Farm Day!

Those who are acquainted with us Mendozas know that Juan is the fun parent, and I am the dull parent. So while Juan was away, I had to fill in and try to be more fun. So I decided that I should take the kids someplace fun, and if possible, something free. As luck would have it, that weekend, while Juan was injuring himself doing yard work for some family in New Hampshire, the Watsonville Day on the Farm was on. So after a quick stop at Wendy's for lunch, we headed out to Watsonville to learn about farm stuff.

The kids got to see real live farm animals and pet them.

There were many classic cars on display as well.

Two wanded Wizard dueling? No! it's an old fashioned game that involves tossing and catching a hoop with sticks. Apparently this was the Nintendo Wii of the 1880's.

Pumping water the old fashioned way.

Nicholas attempts the Jr. tractor pull with a payload of six bricks. Much harder than it looks.

Monica has some fun at the candle making booth.

Ramon also tries his hand at candle making.

Lizzie and Nicholas tried out the sack races and were rewarded with candy.

After the kids were worn out from sack racing and candle making and other crafts, we decided to take the hay ride. We got to ride in a wagon pulled by these beautiful clydesdales. Juan says he could totally ride one of those. And then promptly fall off, and hurt himself.

There is a little Farming museum at the fairgrounds, and we went in to see the sewing exhibit. Lizzie models a lovely bonnet here. Now she wants me to sew her one. Sigh.

Dial-a-beef. It sounded fun, but we were disappointed to learn that instead of dispensing delicious beef products, it only gave out interesting facts about beef cattle.

Not a bad afternoon (except for the dial-a-beef disappointment). The kids came home with things like yarn dolls and ball and cup games, bits of rope, and other crafty things. I picked up a recipe for homemade ice cream that doesn't require any special appliances and instructions on how to make cheese.

My Wife Went To Panama City For Spring Break And All I Got Was A Shirt!

The conquering heroine comes back to San Jose Airport. Her plane ride was alright, and did not land on any strange islands with smoke monsters.

The kids ran over to greet her.

Every angle must be photographed!

Come on Delta, It was only one flight, and you still manage to get a tear on the bag? This was a carry-on bag, but on the small plane from Atlanta to Panama City and back, they do have to put bags in cargo. They managed to put this on her bag.

Now for the fun stuff! A Shirt.

A nice cool hat.

A shell covered box.

Another shirt...

Here is the shirt I got.

I did get a visit from someone in Southern California, so I guess that counts for something. Plus, it's a Kramer sighting, and it just might have been a real one, too! Don't remember that light green shirt, though.

Hitler Finds Out Scott Brown Won in Massachusetts

Merry Christmas from the Mendoza Family

Merry Christmas from the Mendoza Family, and from the Central Coast of California. keep us in your prayers, as we keep all of you, our friends, in our prayers. You are all very special to us, and cannot imagine the world without you and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Take car, God bless, and we wish you a blessed new Year 2010.

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!

Don't Try This At Home: Stuff I Do When I Am Bored

I get bored sometimes. Sometimes I do productive things with that boredom, like learn another language. Sometimes I stick things in Microwaves that perhaps isn't food and don't belong there.

Did you know that if you stick Christmas Lights in a Microwave at Full Power for about 10 Seconds, that they light up in different colours, even if they are a sting of White Lights? Check it out....

This would be a fun science experiment for school credit if somehow I could figure out why they turn different colours.

You Want it When?

Father Milich had been working for a couple of months to bring a Solemn High Mass (a Mass with three priests) to Mission San Juan, but we didn't know for certain if it was really going to happen until last weekend. The three priests would need matching vestments. They had some gold vestments available at the mission, but the maniples were missing. The maniple is something like a sash which the priest wears over his left arm. It symbolizes how our Lord's hands were bound when he was arrested.


Since I have a sewing machine, and since the more qualified seamstress has recently moved out of state, I was given the honor of making them.






I traced around one of Father's other maniples to make a pattern, and then began cutting the interfacing.




