Elena and I celebrated our 19th anniversary with a weekend trip to Monterey, California.  We’ve never been there before so it was great to get out and see some place we have never been.  We spent the first day making the 17 Mile Drive through Pebble Beach.  I did look at the golf course… but I couldn’t see myself shelling out that kind of cash to play there.

The next day we drove down Highway 1 taking in all of the coastal sights along the way.  We stopped at Point Lobos State Park and did a little hiking.  Then we continued on eventually ending up at Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park and did some hiking there.  The sun didn’t always want to cooperate, but it was still beautiful surroundings anyway.

The next day we spent in Carmel By the Sea.  What a beautiful and quaint little town!  It looks like it should be in the middle of Disneyland.  Some great shopping and just fun to walk around all of the streets.  That evening we switched from our hotel to a great Bed & Breakfast called the Seven Gables Inn.  (Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law for suggesting it!)  It was right on the coast of the bay.  We stayed in the Gable Room.  It was a room that was the attic at one time and it had a great view out the windows.  Elena kept saying that she wanted to take the room home with her.  She even fell asleep in front of the windows that look out over the bay.

On the last day we made it to the Monterey Bay Aquarium before we had to catch our flight.  A great aquarium with a lot of interesting displays.  I loved the kelp forest and the schools of fish.

Overall a great time.  It was good to get out and spend a few days.  Thanks to both of our families who helped out with watching the kids while we were gone!  I’ve put the slideshow up on Flickr.

It appears that the only time I post to my blog is after a vacation.  Hmm.. I’ll have to try to change that.  Either that, or I have to take more vacations!

Right after school got out we got in the car and made an 8 day tour of the southwest.  We started off with a drive to St. George where we stayed for a night.  Then from there we drove down through Las Vegas and across Hoover Dam.  I’ve never been to Hoover Dam and it was impressive.  We stopped and took the dam tour, took in some dam sites, took some dam pictures, had a dam ice cream cone, and overall a good dam time!

Then from there we drove into Phoenix.  Again another timeshare exchange so we stayed at Marriott’s Canyon Villas.  It was really great.  It wasn’t too hot and we spent a lot of time in the pool.  One of the best things about where we stayed is that it also meant we could use the pool at the JW Marriott across the street.  They had some great pools, a lazy river, and a water slide for the girls.  We had a really great time.

We took a day and drove up to Sedona.  Beautiful place.  We went to Slide Rock State Park which is just north of Sedona.  It was really great.  Cool water on a warm day.  The natural water slides were fun, but a little bumpy.  The kids had a great time there.

Overall in Phoenix we just kind of hung out together as a family.  We did a number of activities.  Elena, Josh, and Tim took a tour on Segways around the hotel complex.  They had a lot of fun.  We spent an evening at Dave & Buster’s playing games.  We earned 2716 tickets!  We spent half a day at a mini-golf/go-kart/bumper boat place.  And did I mention we spent a lot of time in the pool?

On the way back we were going to stop at the Grand Canyon and then spend Saturday at Lake Powell with Elena’s parents.  But looking at the weather forecast it was going to work.  High of 65 on Lake Powell and rain.  Sounded cold.  So instead we stayed an extra day in Phoenix.

We did stop at the Grand Canyon on the way back.  I’ve never been there before so it was neat to see.  Only bad part was the weather.  A high of 45 degrees and occasional rain.  And we didn’t have any jackets or long pants.  So we would drive to a spot, get psyched up, then run out, look, take pictures, and run back to the car.

Great family trip.  We put 1800 miles on the car and the kids did really well.  As usual we have a slideshow of pictures to show for it.

For Christmas Santa brought everyone airplane tickets for a week in Florida.  We’ve been back for a few weeks now and I’m finally getting around to posting the pictures.  There’s nothing like Florida in the winter.  It’s good to get out where it’s warm when it’s freezing at home.  And luckily we missed the Florida “cold-spell” that happened.

There was no DisneyWorld this time.  That’s right… amazing isn’t it?  Instead we did SeaWorld and Universal Studios — both of which are much better than their California counterparts.  We also saw the Blue Man Group which everyone loved.  And we went to Gatorland!  None of us have been there before so it was entertaining.

Then there was plenty of swimming in between everything else.  We used the timeshare exchange again and stayed at the Marriott Grande Vista and it was perfect.  They gave us a fantastic room with a great view.  We will definitely stay at this resort again.  Pictures have been posted on Flickr and you can see the slideshow here.

For my birthday this year a received a knife sharpener.  I admit, I’ve never had a knife sharpener before.  I’ve been putting up with the gradual dulling of the kitchen knives for years.

I must say… I never new what I’ve been missing.  Seems silly, but there is nothing like a sharp knife in the kitchen.  It’s awesome!  I can cut through fruits and vegetables without sawing action and without making a huge mess.  I even completely broke down a whole chicken into pieces for some delicious Chicken and 40 Garlic Cloves a few weeks ago.  Awesome.

But with every good there is bad.  With every yin there is a yang.  And so last night as Elena and I prepared guacamole the inevitable happened.  It’s really Elena’s fault.  She said something to the effect of “these sharp knives are awesome!  I can easily cut through the avocado!” and it brought down the wrath of karma.  Not more than two minutes later karma kicks in and the screams of “Andrew!  Andrew!” ring out and we’re scrambling around to not get blood in the guacamole and put pressure on the wound.  Eventually, all is fine.

So this morning it’s time to prep the pork for today’s slow cooked meal.  I pull out the first piece to remove the fat from it and blamo!  Hacked right into the knuckle on my thumb.  Same routine again (although I did not scream “Andrew!  Andrew!”).  Made sure there is no blood in the food and put pressure on the wound.

So karma attacked both of us in less than 12 hours.  Just more proof that Elena and I were made for each other.  Why else would karma pick on us within a 12 hour span for the same thing?

I’ve finally gotten around to posting the photos from our California vacation.  Back at the end of September for UEA week we went down and spent a week in Southern California.  We traded the timeshare week again for a stay at Marriott’s Newport Coast Villas.  It is a great place and we could easily go there every year.  Elena’s parents stayed with us and we had a great time.

We of course went to Disneyland for three days — it was all setup for Halloween and it was great.  Love the Haunted Mansion Holiday.  But we did a bunch of other stuff as well.  We went to the beach, went shopping, spent time at the resort in the pool, took a Duffy Boat ride in Newport harbor with my brother and sister-in-law, and overall had a really great time.  Once again we didn’t want to leave at the end of the week.  I have to admit, the smack back to reality at the end of a vacation seems to be getting more and more difficult.

On the drive back we spent a night in Las Vegas.  Las Vegas is exciting and all, as long as you don’t have to go walking on the strip.  I swear, they’ve got to do something about all those people standing out there handing out cards.  It is horribly annoying.  But the kids stayed at the hotel and got to swim in the pool on the top of the building, 38 stories in the air with a great view of all the neon.  They thought that was pretty cool.

Love the vacations.  Need to take them more often!  Have no idea where the next one will be.  To see the slideshow, click here.

There is one good thing about the long driveway and all the trees around the house… the autumn colors are beautiful.  Doesn’t ever seem to last long though.  As soon as they get really beautiful a storm comes in and blows them all off the trees.

Over Labor Day weekend was the annual Lawrence Fest 2009 convention, this year held in Eden, Utah.  Every Labor Day weekend my parents and all my brothers and sisters and families get together for a few days.  It is a great time.  This year one of the activities was to create a painted rock version of ourselves (my wife’s brilliant idea).  It turned out great!  Everyone made their own version of themselves and we took a group photo.  Can you tell which one is me?

We also went to the Flowrider in Ogden for our Saturday activity.  It was a lot of fun.  Indoor surfing — that is if any of us could actually surf.  Lots of body boarding though.  We had the whole thing for an hour to ourselves and had a blast.  The little kids did it once and then they were done, but the rest of us just kept going and going.  I’ve posted a video with all of the wipeouts.  It’s pretty funny, and sometimes looks painful — especially my wife’s wipeout when she tried to do the stand up board.  Sorry dear!  Only bad thing is that I took the video, so there are any shots of yours truly.  But I did get out there many times!  To see the video, click here!

A great time had by all.  It seemed too short, but it was good to get everyone together.

We’ve been back for nearly 4 weeks now, but I finally got all of the pictures posted to Flickr.  We spent a week in Lake Tahoe for family vacation during the week of the 4th of July.  We’ve never been to Lake Tahoe before so it was all new and we had a really good, relaxing time.

We stayed at The Ridge Resort.  It wasn’t down on the lake, but instead up at the top of a mountain overlooking Carson Valley.  It was a really nice resort.  The room we had was great and they had a lot of activities to keep the kids busy: swimming, hot tubs, raquetball courts, miniature golf, etc.

We did a lot of hiking and saw some great scenery.  The lake is huge and blue… I mean really blue.  We rented a power boat for a half day and crusied around the lake, with the kids (and myself) taking turns being dragged around in a tube.  Lunch while floating in Emerald Bay, it was great.  We spent another day driving the entire route around the lake, making stops along the way.

We all liked it and I’m sure we’ll go back sometime.  Probably not over the 4th of July next time though.  The beginning of the week was great, but it did get a little crowded on Friday and Saturday.

So all the pictures are posted and you can see a slideshow on Flickr.

I had to hurry and blog this before I forgot.  I’ve been sitting at my desk in the office at my house and Maren and Emma have been playing nicely, for the most part, in the living room right outside the office.  All of a sudden, some kind of argument breaks out, the screaming starts and Emma concludes the argument with “Fine!  Then I’m going to throw all of your Littlest Pet Shops out the window!”  (Littlest Pet Shops are toys that they like to play with.)

So I pull them both into the office and ask why they are arguing.  The conversation then goes like this:

Emma: “Maren won’t let my Littlest Pet Shop have super powers!”
Maren: “Littlest Pet Shops don’t have super powers!  They are pets!”

I stopped the conversation right there and told both of them to play nicely or they will have to get ready for bed.  And they turned and went back to playing.  Ten minutes later there is screaming from the living room again.  I pull them in again and get the following explanation:

Emma: “Maren says my Littlest Pet Shop can’t have heat vision, but it does!”
Maren: “Emma won’t give me back the pink hat for my kitty — and her Littlest Pet Shop can’t have heat vision because that is a boy super power and her pet is a girl!”

At this point I just turn around and suppress my laughter.  After I compose myself, I quickly remedy the situation by having Emma return the pink hat, and explaining that heat vision isn’t just for boys.  Problem solved.  I am the best problem solver in the universe…

Elena’s parents were kind (i.e. brave) enough to take both Maren and Emma down to Lake Powell for the weekend.  I took Friday off from work and we spent the entire weekend together.  At first we thought of going somewhere, either a long drive or a plane ride, but instead we decided to hang around town and save some money (kind of).  It was great.

We spent all day Friday in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons.  I haven’t been up there forever.  We went on a two hour hike up the mountain from Hidden Falls.  Then we hiked up to Donut Falls.  Then we drove up and around Brighton and had lunch at Solitude.  It was beautiful.  There is so much run off water from all the rain and snow that the rivers are moving really fast.  You couldn’t get that close to Donut Falls unless you wanted to get really wet.  And from the top of the peak that we hiked to you could see waterfalls down the canyons.

Then we went over to Snowbird.  We went there because of the Grill on the Hill BBQ event.  Honestly, that was very underwhelming.  But we did ride the tram to the top of the peak.  I haven’t done that forever.  There is still quite a bit of snow up there (not enough to ski on though).  It was such a beautiful day that we could see forever.  Then we came back down and rode the alpine slide.  Not as great as the one in Park City, but still fun.  A great first day.

Saturday morning we played a round of nine holes at Eaglewood Golf Course.  I’ve never played a round of golf with just my wife.  It was great.  A little bit of rain, but we did finish before the down pour.  As for the scores… well, I don’t play for score.  :-)  Next up was the Chalk Art Festival at The Gateway.  The rain ruined the atmosphere of the whole thing.  There was still a lot of good art work, but I just felt terrible for the artists who had to work under tents and keep covering the art with plastic.

Then we went and saw The Proposal .  Typical romantic comedy, but it was fun.  Then dinner together at Z Tejas.  Overall an excellent couple of days.  I was looking forward to it all week and it did not disappoint.  Makes me feel like once the girls are old enough to watch themselves that Elena and I will never be home!  Ha!  Probably not… couldn’t afford to do that all the time.