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Archive for the 'A Boy and His Dad' Category

Johnson Springview Easter Egg Hunt In Rocklin

Annual Event Draws Rocklin Kids

My family goes to this event every year.  I think this might be the first time I’ve gone as his grandparents take him as part of their Easter ritual.  This year, they are in Guatemala so my wife and I took him.

It’s the sprint of Easter Egg hunts.  There isn’t any frivolity going on before the hunt you just show up and, well, hunt at high speed.

The Rocklin Fire Department ran the event and it started with a resounding siren from one of the ladder trucks, a kid favorite.

The weather had been ok most of the morning with a threat of rain but it had held off….until the siren blew!

The rain wasn’t really heavy just curious how it started as soon as the siren blew and the kids started looking for eggs.

Parking wasn’t much of a pain as I expected it to be.  A free city wide egg hunt?  I expected much more traffic than there was.

It’s fun to watch the kids make a mad dash for eggs.  They had some eggs with numbers on them and those qualified for prizes, something my son didn’t get.  He fell, spilled the eggs he had and someone else picked them up.  To say he was disappointed is an understatement.

We brought him home, had our own egg hunt then a nerf gun war.  I’m pretty strict about not allowing him to point anything that looks like a gun at anyone for any reason but, as my wife aptly pointed out, they are designed for this purpose.

I happily started the fun and he ended up having a great Easter Sunday.

I hope your Easter was as enjoyable.  The video below is a little long so if you just fast forward a minute or so, you’ll be able to see the mad dash as it happened.

Thanks for visiting!

Tags: Rocklin johnson springview easter egg hunt

Rotary Tree Planting At Maidu Park In Roseville

Teaching My Son About Community Service

I joined the Roseville Rotary Club in 2004 or 2005.  It’s the best club I’ve ever belonged to.  So many like minded people giving back to the community.  It’s an awesome organization.

I had to resign from the club in 2007 but came back late last year.  I’m so glad I did.  It’s such a fun club.

A few weeks back, they asked for volunteers to plant trees at Maidu Park off of Rocky Ridge in Roseville.

I thought it was an excellent opportunity to show my son how to serve the community.  Perhaps a bit early for him, he’s only 6, but what the heck.  Turned out he had a great time working with other volunteers planting trees for a few hours.

He’s not been raised around a garden or farm and I thought that he would also benefit from getting his hands in dirt.  I’ve always loved planting and growing things.  I think he will too.

All in all, I believe 300 trees were planted in the Maidu Park open space that day.  We have continued tree plantings going on through out the spring.  I’ll get my son out to do some more and give back.

I’m also encouraging him to support Girl Scouts Cookie Drive too…although I must say my reasons for that may be a bit selfish!!  Love those peanut butter cookies..YUM!

More pictures…

 

 

My wife and I feel that community involvement is very important.  We hope he thinks so too.

Thanks for visiting!!

Tags: Roseville rotary club tree planting

Rocklin Pony Baseball!!

My Son Is Omar Vizquel!!

Well, not really but with baseball season here, I thought I’d pipe in about our experience with Rocklin Pony Baseball.

I love baseball.  I used to be a HUGE football fan but when I met my wife, we’d sit around on Sundays all day watching football.  That got old for her real fast as she just wasn’t REALLY into it like I was.

That said, she was as passionate about baseball, the San Francisco Giants, as I was about football.  I hadn’t played baseball as a youngster (it’s a long story) and frankly could care less about it.  Although I paid attention to all pro sports, baseball was just a glance here and there with exception to the World Series, something I’ve always watched.   (Then in 1981, I met Willie McCovey. )

After watching baseball for a while, it struck me how violent a game football is.  I found myself watching less and less football until I realized that I had become disinterested in football altogether in favor of baseball.  Today, I watch almost no regular season football, just the playoffs and the Super Bowl.

I’m into baseball now.  We must watch at least 120 games a year minimum.  Day games we miss but catch up on those through my Blackberry SF Giants app or listen on the radio.

Naturally, we want to share that with my son Ryan.  He’s kind of like I was at his age…interested in sports but not overly coordinated.   He likes playing any games and baseball is no exception.

This year we are in the Rocklin Pony league.  I’m not quite sure how it works but it seems that there are a few leagues in the Rocklin area.  Last year, we were in Tri City t-ball.

I offered to coach officially this year and am having a blast spending time with my son and other kids working with them on their proficiency.  Our manager, Roman Trinidad has been awesome to learn baseball coaching from.   Very on top of it, great family guy and very interested in making it fun for the kids while they learn how to work as a team and enjoy the great game of baseball.

Rocklin Pony Baseball is a great organization.  We’re glad to be a part of it.

Saturday is Opening Ceremony’s and our first game.   We are really looking forward to it this year.  On Tuesday, we had team pictures.  That’s where we were for these photos.

Thanks for visiting!!

Tags: rocklin pony baseball

First Day of Kindergarten – Ruhkala Elementary, Rocklin

My Big Boy Heads Off To School

It wasn’t that bad for us today when my son, Ryan, started his educational adventure at Ruhkala Elementary School in Rocklin.

Fortunately, it’s an awesome school and most of the teachers are our neighbors so we know our son is in good hands.

The Ruhkala site also hosts the Rocklin Academy which is a charter school.  We applied there but it really didn’t matter to us where he ended up, we knew that the educational standards at both are quite high.

