Mendoza Sighting: New Hampshire Edition!

Well, well, well. It sure seems like the Mendozas get around the country.

Here we see the Mendoza van, in of all places, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It is parked across the street from the Old North Church, where George Washington once worshipped in 1789.

So let's see the evidence.

It certainly looks like our van. It is blue, missing a hubcap, and on the left side, it even seems to have had a slight ender-bender in the past. It is even parked in front of an historic church.

Believability Rating: 50%. Although it looks pretty good, there is the possibility that this is not our van. For one, it looked a little too clean. This van had a roof rack, which strangely, seems to be missing on our van. We don't need to carry skis. Its not like we ever go skiing, or snowboarding.

I mean, come on.

The windows are tinted, which also seems to be missing now.

Also, I saw the driver come out of the van, and it could not have been me. How could I see myself come out of a van? It's not like I was watching myself six months into the future. Besides, this guy didn't look ANYTHING like me. Sure he was better looking, but he had that pasty skin that I saw on all New Englanders after a long winter that makes them look like drowning victims. The van also looked way too clean when I got closer to it. It also seems to have been registered in the state of New Hampshire.

Besides, this was a Thursday, and the family would have needed the van to get to Violin Lessons.

This was pretty close, but no cigar.

Oh well. Tune in again later for another edition of...

MENDOZA SIGHTING!

Sunset Over Seaside, California

Sunset over Seaside, California from the parking lot of Best Buy.

July Vehicles Driven By The Mendozas

Again, thank you everybody who lent us your vehicles while we were out of a van (It is back, but more on that later).

Here are a couple of the vehicles that we borrowed over the course of a couple of weeks.

The first one that we borrowed was the little purple car on the right. It belongs to a Seminary brother, Pedro, from Sacramento. the first day we had it we went to a birthday party, but we also had somebody's van. Some kids that we know were not aware that we had both a van and this little car, and thought we all came in this little car since we were all gathered around it getting something from the back. It immediately got called the "Clown Car," and the name stuck for the rest of the time we had it.

The vehicle in front is a big old Ford F-150. The cab is large enough to fit 6 people! We liked this one too, and it immediately got nicknamed "Truckzilla."

What's that in the background?

It's a 1973 VW Bus in the Wild Westerner scheme! Perhaps more on that in future postings. It's a pretty neat Bus.

Slowly Overcoming MY Fears

For those of you wondering, yes, I will get close to Lemons. I will even go to Costco and kiss a bag of Lemons. Here is proof I am slowly overcoming my fear and aversion of Lemons. notice how close they get to my 'stache.

Hey Floridians, this one is for you!

Happy 1st Birthday, Margaret!

Happy Birthday, Margaret!

Congratulations on reaching your first Birthday!

May you have lots of cake, presents you can chew on, and peaceful nights.

We can't be there for your birthday, but here is a virtual cake just for you (and several others)!

Happy 1st Birthday!

Legoland!

Previously, on '24'...

Er... actually, last time we were in San Diego. Now we come to the real reason why we went to San Diego, and that is Legoland! Yes, an entire theme park devoted to those little bricks, and it was a blast! It is a bit pricey at about 65 dollars for adults, and 55 dollars for kids, but here is where homechooling truly pays off. You can go for 21 dollars a person if you home school (17 when we went), and for 25 a person if you want to go to their new Aquarium. The Aquarium was not open yet when we went, but so what? It was really fun. There was almost as many Legos here at Legoland than in some people's house that I have been in.

The entrance to Legoland.

We were there before the park even opened. Lovely San Diego weather. It even sprinkled a bit while we were there.

Here we get the tickets. No, there was not a Golden one in the lot.

The signs for the restrooms were pretty funny.

Hey, a life-sized R2-D2!

This picture came out a bit distorted, Nicholas really liked the Darth Vader. Yup, all made out of Legos.

They had a little Jungle cruise with quite a few animals made out of, you guessed it, Legos.

Nicholas was eaten by a Lion.

Nicholas tried the Volvo Driving Track, and he got a License as well.

Ah, now we come to one of the more memorable moments at Legoland. This was a Song and Dance troupe that taught kids about Fire Safety.

They were pretty athletic, because the entire Fire Truck spun around, and they would climb on the ladder and dangle off of it.

Why were they memorable? The Chorus to one of the songs they sang was, "Keep the Wet Stuff on the Hot Stuff." Good advice any time.

THE highlight of Legoland. Millions of bricks are used to recreate famous American and world landmarks. Here is the New Orleans section of Miniland.

Mardi Gras in brick! Actually, New Orleans is not very accurate as no corrupt politicians could be found. We will have to look more extensively through our pictures for the Lego St. Louis Cathedral. When it was being built, we happened to see some pictures of the Lego Cathedral, and apparently they were using old pictures of it. Quite a few of the Lego recreations have the interiors recreated as well, and the Lego people happened to recreate the Interior of St. Louis Cathedral as well as it would have looked like before 1970, meaning that they made a High Altar and everything was Ad Orientem. It cannot be seen as the Cathedral is roofed, but I truly appreciate the effort put into it.

