friday & time for our Friday Family Flashback. And since I am in the middle of telling you about our latest trip to Arizona, I thought I would show you again our trip from last year. That way you can compare the two trips (last years was more exciting & we took a ton more photos).



Arizona vacation 2008:

We just got back from a week in beautiful Arizona. What kind of crazy person goes to Arizona for vacation in August? Well, the crazy kind like my family. But we were not alone, Mom, Dad & Jodi came along as well.

Mom let us use one of her time share weeks & they used another. We stayed in the Cave Creek Villas in a a small town called Cave Creek which is about 30 minutes north of Phoenix. It is closer to Scottsdale than to Phoenix. Each condo had 2 bedrooms plus a loft. Staying in a time share condo is much better than staying in a hotel. The condos had a kitchen, 2 bathrooms, washer, dryer & a hot tub. Needless to say, we didn't use the hot tub as it was too hot. The complex also has 2 swimming pools, a rec room with a pool table & ping pong table as well as a gym. We had a lot of fun swimming & playing pool & ping pong. Never used the gym. But from looking at my photos you can tell I never use a gym, so why start on vacation?

We arrived on Sat 8/2 about 6pm. Mom, Dad & Jodi arrived about an hour and a half before we did. We spent the first evening getting everything unpacked, went grocery shopping (food prices were much higher there than at home). Brought back Rubio's for dinner.

On Sunday we roamed around Cave Creek & checked out most of the little shops. Cave Creek is a tourist town that caters to the rich. Most of the homes in town are someones second or winter home and most of them cost a million dollars or more. The town gets most of their business in the fall & winter months. Summer is their slow season. After shopping we ate again at Rubio's & shopped at a Target with Mom, Dad & Jodi. Afterwards, we split up & went to Walmart. We thought we were going to the same Walmart, but ended up at different ones. Jesse was looking for a switch blade knife to buy.

Monday was spent shopping around again, hanging out at the condo. We went to the Horny Toad Restaurant in town for all you can eat beef ribs. Only Brandon, Mike & Jesse had the all you can eat ribs. Jodi & Dad had 1/2 rack of baby back ribs & mom & I had salmon. It was pretty good & pretty expensive.

Tuesday we drove to Sedona. On the way, we stopped in Campe Verde to visit Montezuma's Castle National Monument. This is an Indian cliff dwelling. Since we had already seen Mesa Verde in Colorado a few times, this Indian dwelling wasn't quite as impressive. But it was worth the short stop to see. After leaving there we drove on to Sedona. If you have never been to Sedona, you need to go. It is quite beautiful to see. The only bad part is that they are redoing the road & the traffic is quite bad because of it. In Sedona we walked around checking out all the little shops. We all had ice cream (really expensive). Mom, Dad, Jodi, Brandon & Jesse decided to drive to the Grand Canyon. Jesse is the only one who had never been to the Grand Canyon before. So they left Sedona early so they could reach the Grand Canyon before Sunset. Mike & I stayed in Sedona & shopped, then we drove back and had Rubio's again for dinner. (We love Rubio's & don't have one close to our house.)

Wednesday Mom & Jodi went shopping. Dad stayed at the condo & my family went into Phoenix & Mesa in search of a knife for Jesse. We went to 2 different Military surplus stores & Jesse finally found the knife he was looking for. While we were driving in Mesa, we just happened to pass the temple. I had never seen the temple there. It was quite different & it was weird not seeing an angel Moroni on top. We then went to the Goodwill & did some thrift shopping. We finally ended up at Sam's Club & bought steaks for Mike to BBQ for dinner. When we got back to the condo, Mike BBQ'd the steaks & we also had baked potatoes, corn on the cob & mushrooms. It was quite tasty.

Thursday was spent hanging out at the condo, shopping in town & doing laundry. We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in town that everyone raved about. We were told that people come from all over Arizona just to eat there. It was OK, but all of us agreed, we wouldn't drive very far to eat there. Mexican food in California is much better. While we were at dinner, we had a thunderstorm. We had lightning & thunderstorms almost every day we were in Arizona. This is their monsoon season. It was funny that Arizona is more green right now than California. When you think of Arizona being a desert, you expect it to be desolate. I wasn't expecting it to be so green.