Fortunately for Ryan, he is attending with many friends from pre-school.  Grayson, his partner in crime at Miss Cheryl’s  pre-school/daycare, lives right around the corner from us and is in his class. 

Grayson, right, is by far one of my favorite of Ryan’s friends.  We always have a tussle when he comes around.  He has an awesome heart and his family equally so.

I pity Mrs. Singleton with those two ruffians’ in the same class but I’m sure she can handle it.

We started Ryan in a soccer class that is really well organized so much so that they were able to get kids who are going to the same school, some in the same class, on the same team.  It was great as not only did Ryan have friends from pre-school and daycare but also from a city soccer class.  Talk about over achieving.

Mrs. Singleton, she couldn’t be more than 25 or so, called Ryan on Saturday before school started just to say hello and introduce herself.

I was shocked.  We thought that was the nicest thing and Ryan absolutely loves her.

The Rocklin School District is one of the best in the entire region not only educationally but they just seem to care about their students.

There is an auto message that goes out to remind parents of what’s coming up.  I got one of those before school started and I was floored.

Now, this is my first experience with a child in school so maybe I’m a little out of touch but I consider this personal touch just amazing in our world.  Rocklin is a great community and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.   His class size is small and he’ll get plenty of personal attention.  That will help us guide his education at home as well.  360 degree win.

Buying a home in the community around this school isn’t easy as there are few on the market at the moment.  That said, if you’re looking for a home where you can feel good about where your kids go to school and associate with parents and teachers who care about all the kids, feel free to fill out the form below or give us a call.  Rocklin is a great community and we’d love to have you as neighbors too.

Thanks for visiting!

Tags: rocklin homes, ruhkala elementary, ruhkala kindergarten

Dancing in the Rain

First Good Rain of the Season

Today, we got our first good rain of the season.  My wife was sick in bed with whatever has been going around the nation and my son was getting restless to get outside and play.

I don’t advocate playing in the rain, generally, especially since he was just getting over the same illness my wife was dealing with.

Well, I caved.  This is his third set of clothes!

Enjoy!

Sacramento Buddhist Church Bazaar

Fantastic Downtown Event!

Yesterday, after I got back from viewing a couple of investment properties in south Sacramento, my wife suggested that we go to the Sacramento Buddhist Church Bazaar on Riverside in Sacramento.

Ryan was getting a bit restless and when my son gets restless, it’s best to get he and my wife out of the house!

I knew there would be awesome food, I was hungry and thought it would fun.

It turned out to be an awesome event!  My wife, son and I made the trip down from Rocklin and had a wonderful time.  There was a great selection of food, games and things to do all very reasonably priced.

While I don’t know exactly what it benefits, probably families and the church itself, it was well organized, parking was easy and packed!

My son had a great time playing the games and winning prizes.

This is a shot under the “tent”.  They have tables set up all over, games to my right from this picture and food everywhere.

There is a live band that performed later in the evening.  We didn’t stay for that as my son was getting near “done”.

The event continues today and it’s a great value.  This isn’t any admission and everything is very reasonably priced.  It was a great entertainment value for us.  I think my in-laws are taking my son back today!

The games were very reasonable. You pay $3 for 10 tickets and each game costs one ticket.

One of the games Ryan really liked was the fishing game.

He had a line with an alligator clip attached to it.  You through it over this wall and someone on the other side attaches a little bag of goodies to it.  As you can see, happiness at very small price!

It’s running today as well.  If you get time, run by.  We had a great time and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as well.

Tags: buddhist church of sacramento bazaar

5 Days in Disneyland

I have always been a fan of Walt Disney.  Some of my fondest memories as a child were going to Disneyland and feeling special just for being there.  All of the things to do and see made such an impression on me as a child.  Come to think of it, it still does.

I lived in Southern California for some part of the 1960′s and my mom used to take us every now and then to experience the Magic Kingdom.  It’s still a magical place for me and I have an seemingly endless amount of energy to expend when we visit there.

I now have the privilege of sharing Disneyland with my son Ryan.  He’s 4 and is creating his own memories with his mother and I. Every time I go, the memories come flooding back.  I just love it there.

On our most recent vacation, we spent an entire 5 days at Disneyland.  5 whole days!  That is a first for me and I could’ve spent a few more days.  We have a time share there and it’s right outside the park.  The accommodations were great and everything, as it always does for me when I go there, seems so easy.  Parking is easy, trams were easy even while lugging around a “combat” stroller just in case Mr. Ryan needed to fall asleep somewhere and even eating was easy.  They let you bring in your own food if you like and with a kitchen at the time share, we had plenty of goodies to take with us to the park.

Ryan rode Splash Mountain about 10 times most of those in the rain, his mom and I split the trips.  He rode the “water coaster” aka Pirates of the Caribbean 10 times ( I went on all of those!), the rocket in Tomorrow Land, Dumbo in Fantasy Land, The Mark Twain in Frontier Land and my favorite..Main Street circa 1910.

All in all, it was an awesome 5 days.  We did whatever Ryan wanted, took him on every ride he wanted to go on and only got tough when it was time to go back to rest up and come the next day.  His mom and I made the entire trip about him and he had a blast.

While it was about him, it was also, whenever I got a chance to wander on my own, all about me and my memories of the past with my mom.  Boy those were fun times.  I’ll go back again and again.  Hopefully, Ryan will get the chance to live those same memories with his son or daughter.

I’m trying to talk my wife into another trip next fall or winter, seems like the best time to go.  I can’t wait!

Tags: Disney vacation