Lake Tahoe

Our friends Brad and Christine kindly hosted us at their parents’ place in Tahoe. The kids had such a good time in the snow that Colin declared this morning that he was moving to Tahoe — or Alaska — when he grew up. And Cameron had his first experience trying to taste the falling snow.

We got to see a lot of snow. Mostly we spent the days having snowball fights, sledding, and trying to build snowmen. We had planned to take skiing lessons with the kids, but it was snowing too hard for that.

Given that the drives up and back were challenging, the relaxed pace of cabin life was the perfect counterbalance.

So: thanks to Brad and Christine and all the other families who made this the first ski week vacation where we actually saw snow.

Next year, we’ll have to try and get everyone in the group picture. Though I have to say, it was enough of a challenge getting the partial picture above.

More pics at Picasa Web Albums.

Mini coaster

Our kids — like us — are not big roller coaster fans. They thought the mini coastr in Toon Town at Disneyland was a little too much — and the Matterhorn was definitely too much. The slight drop at the beginning of Pirates of the Carribean is more their speed.

So we were pretty surprised when they declared the mini coaster at Discovery Kingdom a lot of fun. I’m pretty sure all the screaming you hear is from Katye and cousin Leann.

As usual, higher quality version on YouTube. (I shot the video on my Canon point-and-shoot as the Nikon D90 did not accompany us to the amusement park, in case you’re wondering.)

This is the first video we’ve uploaded through the Mac port of Picasa, which is now available in beta. We were big fans of Picasa on Windows, and though iPhoto is very similar, there are definitely things we miss about Picasa — mostly to do with the tight integration with Google’s Picasa Web Albums and YouTube. Uploading videos via Picasa sure beats doing it over their Web based uploader.

(You need 3.0.1.321 or later — the first beta they published a few days ago never successfully uploaded to YouTube.)

Dennis the Menace park

If you are ever in Monterey with school-age children, definitely spend an afternoon at the Dennis the Menace Park. It’s an impressive playground with a maze, an actual steam locomotive, a long suspension bridge, a tall climbing wall, and other cool equipment designed by Hank Ketcham, the creator of Dennis the Menace.

Colin and Katye have been reading mommy’s Calvin and Hobbes collection and haven’t read any Dennis the Menace. We tried to explain how Dennis was kind of like Calvin in that they were both mischievous — but somehow Calvin is much funnier, probably because he’s much more subversive. Anyway, it’s time to check out some Dennis the Menace anthologies from the library.

OK, enough Monterey pics on the blog. See the complete album on Smugug.

BTW, I’m loving the Nikon D90 and the 18-200mm lens. It’s not a perfect lens by any means, but you can’t beat the convenience of this focal range (i.e., it’s a “super-zoom”) with fast auto-focusing, and good-enough optics to take some eye-popping pictures.

Jellyfish at the Aquarium

The British biologist J.B.S. Haldane is famously quoted as saying, “”My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” Most of the time, that quote is used by sub-atomic physicists talking about the completely non-intuitive behavior of quarks and bozons and whatnot.

But some sea creatures are improbable at the biological level as well: the impossibly ornate sea-horses and the glowing fish, and the chameleon-like fish which change color and markings to better blend in with the sand behind them, and this too-cool jellyfish (visit the video on YouTube for a higher-resolution version).

(The original video was shot on a Nikon D90 DSLR, in case you are curious.)

Day trips

We took a few day trips during the holiday shutdown, including an overnight run to Monterey. Of course, we stopped by the Monterey Bay Aquarium to marvel at the sea creatures living in our oceans. Thanks to David and Lucille Packard for making the aquarium a reality!

We walked a bunch that day (probably 5 miles altogether), and the kids were champs. To reward them, we stopped by a nearby candy shop. And here he is, the proverbial kid in a candy store:

One of our favorite pics from vacation

Fedora snapped this shot as Cameron decided he had enough of the cold water. 

New aquarium

There’s a new aquarium with a few nicely down exhibits right next to the main park at Legoland. Probably not worth visiting on its own, but if you’re going to Legoland, definitely worth checking out some of the innovative views of the sea creatures the designers have managed to create.

Water park

Colin and Ryan had a blast at the water park this summer. The water was pretty cold, but it was a hot day in Carlsbad. They eventually worked up to the nerve to stand underneath the big bucket of water.

If you’ve never seen it, it’s an impressively large bucket of water that gets dumped on the kids every few minutes.

I love the reaction of the kid who turns around right after the water comes down. Also, go check out the stop-motion photos on Smugmug — I finally got to use my little Canon’s multiple-exposure feature, and it did all right for a point-and-shoot.

New rides @ Legoland

There are a few new rides at the so-called Land of Adventure area inside Legoland. The kids enjoyed all of them, especially this one called the Beetle Bounce:

The Buzz Lightyear-like ride called the Lost Kingdom Adventure felt like it could have been made by ambitious camp directors (Anson?) for church summer camp — that is, pretty good for amateurs, not that impressive for professionals.

Legoland

Legoland wasn’t quite as crowded (we went on a Wednesday), but they are still plagued by the slow-moving-line syndrome. Something about their rides and the way they pack people into them mean than even short-looking lines can go for 30-40 minutes.

On the plus side, this was the first year Cameron could actually ride some of the attractions, including the drive-your-own-cars which he treated more like bumper cars than a simulation of a city street.