S'mores

A s'more is a traditional campfire treat popular in the United States, consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a slab of chocolate sandwiched between two pieces of graham cracker.

For a treat after dinner, we attempted to make some. Unfortunately, the BBQ was not that hot, so they took a while. The marshmallows did eventually melt, although Nathan had trouble getting it into his mouth.

Pasadena

Nineteen Years ago, I spent a summer living in Pasadena as a postgraduate student, working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology. I lived only a few blocks away from the mansion, on the corner of California Blvd and S Oak Knoll Ave.

I took the chance to revisit the apartment building, only to find that the Philistines had knocked it down years ago for some trendy wood frame offices. No respect ...

The blue Honda in the foreground is the car that the Lious graciously leant to us during our 11 day stay. A 1989 Accord, it just went and went. And the air conditioning worked fantastically.

The Pasadena City Hall is a very impressive building. I spent many hours in this building in the 1980's sorting out a residential parking permit for my summer stay.

The "Mansion" in Pasadena

The house the Lious have in Pasadena for the summer is described as a "mansion". The driveway even has its own median strip to avoid collisions.

The house itself is a very 60's and has a great pool. First order of business once we unpacked our bags from the car was to test the pool. It was a balmy 86F, with low humidity. Lying in the sun was a great way to spend the afternoon of our 27 hour day.

Los Angeles

We arrived in LA early in spite of leaving Washington ten minutes late. Better still, our luggage popped out of the carousel fairly quickly and Kathy, our ride was there as well.






Driving through LA to Pasadena, where the Lious have a 'mansion' for the summer, we saw downtown LA through the smog, experienced a little bit of LA traffic and also the Pasadena Freeway, the world's first and oldest freeway, with its 5mph exits and no emergency lane.

In the Air

They finally called our flight and we were on and off on a 5+ hour flight back across the country, retracing part of our journey from 6 months ago. It was Gemma's 4th plane flight, Sam's 6th and Alyssa's 8th. We passed the time reading and talking. Liz and Alyssa started planning our theme park strategies using some unofficial guide books (more on this later). Any guesses on what Sam was working on?

The Plane, The Plane

Our Irish Friend Bobby dropped us off at the airport where we got our first lesson in queueing (many to come - did you now that queueing is the only word in the English language with 5 consecutive vowels).









We had chosen to fly Alaskan Airlines (from Washington DC to Los Angeles - go figure), and they only had a small check-in terminal, so we had to wait to check our one bag.



Then it was off for more queueing to get through security barefoot and liquid-less before finding the lounge and waiting for the plane. This old guy across the row of seats from me just wouldn't get off his phone. Turns out he was planning his presidential campaign - it was Senator John McCain (sorry. no photo).

We're all Going on a Summer Holiday!

We're off for an 11 day holiday to Southern California. Not only will we fulfill our promise to the kids to take them to Disneyland (and the other southern California attractions), but we will also catch up with friends (the Lious, who visited us earlier this year, and the Christersens, who left Adelaide in 1997 to return to California).

First job was to pack our bags ... well bag. Due to the generous hand luggage allowances on domestic flights in the US, we only needed to check one bag (which is always a risk). To minimise loss of this one bag, we had booked a direct flight from Washington Ronald Reagan National Airport to Los Angeles International Airport.

VBS

This week, the kids have been attending the traditional Vacation Bible School, known as VBS (the USA is the land of the TLA - three letter acronym). It was held at our local church, but every church in the country does this at some point over summer. Given how long the summer holidays are, these are a real blessing around now (7th week now, with 4 more to go).

The theme this year was "take the plunge", and it generally involved the kids getting wet each day. They all had a lot of fun, and Liz got involved in the kitchen and crafts area.

Nationals Game

And yes, here's some photos of the game we saw.

Take me out to the Ball Game ...

Today we went to a Nationals game, the local Major Legaue Baseball team, at RFK (Robert F Kennedy) Stadium. The stadium used to be the home of the Redskins (NFL), but now hosts the Nationals (who have only been a DC for a few years), and DC United, the local major league soccer team.

As you can see, it wasn't hugely crowded (Nationals are currently bottom of their division), and today they played the Rockies who weren't much better. But they did win, with a 3 run homer in the bottom of the 8th.

The kids had their hot dog (as you do at the baseball), and we enjoyed a pleasant day. Sam was getting into the stats as well.

Mathematics Camp

For the past 2 weeks, the girls have been doing a commute to George Mason University to take Sam to a Mathematics Camp/Summer School in Pre-Algebra. This has been an amazing experience for Sam, both in the mathematics and to meet other kids who are as interested in maths as Sam is. You can see from his expression what he thought of it.

It was a solid 3 hours for him each day, plus homework each afternoon and evening. And he couldn't get enough. He was the youngest in the class, but age is irrelevant in this situation. They ended the fortnight with calculus.

They all got T-Shirts, but it may be a few years before Sam fits into his!


We're now looking into further efforts in this direction.

Iwo Jima Memorial

Washington DC and the surrounding area is full of memorials. This one is known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, and is dedicated to all Marines who have fallen. It is located right next to Arlington Cemetery.

It is based upon a battle on the island of Iwo Jima during the second world war, where 5 marines and a Navy corpsman raised an American flag which subsequently spurred them on to victory. A newpaper photographer captured the moment in a famous photo and this memorial was based upon that photo.

Several of these men died during the battle.

This memorial is large, about 4 times life size. I purposely did not photograph this with people in it to retain the moment.

"Semper Fidelis" is Latin for "Always faithful." It is the motto of the US Marine Corps.