Saturday, Jul 31
Haze
Currently: 63˚F
Feels Like: 63˚ F
Hi: 70˚, Lo: 58˚
Sunday, Aug 1
Hi: 68˚, Lo: 59˚
weather feed courtesy of weather.com - thanks!
Stephanie suffered a fracture in her fibula during the first game of the San Diego Classic. We first thought it was a bad sprain, but we took her to an urgent care office that night and the x-ray showed a fracture. Stephanie stayed in San Diego for the rest of the tournament, and we went to an orthopedist the following Monday. The ortho confirmed it was a fracture, and Stephanie is now in a cast for the next six weeks.
As was the case last year, Stephanie couldn’t make the Obon Festival at the Venice Hongwanji Buddhist Temple. Her high school team was playing in the San Diego Classic during the same weekend. Morgan, Iris, & Ron had plenty to do, though, helping out at the Dango booth, the Udon booth, Chicken Teriyaki booth, Snow Cone booth, and Girl Scout Aloha Toss booth.
Morgan got to dance both days and, interestingly, she wanted to dance, which was unusual for her. Ron got to dance Sunday. Too bad we didn’t make any practices this year, because there seemed to be a lot of new dances, and Ron sat out most of them. Sunday evening ended with four classics: Shiawase Samba, One Plus One Ondo, Tanko Bushi, and Obon No Uta (aka Bon Odori Uta), so Ron was able to get a little dancing in.
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As part of our trip to San Diego for the San Diego Classic, the El Segundo High School Girls Basketball Team had lunch at Seau’s Restaurant in Mission Valley.
The girls punked their coach by telling the waitress it was her birthday.
Ron and Stephanie drove up to Hanford to join Morgan for the 4th of July. Morgan had been spending the previous week there with the Gongs. Stephanie couldn’t go up earlier because her high school basketball team was running a booth at Rec Park as a fund raiser. Iris decided she didn’t want to drive up just for one night (we had to drive back on the 5th) so she stayed home.
For more pics, click here.
Ron, Stephanie, and Morgan ran the Run For Education, which is a 5K run through the streets of El Segundo. This is the second year Morgan has run the race; she gets extra credit for PE when she runs, so there’s some motivation for her. Ron and Stephanie have run this for several years.
It’s a hilly course, with a steep uphill grade about two-thirds of the way through on Sycamore Ave between Center Street and Maryland Ave. The race is sponsored by the El Segundo PTA.
It’s once again the season for selling Girl Scout Cookies. This year’s new variety is Thank U Berry Much, a shortbread type cookie with dried cranberries. Fortunately, since Stephanie isn’t participating in Girl Scouts this year, we don’t have to worry about selling quite as many cookies. However, Iris is the cookie chair this year, which is a lot of work.
We took a trip to Orlando, Florida, this year during the kids’ spring break. We flew to Orlando on Sunday, taking a direct flight on American Airlines. We stayed at a time share, the Polynesian Isles Resort in the city of Kissimmee, which was just 15 minutes from the Disney theme parks. Actually, everything in Orlando is pretty convenient to get to. We had a nice two-bedroom unit that was roomy and comfortable. The pool was very warm, and open late at night so the girls could go swimming after a long day at the theme parks.
On our first full day, we went to Universal Orlando. More precisely, we visited Universal’s Islands of Adventure, which is more of a roller coaster-type park than the Universal Studios Florida, which we heard was very similar to the Universal Studios Hollywood that we were already familiar with. The rides were awesome, and we started right away with The Incredible Hulk Coaster.
It wasn’t very crowded, since most everyone else’s spring break was earlier than ours. We probably didn’t spend more than 30 minutes in any one line (except for The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, when the ride broke down for about 15 minutes while we were waiting). The Wizarding World of Harry Potter wasn’t open yet, except for one ride, the Dueling Dragons, which is being converted to the Dragon Challenge. Dueling Dragons is two separate roller coasters, one Fire and the other Ice, and each coaster starts off running side-by-side, but then come at each other during several points in the ride.