On Friday Mike, Brandon, Jesse & I went to the Grand Canyon. We decided that we would go on the Grand Canyon Railroad which leaves Williams, AZ at 9am. We had to leave our condo at 5:30am to make sure we were there by 8am to check in. They had a wild west shootout prior to the train departing. The train is great. We sat in the Budd Coach cars. They are about the cheapest price seats & had air conditioning. All the cars are from old trains that have been restored. The train was pulled by a 100 year old steam engine as well as a diesel engine. On the way to the canyon, the diesel engine broke down. They had to break the train apart into 2 sections so the steam engine could take 1 section at a time. This made us about 45 minutes late to the canyon, but they gave us an hour and a half extra at the canyon to make up for the delay. So we had about 4 hours at the Grand Canyon to explore.

At the canyon, we hiked, watched the condors, shopped & ate lunch at the restaurant in the Bright Angel Hotel. I was surprised how reasonable the lunch prices were at the hotel. I expecting prices to be high as we were in a tourist trap, but the prices were about the same as buying a burger or sand which from Denny's or Coco's. The temps at the Grand Canyon were in the high 70's. It was a nice break from the high 90's & 100's we had been having all week. About 3:45pm we started back to the train depot to catch the train back to Williams when it started to rain. By the time we go on the train we were a little wet. And we were sitting in air conditioned car. It was a little chilly.

The train ride back was a lot funner than the train ride going. We sat in a different car on the way back & had a better attendant who gave us lots of info on things to do in northern Arizona. We will have to come back in order to visit all the places he told us about. Plus the entertainment on the way back was better. We even got robbed by train robbers. It was quite fun. I highly recommend taking the train to/from the Grand Canyon from Williams, AZ. It is a bit pricey, but worth the money. We didn't get back home to the condo until about 9:30pm, so it was quite a long day.

Saturday morning was spent packing up. We were suppose to check out by 11am, but we didn't get checked out until about 11:30am. Mom, Dad & Jodi left about 9am. We took a scenic route home (GPS sent us on this scenic route). It was quite interesting & saved us about an hour of drive time. We stopped at an Indian casino just east of Palm Springs & ate lunch before arriving home about 6:30pm. We would have been home at 5pm but stopped to eat.

We had a great time in Arizona & recommend it to everyone. We want to go back and check out more of northern Arizona. Cave Creek is a great town to stay in. Luckily for us, it wasn't too hot this past week. Brandon was happy to see lots of lightning. We spent most evenings, just sitting on the front porch watching the lightning.

Now it is back to the real world & back to work. It is always depressing to return from vacation. At least Mike & I get to go away for 3 days in a week and a half for my 50th birthday. So I have something to look forward to (besides getting old).

Enjoy the photos & let us know what you did fun this summer.

Kim

There are a lot of photos. Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Well I hope you enjoyed my family flashback for this week. You can have a lots more fun on vacation when you have money!!! On Monday I will continue with this years trip to Arizona.

If anyone else in the family wants to post old photos and/or stories or posts for Friday Family Flashback, you are more than welcome to join in.

Kim

Summer Vacation Flashback-Days 12 & 13

Kim's family vacation from 2001 continues with days 12 & 13. Oklahoma & New Mexico are the places we visit in this post. I do have to make a correction. In yesterdays post I said that Mike's niece Jamee & her husband Mike left to go back to California when we were at Mike's brothers house. But I was wrong. You have to remember I'm getting old so the old memory isn't what it used to be. Jamee & Mike continued on our vacation until we got to Albuquerque New Mexico. That is when they decided they wanted to go straight home.


Wednesday, July 18, 2001:

Objectives: Leave Val and Judy's house early and drive a LONG WAY to Albuquerque. This is going to be our longest drive. Once in New Mexico, we'll probably hit the sack early, but who knows for sure until it happens. I will keep you posted.