Now for the part of sewing that always scares me the most: cutting into the fabric.





The color of the fabric was a good match for the vestments, but it was very thin and soft. To use the technical term: swishy. So I used the interfacing to help keep its shape, and give the Maniple more weight.

Three Maniples cut out, and two days before the Mass. Plenty of time, right?

A Maniple is supposed to have three crosses, one on each end, and one in the middle. Since I didn't have time to order cross shaped apliques, I used ribbon. Juan picked it out. Worked on this late Saturday night after an afternoon at the beach. There's still time!



Sunday morning and they were finished! Phew! Seen here against one of the vestments used at Mass.

The Mendozas go on vacation!

Let us go back in time just a bit, to the beginning of this year, when we went on vacation.

Where to go on vacation? We figured we had about a week or maybe a bit less. I figured that would be maximum we would last with each other before felony charges would be filed. Probably against Nicholas. Oh man, if only we knew what was coming in June!

Well we chose to go to the Grand Canyon. Not the new one, but Grand Canyon Classic, the original one in Arizona.

So the day is coming when we were to leave, and we find out that there is a Snow Storm just behind us, and will hit Williams, AZ right as we are getting there. We had chains, and practiced putting them on, but if things got really hairy, our alternate plan was to head south once the snow stopped us, and to go to San Diego.

So off we go!

Just outside of Bakersfield, up in the hills, we already encountered snow. A foreshadow of all the snowballs thrown. Usually by Monica at Nicholas.

See what I mean.

So there is gambling in this town? Why don't they advertise this? There might be money to be made in this....

Many a time we wish they had this here in Monterey County to handle those nights with Eddie and Ulysses.

So apparently there is a Dam right outside of Las Vegas. Dam!

Dam! That's a big Dam!

Route 66 used to run form Chicago to Los Angeles. Seligman, AZ used to be on this route, and just like in Cars, it got bypassed by the Interstate system. It has managed to live on, and there a cafe called the RoadKill Cafe. We had just eaten in Kingman, AZ otherwise we should have eaten here. Maybe next time. Been a while since my last Fried Squirrel.

The snow not too bad, even though we had severe doubts. However, it seems like it all would have worth it even if we just stayed at the Hotel playing in the snow in the parking lot. I think we might have been one family of ten guests they had. Manager says that it would have been impossible to get the room we had at even triple the price in Spring and Summer.

Playing with the snow late into the night. GO TO BED! We need to leave early tomorrow and scrape the snow off the car!

Thank God we at least had Internet Access!

Starting to snow some more.

And in the morning, this is what it looked like. Or what they call in Nebraska in winter, Tuesday.

Route 66 in the middle of Williams, AZ.

One hour later, the Grand Canyon! From Mather Point.

The Family at Mather Point, close up.

From aways now.

Just absolutely spectacular.

More snow to play havoc with the lighting!

We could just play in the parking lot snow!

On our way to Desert View.

The Mendozas at Grapevine Canyon, I think.

Can I take this home?

Desert View.

Colorado River at Desert View.

Looking East from Desert View.

Looking West down river.

The family at Moran Point.

We had all bought boots to keep warm, and to trudge around in the snow. We went down one of the trails, Bright Angel Trail, although it was listed as being slippery with all the ice. Two in our party slipped and fell. A couple of people helped them up, and looked at them. They were Japanese tourists, but one of them was dressed as a Japanese Superhero from a current Manga, and this character apparently is a guy who gets his powers from snow. I guess he decided to fly to Arizona, and dress up as this superhero, and get pictures of himself in the snow.

At one of the gift shops at the Village.

A bit of a weather system about 20 miles away.

A California Condor, seemingly just posing there for everybody. There were about half a dozen around Mather Point our last day there.

California Condor.

Bright Angel Canyon. This would have been a nice hike, even just a bit.

Arizona still calls one road Route 66.

The Fountains at Bellagio. Probably the only thing for us worth seeing in Las Vegas.

Lots of Neon.

A great time was had by all. Ready to do it again, and would like to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, too.