We left San Francisco early in the morning on the 6th to head down to Anaheim where we’d be staying at the Disneyland Hotel as our “home base” for the rest of the California portion of the trip. The original plan was to take the Pacific Coast Highway at least part of the way down, but being that they had an Angels game that evening to make there just wasn’t enough time no matter what we tried to figure out. As it was taking I5, it was about 6+ hours so there was no way we could’ve made it to Anaheim in time on the PCH. I was definitely sad about that part since I knew I would be able to get some great pictures and see stuff I would never see at home, plus I really wanted to visit Santa Cruz boardwalk which was the “santa clara” boardwalk in the movie Lost Boys. Oh well.

The drive down I5 was long and boring, but still kinda pretty in its own way.

Oranges. Jack was thrilled.We got an awesome room in the “fantasy” tower of the Disneyland Hotel. The headboard lit up and the lamp played “a dream is a wish your heart makes” when you turned it on. Ahhhhh….The boys took off for the Angels game and I hung out and did laundry. Got my New York on when people didn’t come to pick up their shit from the dryers. So I took it out. A lady told me it had been in there for a long time (it was dry and done) and that I shouldn’t feel guilty about taking it out to put mine in. I told her I was from NY. There is no guilt. The boys, John and Hakka sat in the “trout farm”. I am clueless but the hats were beyond. After the laundry was done, I met up with my good friend Derich from University of Miami days. Haven’t seen him in a really, really long time (probably about 20 years!) but we had a great time catching up for a few hours. The next morning (8/7) we left bright and early for San Diego so that the boys could catch their Padres game and I could go to the Hotel Del Coronado for a big fat massage and some pool/beach time. It kinda freaked me out a little how the clouds over the ocean looked like a giant tsunami. Come pray at the Church of Flash Gordon & Ming the Merciless. Heading over the bridge to the hotel. So pretty. (sorry about the glare off the car window).I had a 90 minute massage, including some hot stones. Then hung out by the spa-specific pool, grabbed some lunch a few feet away and walked around the hotel. Meanwhile, the boys were enjoying the game. I think I need a rack like this for their hat collection. They have to be over 300 hats by now.Don’t really know what to say about these.After leaving this very vacation part of the trip, we move onto tons of fun at Disneyland, a birthday and yet another baseball game. Coming up next…

Spent the rest of the day on Sunday 8/4 over at Alcatraz Island. I was really looking forward to this part of the trip- you know me and my twisted sense of whats awesome. All I could think was Walking Dead (prison) meets Shutter Island. Unfortunately, whatever we had for lunch at Pier 33 made me sooooo sick to my stomach so what I really got was a great tour of the Alcatraz bathrooms. Awesome. So I didn’t take the tour, just stayed outside (and close to the bathrooms) and shot from there.

The boat on the way over. I told Jack that the boat was reeeeeeeally little and they had to take one person over at a time. Like in Splash. “where are you going mr. fat jack??”  “to get the little boat” “the LITTLE boat?!?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-bw_1n5tJA (you HAVE to watch it. You’ll laugh, guaranteed.)Again, one side sunny the other side cloudy. Its like a schizophrenic city.I knew container ships were huge, but this was crazy huge in real life.Those are people on the second level from the bottom. All I could hear in my head was the Shutter Island music. (you should keep the music playing in the background while you view the rest of this post.)My favorite part of the whole Island. Visions of photoshoots right there.Need this super big in my house. This picture and the next one were taken within minutes of each other (how long it took me to walk from one side to the other). Crazy city.The next day (Monday 8/5) we did the next touristy thing (after another delicious breakfast at Sears) and took the cable car down to the wharf area.We lucked out and got the outside standing area. However, I couldn’t change my camera settings or hold the camera correctly cause I was busy trying not to fall off and to hold onto Timmy who was standing too. Not an easy task I can tell ya.Where they turn the cable cars around. Reminds me of Thomas the Tank engine days.You can barely make out the bridge in the background just to the left of Patrick’s head.Lombard St. Can’t see the curvy part from where we were very well.Our trip wouldn’t be complete without it.
Ice cream for lunch.And then we (I) had the bright idea to walk back uphill to Lombard St and take the cable car back from there to the hotel. The cable car part was a great idea. The walking uphill not so much.Francisco. That’s fun to say! (name the movie)Yeah, we walked up that shit. Stopped quite a few times leaning on trees and mailboxes and having a few small heart attacks.He was particularly good on the bells.When I asked Jack to take one picture where he didn’t look annoyed, a few other tourists found that quite amusing. Jack, however, did not.Ok, who in RVC remembers Swensens??! He was NOT happy with me after the hill. That’s kinda the “get the fuck away from me” smile. Then all was good when they went shopping at the team store before the game (this store was in SF city). Mommy Dearest, I’m so sorry I didn’t get you this shirt. It would go great w the Florida toll-takers one you have. Happy because there is baseball stuff around. Then they headed to the Giants game (and I found another sushi restaurant nearby the hotel. Thanks, Yelp!)I’ll leave you with this total amazingness to end the SF part of the trip. Next up, SoCal  including Disney, San Diego & driving. 