Our Experience: We left Val & Judi's house about 9am & drove to Oklahoma City where we visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial. This is the memorial for those who were killed when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995. It was a very reverent place. It really touched all of us. There are 9 rows of chairs. Each chair represents a person killed in the blast & on what floor they were on or visiting. There was 9 floors in the building that was blown up. There are also 5 chairs on the right side that represent the 5 people killed that were not in the building. There are 2 big walls on either side of the memorial. One has 9:01 on it to represent the last minute of innocence in America & the other has 9:03 which represents the first minute of healing. All the area between the 2 walls represents 9:02 the time of the explosion. There is a reflecting pool between the walls to help in healing. We spent about an hour at the memorial & walked past the chain link fence they still have on one side where people still put flowers, pictures & other mementos to those who were killed. After we left Oklahoma City we drove & drove & drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It took us about 11 hours of driving. We got hit by a few thunderstorms on the way but luckily we didn't see any tornadoes on our trip.

Photos:

Oklahoma City National Memorial grounds.

Jesse at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

Everyone at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

Jesse standing in front of the 9:03 wall.

Panoramic view of the Oklahoma City National Memorial.


Message painted by a rescue team after the Oklahoma City bombing.

Thursday, July 19, 2001:

Objectives: We'll be in Albuquerque, New Mexico all day and see what there is to do in the area. We also may drive up to Santa Fe, and see some of the historic sites up there.

Our Experience: Mike, Brandon, Jesse & Kim drove up to Santa Fe, New Mexico & took a tour of the city. We learned all about the history of Santa Fe & saw some old churches, art galleries & residential areas. It was very informative. Made it easier to walk around afterward to see what we really wanted to see. We went to Loretto Chapel which has a miraculous staircase. Back in the 1800's the chapel was built with a choir loft with no way to reach it. The sisters wanted a spiral staircase built as there wasn't room for regular stairs. All the builders & architects said it couldn't be done. So the sisters prayed. Along came a man who said he could build their spiral staircase which he did. Took 7 months & had no center support, nor braced to wall. No nails were used, only wooden pegs. When the sisters tried to pay the man, he wouldn't take any money & mysteriously disappeared. When the sisters went to the only lumber yard around to pay for the wood, they were told the wood didn't come from them. The sisters said this was a miracle.

On the way back to Albuquerque we stopped at Sandia Peak to ride the Sandia Tram to the top of the mountain. This tram is the longest tram ride in the world. We went from about 6000 feet up to almost 11,000 feet. Kim got altitude sickness. It was very beautiful up on top of the mountain. Brandon & Jesse thought this was the best.

We didn't do anything in Albuquerque. Guess we may have to come back someday. It's kind of sad that our vacation is winding down. We only have 1 more fun day & then it's back to reality. We wish we could afford to be on vacation & travel all the time.

Photos:

St. Francis cathedral in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Some buffalo sculpture.

The New Mexico state capital building.

The miraculous staircase at Loretto Chapel.

Inside of Loretto Chapel.

Jesse, Kim, and Brandon standing outside of Loretto Chapel.

Looking west towards Albuquerque from Sandia Peak.

Looking to the top of Sandia Peak.

Jesse, Brandon, Kim, and Mike on top of Sandia Peak.

Looking west over the Albuquerque valley.

The Sandia tram ride.

Looking to the east down the ski slopes from Sandia Peak.

Cliffs on the Sandia Mountains.

Coming down the mountain on the tram.
Tomorrow we will finish up with this vacation with the last 2 days. Then on Monday I will start posting about our current vacation as we leave for our trip to Cave Creek Arizona.

And Jodi should hopefully post some more of their current vacation to Snowbird. They had a little more excitement than they wanted last night. Mom had to be rushed to the hospital as they thought she was having a stroke. Turns out it wasn't a stroke & it wasn't her heart. They are not sure what happened, but Mom is now OK. Jodi said she would post more about it later. I am just thankful that Todd & Dad were able to give Mom a blessing and she is now completely OK. They will be staying an extra day in Snowbird before continuing on to Cave Creek where we will meet up with them.

And Eric's family has some bad news. They had to put their beloved dog Peluchi to sleep. Peluchi had been diagnosed with cancer a month or two ago and it finally got so bad, they had to put him down. Taylor has been the most devastated by this loss as she was the closest to Peluchi. Eric didn't dare tell her about Grandma last night as she was too upset about the dog. Luckily the news with Grandma (Mom) turned out good. And Peluchi is in a better place & is no longer in pain.