A Lego Mission. Mini Figures of Fathers Milich and Fitz-Henry would be really cool!

The Hollywood Bowl. There are more than 15.000 Mini Figures in Miniland.

Lego San Francisco. Here is the entrance to Chinatown. Chinatown has the smallest figure in the park, a duck hanging in a window made of four bricks. We couldn't find it.

The famous row of houses on Alamo Square.

The Golden Gate Bridge.

One would think that this would be a boring part, just looking at Lego Bricks, but it really was pretty neat.

The Embarcadero in San Francisco. No U2 in sight.

The Capitol of the United States. Again, very inaccurate as no corrupt politicians were in sight.

Georgetown is recreated here along with the B&O Canal.

The United States Marine Corps Memorial.

Another view of the memorial.

The Washington Monument.

The Lincoln Memorial.

The Smithsonian.

This was on the Water cruise that they have, Mount Rushmore. No Jimmy Stewart in sight, or Marin Landau at the bottom.

Lego New York City. Also inaccurate, as you could not smell any urine-soaked air.

The Taj Mahal.

The Sydney Opera House.

Lego Florida, which was basically Daytona Beach and the famous Speedway there.

Ah, yes, look at all those Mini Figures! Almost as many as what comes with the Death Star.

We were there the entire day, from opening to closing. Here they are posing with the souvenirs that came from one of the approximately 600 gift shops. They had Lego sets there that are not sold in stores, so that was pretty cool. The food was nice too, and not too outrageous for being a theme park. We had Pizza at the Ristorante Brickolini!

All in all, a very nice time.

What?

There is one section of Miniland missing?

Tune in tomorrow for a shocking expose!

On The Road Again: San Diego, May 2008

Here are some more of our travel photos. In May of 2008, we ventured out to the end of the state, San Diego. They are supposed to have better weather than the Central Coast, but when we wee there, it was no better than Monterey County. It even rained just a bit while we were there. We managed to stay in Oceanside, right next to Camp Pendleton. It was a bit of a drive from San Diego proper, but it was closer to our objective of Legoland, pictures of which will be up shortly.

We got to San Diego the weekend of Pentecost. We went to Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church for Divine Liturgy. This church has to bee seen, and is well worth a visit. The entire Church has Icons covering it, even the ceiling.

The Pastor of Holy Angels is Father Robert Pipta. Here he is processing in right before the Anaphora, the Consecration of the Wine and Bread into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. This part of the Divine Liturgy is known as the Cherubikon, the Hymn of the Cherubim. Green is the colour for Pentecost for Eastern Catholics, signifying the newness of the Church at Pentecost.

You don't need to go to the San Diego Zoo to find wildlife. CSU San Diego will do. Or the field surrounding Holy Angels Church. This is right outside the Parish Hall, right underneath the Church.

Nearby is the first Mission in what is now California (In Baja California, there were 23 Missions established by the Jesuits and Dominicans. The Missions in present day California were established by the Franciscans), Mission San Diego. Mass was still going on when we arrived, and there were a lot of people (It was Pentecost, after all). We maaged to get a few pictures, went to the gift shop, and then went to get lunch at a Jack-in-the-Box. As San Diego is the headquarters for Jack-in-the-Box, they are all over the place.

We then headed on over the the very nice Maritime Museum. This is the HMS Suprise, a replica of the HMS Rose. This was built in 1970, and was used in the movie, Maste and Commander. Behind is the Soviet Diesel Electric Submarine, B-39. It more than likely hunted some of the very ships that were ported at the Naval Base in San Diego. The Soviet Boat had a crew of 78, but how they stayed on board without going crazy is amazing. Superior Soviet psychology I guess.

Inside one of the ships.

There were exhibits of many types of boats, including fishing boats. There are many in San Diego of Italian ancestry, and they worked the fishing trade there, and they did in Monterey. On many of their fishing boats, they made altars on which Holy Mass could be celebrated, and niches where statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary would have a place of prominence, and where prayers could be offered to God for protection.

A model of a World War II ship.

Included with the admission we bought, which was really reasonable, was a 15 minute ride around San Diego Bay. Even from a mile away, one could see just how huge the USS Ronald Reagan is. I think the bay cruise was actually more than 15 minutes, as there were not not many people on board.

The inside of an old Ferry Boat.

A view of Coronado Bridge from the boat cruise.

The USS Midway, now a museum on the San Diego Water Front. We did not get a chance to visit here, but we definitely want to go back and visit some more things in San Diego. There is Comic-con, the San Diego Zoo, Mount Palomar, Tijuana near by, and much more.

Hey if any of you Navy people get stationed at San Diego, we are going to visit you so much, you are going to get sick and tired of us. If you are not already.

Well, this is just the Sunday from this trip. The next day we went to Homeschool Days at Legoland. On the way back, we visited some of the Missions.

Those pictures will follow in the next couple of days. Thanks for looking!