Tag: vacation

Posted on

Holiday Road: Day 1

Friday, December 21

We departed Portland in the afternoon and drove to Medford. Our jump start on the trip proved to be less fruitful than we wanted due to afternoon traffic — it took over an hour just to get out of Portland. In Medford we stayed at a Motel 6 and looked forward to a short driving day on Saturday.

Posted on

Holiday Road

Friday night our holiday adventure ended when we pulled our little Scion into the garage at 4:00 PM. Two weeks and 3190 miles later, we don’t regret any of the days we were gone but we’re glad to be home. Well, maybe we regret the last day. It really sucked.

The distribution of destination points worked out such that we never had more than a 8-hour day of driving until the end of the trip. Less driving and more visiting and exploring made us all dread getting into the car a little less. Tina brought her portable DVD player and the boys watched the Indiana Jones trilogy when the drive got too long. I brought books but I never did any reading in the car since I was either driving or sleeping.

I started to write a summary of each day in this entry, but it turned into an incredibly long read, so I’ll be breaking it into a series. Watch this space for a day-by-day rehash of our journey to Arizona and back.

Posted on

I want to wish you a Merry Christmas

We’re safe and sound in Scottsdale, AZ, after two and a half wonderful days of visiting family. We left Friday afternoon to get a jump on the trip and drove to Medford, OR, where we stayed at Motel 6 for the night. The next day we drove to Lafayette, CA, to visit Uncle Ralph, Aunt Carol and cousins Danielle and David. Yesterday we drove from the East Bay through the California Central Valley to my sister’s house in Moreno Valley, CA. After a very restful night in their RV, we had a shorter drive to Scottsdale where Tina’s sister and her family live. The smell of Mexican food is pervading the house and Thomas and Graham are excited to play with their cousins, Xander and Wil. We are glad to be at the end of the long drive but we really enjoyed seeing everyone along the way. Thanks to everyone for the wonderful food and company along the way. Feliz navidad!

Posted on

Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 2352
Weight lost (in pounds): 35
Hours of sleep last night: 7
Hours billed last week: 37
Aches & pains: sciatic (when I stand too long), right shoulder (when I extend my arm away from my body), left achilles tendon, joints in my right hand (likely RSI from Guitar Hero)
Current reading: The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, Space Cadet by Robert A. Heinlein
Recent listening: In Rainbows by Radiohead, The Shepherd’s Dog by Iron & Wine
Recent viewing: Countdown, The 300 Spartans, Rank, Numb3rs, Eagles vs. Cowboys
Recent playing: foosball, Guitar Hero III (Wii)
Recently accomplished: cleaned cat boxes, recycling, old email, Christmas shopping
Imperative To Do: Sift through inbox, post office (Sunleafs, Seagate, Kent, Sue), sunglasses, InstantCake, phone calls, vacation planning, packing list

Posted on

Places To Go, People To See

As I mentioned earlier, we are going on a big road trip over Christmas break. Our main destination is Phoenix, Arizona, where Tina’s sister, Michelle, lives. We’ll be traveling through California to get there and come back, so we’re seeking advice on places to visit and sites to see along the way. We may not see all of them, but we’re compiling a long list so we have many choices. Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

Posted on

Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 2332
Weight lost (in pounds): 35
Hours of sleep last night: 9
Hours billed last week: 44
Aches & pains: sciatic (when I stand too long), right shoulder (when I extend my arm away from my body), left achilles tendon
Current reading: The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein
Recent listening: Velvet Goldmine: Original Soundtrack, Come On Christmas by Dwight Yoakam, Wolfmother by Wolfmother, Kid Rock by Kid Rock
Recent viewing: Countdown, Suns vs. Jazz, Steelers vs. Patriots, Raiders vs. Packers, Ravens vs. Colts, Wired Science
Recent playing: foosball, Guitar Hero III (Wii)
Recently accomplished: hosed off walkways and deck, stored hoses for the winter, groceries, gorilla shelf parts on Freecycle, paid bills, cat box, email to Curt N.
Imperative To Do: Sift through inbox, post office (Sunleafs, Seagate, Kent, Sue), sunglasses, InstantCake, phone calls, vacation planning, packing list

Posted on

More days to come, new places to go

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted family news here mostly because I do that on Twitter several times a day. For more on that, you can read this and then join here. It’s free and easy and you’ll like it. I promise.

And now, the news:

  • Since the end of October, we’ve been mad for Guitar Hero III. Although playing the game is a blast, equally cool is watching my boys groove and sing to some of my favorite bands. Right now they both like “Even Flow” and “Holiday in Cambodia“. Thomas is the house champion in career mode, but we still only have one guitar so we haven’t settled on a true champion.
  • Thomas’ video game time has been limited, though, due to poor scholastic performance in the first half of this semester. He has been having problems getting his homework done and is easily distracted when he’s supposed to be doing homework. We suspended gaming privileges until he got his grades back up and his computer has been disconnected from the internet. With Tina’s help he’s been able to get his grades up closer to where they should be but he’s still got a lot to learn about managing his time.
  • Graham had a chess tournament yesterday in which he recorded two draws and a win for his team. He’s also become a pretty good Medium-level Guitar Hero player. He’s so fun to watch play because the guitar is a better size for him than the rest of us. He really looks like a rockin’ dude when he plays! He and Rory, our little girl kitten, have become good buddies and she sleeps by his head at night.
  • The kittens are doing great and Ming has grown used to their eager presence. Tina took them to the vet to get them neutered last week. The boys were as rambunctious as ever that night but poor little Rory has been sluggish until today. Because she has stitches, she has to wear one of those funnel collars to keep her from ripping the stitches out. She spent much of the weekend on my lap trying to lick through that damn collar. Funny but sad. We’ll take it off Tuesday morning.
  • Yesterday morning we received our Oregon kicker check in the mail. The kicker law says that the government has to give back money when their income is more than they estimated. This results in a “surprise” tax refund every few years. The average kicker check this year was supposed to be around $600 and we did a little better than average.
  • The boys’ last day of school is on December 21st. Sometime soon after that, we’re hitting the road for Phoenix, Arizona, by way of San Francisco and Moreno Valley. We’re looking forward to the trip since the boys haven’t seen their cousins Wil and Xander in so long. The drive shouldn’t be bad since we’ve broken it up into three days with visits of friends and family on the way.
Posted on

Pictures from Iowa

The long weekend gave me some time to catch up on a few things including flipping through some pictures I took in Iowa and Minnesota. You can check them out here.

Update 9/4: This morning I discovered a bunch of pictures that I had not gone through yet. I’ll update the gallery with those soon.

Update 9/5: I added more photos and re-arranged the ones that were there. Some photos are missing captions but it’s mostly done.