Shout Out to tha Family:)

This card is from Mahki! He picked it out so I could color it. The jacket is from my parents- thanks! Now I am protected from the rain that San Diego supposedly never gets!

Jenna

Trip to Disneyland!

Hey everyone- I went to Disneyland for my birthday with my cousins- Gary and Devin as well as Dabne and Cassi. We didn't take to many pictures- to busy riding 11/12 of the thrill rides between both Dsneyland and California Adventure (park based on touring California). Two of our favorite rides were space mountain and California Screamer and I found links so you could try em out!

Space mountain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWsWXc8qm3c

California Screamer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wmEQ6OgifY

The picture of the mountains is on from the drive to Disneyland at 5:30 in the morning:)
The two Hollywood ones are of this cool painted background in California Adventure and the last one is my birthday dessert at lunch- yumm chocolate Mickey:)

Whale Watching on the Pacific

Today we went on a whale watching cruise! We sailed on the America, a replica of a 139-foot yacht that won the historic, Royal Yacht Squadron's "100 Guinea Cup" race around the Isle of Wight. The trophy was donated to the New York Yacht Club to be held as a challenge trophy, which came to be known as the America's Cup.

For the majority of the trip we followed a pair of whales who the crew on the ship said probably hadn't eaten in months! The gray whales swim down to warmer waters to mate and then swim back north to feed. The following year they swim down to have the babies and then swim back pregnant again potentially. When the whales would come up they spray water out of the blow hole 2 times then often swim for a while without coming up- up to 3-4 minutes. "Thar she blows!" is what you yell when you see one:)

Drive home from LA- too pretty to leave out...

Only so many pictures get to go on the blog but these couldn't be missed. To the East of the road I drove on were the snow capped mountains. To the West was a beautiful sunset with a sortof fog that really added a feeling of enchantment.

Vaulting in LA!!!!

Sorry if I disapeared for a bit- I was out having a week of vaulting and "familiarity" at the Hawthorns in Los Angeles. I was taken in for a bit of vaulting fun in a beautiful local to not only work on my vaulting skills but assist many children with special needs who also practice this sport. We were able to practice at a nearby equestrian park- as most of the Valley Veiw Vaulters normal practice locations were muddy from the rain. The view of the mountains and the horses was almost to beautiful- if there is such a thing! Check out these pics of my experience there- Rick is the coach of the team- he's the one hooping! My vaulting partner from New York just so happened to be there also- Pete is the one in the red shirt and then the yellow one. Virginia, Ricks wife and the other half of the coach staff at Valley View is in the picture of us at dinner. ENJOY!

Balboa Park

So I though I was coming to California for the sunshine but for the past two weeks all it has done is rain !!!! Ok so it rains on and off but still! How am I suppose to go to the beach or soak in the rays with all these clouds in the way! This blog features pics I took on a rainy day trip to Balboa Park- which makes up a huge area of land in San Diego and features the San Diego Zoo (I have not visited yet but I am waiting for the sun) Anyway there are tons of museums and gardens here in addition to theaters and restaurants.
I visited the Museum of Man- an anthropology museum the first picture is taken of the court yard in front of the museum. And the second is of the front of the building.


This is the main floor of the Museum of Man featuring huge stelae. Though these are just casts made from the originals in 1914, Stelae were stone slabs carved and erected as monuments. These are from the Mayan civilization in the City of Quirigua, Guatemala and were pretty cool to check out.


This is me- in the rain:)

This is a skull from the "Skull Stories" exhibit. This skull features a hole that was actually made through surgical intervention called trephenation. These skulls were from many different civilizations from many different time periods. The practice of opening the skull seems to have been in practice much longer than modern medicine.

On each skull you could guess whether or not the person had lived through the surgery by looking at the amount of new bone. You could also guess why the person had the surgery- many had skull fractures likely from head injury. You could also tell if the skull had been exposed to infection. I found this exhibit very interesting and was surprised to see how many people had actually survived ancient surgery without modern medicine or modern pain medications!

This skull features multiple trephinations- 3 performed by cutting squares of bone out. The skull shows some signs of healing but mostly of infection. The person did not survive this surgery.

More Animal Fun at Sea World!

Again- I love taking pictures at parks with animals! Here are some of my favorite pictures from today. The sea lions were crazy- we got to feed them fish! After I saw the whale show, I started thinking maybe that should be my next vaulting experience!