So I think pretty much everyone already knows that we went on a big trip this summer to California and Arizona. John wants to take the boys to every major league baseball park (so the trips are centered around the games, and the sights are just an extra.) and they are now up to 26 out of the 30 parks at the conclusion of this trip. Timmy is a little behind so they’re going to have to go back and do a few twice, but I’m pretty sure they’re not too terribly upset about that. It was a GREAT trip, so much fun (well, except for the baseball for me. You all know how I feel about that.). Big thanks to John for setting it all up and funding the trip for all of us, and to Erin at Top Shelf Travel for all the arranging of flights, rental cars & hotels in accordance with the game schedule. And here comes total picture overload for the next few days until I finish up the trip.

We flew into San Francisco from JFK on 8/2. Those of you who know me, know that I am not a fan of flying. I did manage to do it drug free, however but man that was a loooooong ass flight. Read a lot and watched a lot of JetBlue TV. And flying into the SFO airport so soon after that big crash didn’t help much either. But we made it. A little (disclaimer: a mix of iPhone, fujix100 and the canon 5d mark ii pictures all mixed in here.)

Went to Lori’s diner our first night for dinner (at like 5pm sf time, so 8pm ny time.) Took some getting used to for the time change but by the following day, we were doing much better. 
We waited 1.5hours (yes, hours!!!) for a rental car in the sfo airport. And then when we got to the counter they said they had no more minivans left. Yeah, the NY came out just about then. We ended up getting a minivan but the brakes were metal on metal grinding at every stop and the change oil light came on immediately. The rental car line from across the street from the hotel wasn’t any better. And it looked like that through our entire stay in SF. We did eventually get a new car the following day which the company delivered, but I never understood the last rice truck in the world long lines during the trip. While the boys went to the A’s game on Saturday 8/3, I took a cab to Japantown for some sightseeing and lunch. Sushi of course. (hey, they can visit every park. I can visit every sushi restaurant.)Selfiies and sushi. Grandpa Ken (aka Hakka) snapped a few on his cell. The boys in their “natural habitat” (the stadium store).
It was a Zuba’s giveaway. There are no words.More from Japantown.Ah, the elusive Queen of Pakiscandinavia.I walked back to the hotel from Japantown after a little walking tour around the area. Met a nice mailman who showed me Janis Joplin’s first house (not pictured). After a few hills, I called it a day and headed back to the hotel to meet up with the boys. Do you notice that everyone is dressed super warm? It was freaking freezing in San Francisco. In August. Whatever.Waiting on line for Sears Fine Food for breakfast the next day. Totally worth it- best waffles ever. Good call, Hakka. Then Sunday 8/4 it was the double decker bus tour all around San Francisco. The first “sight” on the tour. Yup. When we checked into our hotel, John upgraded us to a suite. As it turns out, the suite was on the smoking floor (seriously? I had no idea that there even WAS a smoking floor anywhere anymore!) and the whole floor and our room reeeeeeeeeeked like cigarette smoke. Not to mention the pot smoke that filled the hallway. We “graded” right back to a regular room that was non smoking (pot or otherwise). However, you can get a good contact high pretty much anywhere in the whole city. The building on the right is the Coppola’s studio, both father and daughter. Sophia Coppola directed one of my favorite movies- Marie Antoinette. Is it just me or does anyone else think of Jan Brady ” F-F-FIL-L-L-LMO-O-O-ORE. Fillmore Junior High!Chinatown- one of the things we didn’t have time to do. Heading across and back the Golden Gate bridge. The fog/mist was so cool and ever-changing. Patrick is NOT a fan of bridges. One side of the city is all cloudy/foggy/misty and the other is all bright and sunny. Looks like a toy out of the 50’s. Love it. Alcatraz. That’s the next blog post. Coit tower. People kept telling us we could go up. Too many stairs. Dinner at Tadich Grill was amazing. Another win by Hakka. Next up: Alcatraz, Giants & CableCars. Ohmy.

