The Ventura Shores

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Mother's Day Hike at Devil's Punchbowl

Marion started off her Mother's Day with some cuddling and loving from her 2 boys. Then, she had her special breakfast of matzoh-brei, granola-yoghurt parfait with fresh raspberries and blueberries, and coffee with hazlenut creamer.

The weather was a little foggy and gloomy in Ventura, so we packed up the car to drive out towards Palmdale for a hike at Devils Punchbowl, above Pearblossom.

The weather was beautiful out there on the edge of the Mojave desert. Notice the snow still in the Southern California mountains in May, and also notice the fog rolling over the mountains from the coastal side.

Beautiful cloud formations today in Antelope Valley.

Brodie got away from us for awhile to try his hand at free rock climbing. He just can't resist a challenge.

Gorgeous hike, gorgeous day. We had a late lunch / early dinner at Claim Jumper on our way home.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

NLCC Flagship

Brodie's Sea Cadet unit competed in the 2011 Flagship competition at Los Alamitos Joint Training Base. The competition featured 18 units from all over the extended Southern California region and there were 180 cadets in attendance.

The competition included inspection, regulation drill, color guard, as well as several nautical skills like knot-tying, signal flags, stretcher-bearer, swimming and line-heaving. The competition was fierce, but Brodie's unit came away with 1st place overall, an honor they hadn't won since 2006. They won 1st place in Inspection and Regulation Drill, 2nd place in Fire Fighting and Signal Pennants, and 3rd place in Knot Tying and Swim Relay.

Congratulations, TS Minutemen. Ooh-Rah!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Pumpkin Patch

Sunday we had our annual visit to the pumpkin patch with our friends, the Urbans. We met Lysa and Mark on the day our children were born; Natasha was born one day after Brodie. Our tradition of going to the pumpkin patch with them dates back to 1999 when we propped our infants up against hay bales and pumpkins at their first Halloween.

Brodie, Nik and Natasha had a great time lifting pumpkins, driving the wheel- barrows, running in the hay bale maze, and watching the Rotary Club flinging pumpkins 250 feet through the air to a splattery death with their Trebuchet, a type of catulpult.

After, we went back to the Urbans' newly-built home and were honored to be the first dinner guests at Casa Urbana, their beautiful Spanish style hillside house with spectacular views of the ocean and the sunset.

Sea Cadet Promotion

Brodie had a fun weekend at Sea Cadets. On Saturday his unit trained at the Gun Club on base at Point Mugu and participated in some skeet shooting. Each cadet shot at 5 targets with a 28 gauge shot gun; Brodie hit 2 of 5, shattering one and chipping one.

On Sunday Brodie was promoted to LC2 and now gets to wear 2 stripes on his sleeve. He spent part of the weekend learning to command the lower-ranking cadets and training them in the basics of drilling and marching.