On our second day, we did some shopping at a nearby outlet mall because the girls needed some jeans. After some shopping, we went to DisneyQuest, a five-story indoor theme park. The kids got to build their own virtual roller coaster and ride it in a simulator. There were other virtual rides throughout the complex, where you could raft through a jungle river with the entire family paddling with oars, ride a flying carpet in an Aladdin-themed adventure, shoot at pirate ships in a Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, and rescue stranded spacemen using a spider-like craft. One of the funnest attractions was a bumper car ride where the cars were equipped with cannons that fired bowling ball-size balls. If you hit another car in the target spot, that car would go spinning around and be disabled for a few seconds. Lots of different arcade games as well. We probably could have spent a lot longer time there. Afterwards, we had dinner at nearby T-Rex, a restaurant owned by the same parent company as Rain Forest Cafe. The decor and atmosphere was very reminiscent of Rain Forest Cafe, but with a dinosaur theme.
On our third day, we visited Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Ron and Iris were excited to see attractions that used to be at Disneyland, like the Carousel of Progress and Country Bear Jamboree. Iris was especially excited to see the Hall of Presidents. We noted a few differences between the Magic Kingdom attractions and the same attractions at Disneyland. Space Mountain, for example, had riders in a single line instead of two-by-two seats, and there was no music during the ride. And Big Thunder Mountain Railroad didn’t have a water feature at the end. And there weren’t any rides that compared to the Matterhorn Bobsleds or Indiana Jones Adventure in Disneyland.
We visited Disney’s Epcot on our fourth day. We enjoyed riding inside the big “golf ball” in Spaceship Earth. It was also fun zipping around Test Track Pavilion (although Ron’s not sure the relatively short ride was worth the long wait). In the World Showcase, the girls had fun doing the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure while Iris enjoyed some of the readily available alcoholic drinks. At the end of the day, we had dinner at one of our favorite places, Fuddruckers.
On our final full day, we went to Typhoon Lagoon, one of two Disney water parks. The girls enjoyed the huge wave pool. The whole family went down Gang Plank Falls and snorkeled through Shark Reef. Ron & Iris mostly lounged around and spent a relaxing day reading while the girls explored the rest of the water park.
For more pictures, click here.
Iris’ mom, Sue, took us out for dinner. She wanted Chinese food, so we went to the Sea Empress Seafood Restaurant in Gardena. Morgan had a serious Jones for Peking Duck, and we intended to order a half a duck to keep her happy. The waiter, though, informed us they were having a special on a whole Peking Duck: $20. Since the special on the whole duck was only $4 more than a half duck, we got the whole duck.
What a nice production. The waiter wheels the roasted duck out on a cart, then cuts it up and serves it in front of you. All in all, we were happy we got the whole duck, but we had ordered so much food, we ended up taking a lot of it home.
Morgan left for Outdoor Science School (OSS), a five day camp experience for sixth graders at El Segundo Middle School held in the Malibu canyon area. Students have the opportunity to learn about different ecosystems by exploring the nearby tide pools as well as the canyons.
For more pics, click here.
As we have for the past few years, we hosted Oshogatsu. For four days, we had been shopping, chopping, cooking, cleaning, and arranging for our largest get-together of the year. This year, we think we had 50-60 guests drop by at one point or the other, including family, friends, neighbors, teammates, current co-workers, old co-workers, and school mates. The family room was packed, the living room somewhat crowded, and luckily the kids played outside for the most part. Unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures; we were too busy running around. Ron had to drive to the store a couple of times during the day to pick up more stuff.
Guests started arriving at noon, and the last guests didn’t depart until midnight — a long day. We ended up with a ton of leftovers, which we mostly ate over the following week. It also took several days afterwards to put most of the house back in order (although we still have tables out going into February). Still, we only do it once a year, and we enjoy having everyone over for a good time.
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