So two weeks ago the Royals travelled down to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware for a baseball tournament. Of course, it was like the hottest week EVER with temps in the upper 90’s to low 100’s, ever so lovely for both watching and playing baseball. It was so freaking hot, that I literally had sweat dripping off me while standing still in the shade. Because of that, I was really sadly lax on the picture taking portion of the 4 days we were there. The camera was burning hot within minutes of being out in the sun (even at the 8am game) and I was just so hot and cranky that I didn’t even want to take pictures. So I apologize to all the families for the serious lack of pictures. We’ll just have to live off the memories for a while and the few pictures I did take.

I decided that I should bring something fun for the boys and families. When we went to Cooperstown last year, I bought all the boys drawstring backpacks w the Royals logo and their #s. This year it was cookies (and they were soooooo good) from my new friend Colleen, owner of Dover Girls Desserts. (you should like her fb page if you haven’t yet!) We came up with jerseys for all the kids and the coaches w their names and #s, along with some other baseball “accessory” cookies. Underneath the iced cookies were delicious oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies. Between the ridiculous heat and the car ride, a few of them got a little squished on the way down but they still tasted awesome. I didn’t want to unwrap them before putting them in the car so the pictures aren’t that great. (sorry Colleen!) But she did take some pictures before handing them over, so you can see those on her page.

After driving down in two cars (too much stuff for one car w all of us in it) and me taking part of the Luvin family with me, we checked into the hotel and headed over to TGI Fridays for dinner with most of the team. The kids table was a huge, gigantic, loud, sweaty, burpy, happy mess. Fran, Ro, Jill and Diane. And Patrick for the photo bomb. The hotel (which was really nice w big rooms. Just not enough rollaway beds. Glad I brought my friend’s blowup mattress for Timmy). Posting the “fun” pictures before the baseball pictures, so the trip is kinda out of order on the blog. This is also the hotel that Timmy got lost in for a while. Well, he knew where he was but I didn’t and freaked out. Like that heart in the pit of your stomach, I’m going to be on the 10 o’clock news, he’s gone forever freak out. He left with his brothers and some of the other kids but didn’t tell me he was going or where he was going. Doreen found him hanging with the boys (thanks Doreen and thanks for keeping me from completely losing my shit) and he was in biiiiig trouble after that. Went down to the boardwalk which was a lot of fun. Not even a little breeze off the ocean though, and it was in the upper 80s at night. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated so much in my life. Not even in Florida. Timmy reading up on the history of Rehoboth, Tony & Doreen being happy. Kevin dancing in the spice shop (this might be my favorite picture of the trip). And the boys pretending to be interested in spices so they could stay in the air conditioned store. From the left: Patty, Mike, Diane, Todd (without the effing pretzel nuggets), Ro, John, Doreen, Tony, Charlie, Jill, Rob, Laura, Bob, me, John. Photocredit to Jack. And I love these people!!I wish I was big…Kevin, Tony & John. Playland. Kinda gross and kinda fun and really effing hot. I played some skee ball with Jack, Timmy did some rides and bumper cars with Patrick too. Most of the team and the siblings. We travel with a biiiiig group. And the best part is how well they all get along, including (and maybe especially) all the siblings! The first game was at 8am. Ew. Jack pitching.Coach Healy coaching. And getting in the way of my pictures as always.Johnny.Aymar.James.Glenn, Patrick, Mike L. James, Jack C and Johnny.Patrick.Patrick and John.Anthony. Mike.Jack C.Patrick (he is also Patrick B, but this one doesn’t belong to me)Patrick (mine).Patrick. Aymar.Patrick.Mike (Johnny too)Jack C.
Glenn.Jack C.Jack. And although they didn’t win any games, we had a great (but sweaty) time! I guess it’s kinda like being on the Mets- it builds character. These kids should have enough character saved up to last thru high school.Still smiling. Mostly.

front row: Patrick, Glenn, Patrick, Mike L, Aymar

back row: Coach John, Coach Rob, Mike, Coach Kevin, Johnny, James, Zach, Nick, Jack, Coach John H., Anthony & Jack C.

And then we got home and Patrick had to go to the hospital. But you know that part already.

Lots more client sessions on the blog this week and then I’m off on vacation until 8/22. I’ll be checking emails occasionally and possibly posting some personal posts/pictures but won’t be editing, ordering or any other bsquared business until after 8/22. See you here tomorrow!