A Segway Adventure

Taking advantage of having Dakota home for the week (District Recess break), we decided to go on an adventure and booked a segway tour for Wednesday, February 16th.  As luck would have it, it rained buckets on Wednesday!  So we re-booked for the following day, and it turned out to be a gorgeous one!  (I took these pictures with my point-n-shoot as I didn't want to risk falling with my slr camera.)

 Beautiful sunny blue skies as we left our home for La Jolla.

 James, of "We Love Tourists", teaches Dakota how to ride and maneuver a segway.

 Dakota takes practice laps before we start our tour of La Jolla.

 James takes a picture of us at Windansea.

 The seals at the Children's Pool.

 The view up the coast from the Children's Pool.

 Scripps Park where the trees served as an inspiration for Dr. Seuss' books.

At the La Jolla Cove.

After our segway tour, we had some Einstein bagels and Starbucks then headed to the La Jolla Cave.

145 steps!

 That looks like such a long way down!

 Such a great view!

 Now back up the 145 steps.

 The view from behind the Cave Store.

What a fantastic day and a great adventure!

PapaBear's Birthday!

We celebrated PapaBear's birthday this year with a late lunch at Milton's with some delicious reuben and pastrami sandwiches.  This was followed by some Sprinkles cupcakes bought by Alia for this special occasion.

2011 Winterfest Tournament - Day 3

Sunday's first game was played against Northwood who also had a huge key player on their team.  It's incredible what a difference two years makes in body size and strength!  The team played well with a final score of Del Mar 9 - Northwood 10.

See what I mean by "huge"?!?!?  He's twice the width of Dakota!

The final game of the tournament was played versus Elite.  Del Mar finished strong controlling the game solidly and winning 10-8.  Dakota had 3 goals in this game!

2011 Winterfest Tournament - Day 2

Saturday was the toughest of the five game weekend playing Capistrano Valley (ranked 1st) in the morning and Los Altos (ranked 8th) in the afternoon.  Capistrano Valley, allegedly, were playing with 9th graders on their team who weren't yet 15 years of age and therefore qualified for the 14 & Under age bracket.

Los Altos whole offense was composed of one huge player who played in the set position and was constantly fed the ball scoring almost every time.  Even though Del Mar double teamed him, he was still just to big and strong to contain (we suspect he was also a 9th grader).

 Warming up.

 Pre-game Coach's talk.

 Strong defense.

2011 Winterfest Tournament - Day 1

Dakota and his team competed in the Boys 14U Flight AA Division of this year's Winterfest tournament.  This is the toughest of the divisions and going in they were ranked 16th of 16 teams entered.  The division was divided into 4 pools of 4 teams each (Pool A, B, C & D).  Del Mar was in Pool A along with Capistrano Valley (1), Los Altos (8), and Stanford (9).

Friday night's game was the first of the tournament versus Stanford which they won!

 Warming up.

Coach Jake talks to the team.

 Aggressive play!

 Making a great pass despite some tough defense!

 Helping on defense.

The Del Mar Boys 14U team with Coach Jake and Coach Austin.

Here's a video of Dakota's highlights from this game: