We have a new addition to the family, thanks to our neighbors and my easily lost resolve.  Our neighbors cat had kittens about eight weeks ago.  Elena and the girls went over to their house several times to play with the kittens.  There was a never ending onslaught of “oh Dad, they’re so cute! Please can we have one!”.  To which my answer was always “in order to get one, you have to get rid of one of the two we already have”.

I consider cats to be a consolation I have learned to deal with in order to have the pleasure of living with my wife.  (Love ya dear!)  Elena grew up with cats and they are definitely a part of her life.  I on the other hand never had them because my mom is allergic to them.  So naturally, I should be allergic to them as well, right?  Well, at least that was my excuse during the first few months of marriage.  That is, until we got one and it had no affect on me.  Ack!  My feeble plan was foiled!  Since then, we’ve almost always had a cat in the house.  I tolerate them, but draw the line at trying to give them any encouragement that they should come to me for some kind of comfort.

So how did I get suckered into cat #3?  Elena calls me at work, the day before Maren’s birthday, and says that the neighbor is taking the cats to a parking lot to give them away to anyone that wants them.  She pulls the “it would be the perfect birthday gift for Maren to let her choose one” tact.  Suffice it to say, my two little girls often have me eating out of the palm of their hands.

So now there is a new kitten in the house.  Maren has named him “Ninja”.  The neighbors had simply referred to him as “Mr. Scratchy Biter-man”, named by their 4 year old son.  It is only now that we realize how well their name fit.  Kittens are always cute, and good for entertainment.  If only they wouldn’t grow up to be cats.

My “aunt-in-law” Stacie tagged my blog with a task recently.  The task was to post a picture “from the sixth file, sixth picture”, no matter what it is and comment on it.  In all honesty, I’m not really a tagging person when it comes to blogs.  But I decided to at least see what picture it would be.  I kind of had to make it up because I have all my pictures in Adobe Photoshop Elements and don’t always know where they are.  So I had to get into the file system and do some hunting and counting.  But when I finally found the picture I decided it was worth posting.

There it is, a self-portrait taken by Josh of he and Maren.  This was in January 2003 so Maren wasn’t quite 3 years old and Josh would have just turned 11.  He was in this self-portrait phase right after we got our first digital camera.  Funny, eh?

My friend Gordon wrote an entry in his blog a few weeks ago about his first date with his wife.  It was a very nice post, boy meets girl, falls in love, yada, yada, yada.  But the best part was that their first date was the same first date that Elena and I had — only one year later.  Looking at the picture he posted I thought “whoa!, I have a picture just like that!”

Highland High School Christmas Dance, December 15, 1989, at the Utah State Capitol was the day that started the roller coaster that is Elena and I.  Holy crap, that’s nearly 20 years ago!

Gordon makes his date sound sweet and that “he knew she was the one for him”.  I think in our case, that isn’t quite true.  First of all, it’s important to point out that the Christmas dance was girl’s choice.  And second, Elena chose me out of spite.  That’s right… she actually asked me out because she knew who wanted to ask me and she had some complaint about that person so she decided the best action would be to ask me out first.  (She didn’t tell me this until much later, not sure exactly when.)

Me?  I was nervous.  I didn’t really know who she was.  It was a group of six of us who went, and yes, we had a great time.  Was it love at first sight?  Elena says it was for her.  For me, I don’t know that it was.  I mean really, the picture says it all.  The geeky looking teenage boy in that picture looks frightened and confused to be holding that girl’s hand!  But obviously it was enough to keep me interested.

It’s amazing to look back at how long ago that was and how both of us have changed.  (And it’s also hilarious!)  Elena… you are the love of my life.  Maybe I didn’t recognize it then, but there is no denying it now.

If I’m feeling brave I’ll scan in some of our other dance pictures… all are hilarious.

Elena and I were made for each other.  We tell each other all the time that we are “soul mates”.  I think part of that is because in some respects we are complete opposites.  One of those opposite points can best be summed up by the fabulous 80’s hair band, Foreigner.

“Cold as ice - you know that you are
Cold as ice - as cold as ice to me” — Foreigner, Cold as Ice

The other night I go into the bedroom after finishing work on the computer and Elena is already sound asleep in bed.  She has all of the following covering her: a sheet, the electric blanket set to level 6 out of 10, a down comforter, and not one, but two of her quilts.  And she’s curled up in a ball like she is still cold under all of that stuff.

“Well, I’m hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three” — Foreigner, Hot Blooded

As for me… I set the electric blanket to level 2 out of 10 and get into bed under it with the down comforter.  After 10 minutes of laying there I can’t take it anymore and I have to turn the electric blanket off.

What does it mean?  Who knows… I just think it is funny.  And truth be told, Elena’s been working really hard for a long time to lose weight and she looks great.  So she blames her constant coldness on a lack of “previously present insulation”. :-)  But if she’s cold for that reason, then does it mean I’m hot for the opposite reason?  Uh, oh…

This is humorous. We found this picture from the last time we went to Maui in January 2000 — exactly nine years before we went this time.

It’s Wailua Falls on the Road to Hana. The waterfall looks exactly the same! Uhh… but the guy in the picture looks a little different. Nearly the same outfit… but this guy has more hair!

OK… so I look a little younger. But Elena and I both agree that the trip we just took was much better than the one nine years ago. That first trip she Elena was 4 months pregnant with Maren. We were much more adventurous this time. And our accomodations were much better.

Ahh… still good times. Many memories.

We’ve been back for a few days now, and so it’s about time I make an entry on our trip to Maui.  Elena already made her entry, now it’s my turn.  When Elena gave me her Christmas list of things she wanted there were a number of things on it.  And at the bottom she put “or a trip to Hawaii and nothing else” — so that’s what I did.  She had no idea until Christmas morning.  We went to Maui from January 3 - 10 and if I must say, it was perfect.

We spent the whole week on Maui and stayed at the Marriott Maui Ocean Club right on Ka’anapali Beach.  When Elena and I went to Maui nine years ago we walked along Ka’anapali Beach and said that next time we go that would be where we’d stay.  It’s just so beautiful.  The beach is right out the door, they have a great pool, and we could watch the sunset every night.  We didn’t want to leave.

We rented a convertible and it was great.  I don’t think I’ve ever driven a convertible before, but it is the perfect vehicle for Maui.  We took a number of day trips out to see things.  One day we spent in ‘Iao Valley.  Another day driving the Road to Hana, which was great in the convertible.  Another day we spent driving along the north side of the West Maui Mountains — all the way around from Ka’anapali all the way over to Kahului.  And of course we spent a lot of time at the beach and pool.  Many times just reading a book.

The best part was that it was just Elena and I for the whole week.  Nothing else to worry about.  Elena kept asking me if I was getting sick of just hanging out with her all the time, but no way.  It was great.  I took the laptop, but I didn’t even open it at all.  She really is my best friend in the world and I couldn’t imagine spending all that time with anyone else.

As usual, a slideshow of pictures is posted on Flickr.  A quick rundown of highlights:

• First night hula show at Whaler’s Village
• Noisy birds waking us up the first morning, but getting used to them by the end
• Walking along the Ka’anapali Beach Path
• Lunch at Bubba Gump’s in Lahaina
• Sitting out by the pool/beach reading and drinking smoothies.
• Free meal at Flatbread Company in Pa’ia
• Drive to Hana in the convertible
• Picnic lunch on a black sand beach
• Hiking to Makahiku Falls
• Dinner at the hotel at sunset
• Being asked if we needed any “Maui Wowie”… twice!
• Seeing a huge sea turtle in the coves near Dragon’s Teeth
• Getting soaked at the Nakalele blowhole, not from the blowhole, but from a huge wave crashing over the rocks
• Driving into Kahakuloa Village on tiny one lane roads, hoping that a car doesn’t come the other direction.
• Drinking smoothies while sitting in the hot tub
• Buying banana bread from Julia’s Green Stand in Kahakuloa
• Spending the whole week in swimsuits or shorts
• Watching humpback whales from our beach chairs
• Swimming in the Olivine Pools
• The drive back from the Olivine Pools
• Swimming in the ocean at Kama’ole Beach II
• Sunset at Black Rock

I figured I should write a post to describe how the processing went for our car rental damage on our vacation.  I need to do this because I always end up making posts about things that go bad or bug me, but I have to say, the whole process went extremely smoothly.

I was worried from the first moment I saw the deer on the highway what this was going to cost me.  The whole time that we were waiting for the police officer, riding in the tow truck, and talking with the person working the rental counter I was thinking… “crap… this is going to cost me big time”.

Total damages assessed by the rental company were about $3800.  So… the big out of pocket cost to me was (drum roll please)… $0.00.  That’s right, nothing.  No money has left my pocket.  I even received a refund check for the towing charges that I had to pay.  I didn’t even have to pay my insurance deductible of $1000.  There was a time for a moment where the insurance company was going to send me $75 to replace Emma’s car seat, even though it didn’t need it.  If they had done that, I would have actually made money on the whole deal!

So, I have to make mention and give kudos to all the companies I had to work with.  Their customer service has been great and I’ll be sticking with them for a while:

• Alamo car rental.  They have been very helpful and accomdating through the whole process.  I was worried that anyone I talked to would have a chip on their shoulder, but that was never the case.  They always answered all of my questions and were very helpful.
• Ameriprise Auto Insurance.  I’ve had them for a while now and then have always been great with claims.  They covered everything and the towing, except for my $1000 deductible.
• American Express.  Since I rented the card with my Amex card their rental protection covered everything that my personal insurance didn’t — meaning the $1000 deductible.  They were always great on the phone.  When I called the first time the guy told me at the end of the conversation “Don’t worry Mr. Lawrence, just sit back and relax and we’ll take everything from here.”  Awesome.

So there you go.  Experience complete.  And even though I was pleasantly surprised, hopefully I never have to do it again.

Gas prices keep going down… but apparently the price of baby teeth is skyrocketing.  Maren has been fiddling with her loose tooth for the last 24 hours and today while we were walking around Costco she suddenly looked up and it was gone.  We had to retrace our steps for about 10 minutes trying to find the tooth.  I tried to explain that we could just write a note to the Tooth Fairy and it would be OK, but she wanted to look.

She finally did find it.  Tiny little thing.  It’s amazing how much it looks like a speck of lint on the Costco concrete floor.  We brought it home and Maren immediately wrote the note to the right for the Tooth Fairy.  Before she put it in the envelope she let me scan it into the computer.  She then promptly sealed it up with the tooth in the envelope and put it under her pillow — 5 hours before bedtime.

I guess I’d do the same thing too.  After all, you want to make sure that you secure the incoming windfall of money.  I’ll be interested to see if the Tooth Fairy actually brings her $10.00 as requested.

Click on the letter to the right to see it bigger…

Yes, there you have it. We tricked the children into an educational vacation. But it really was a lot of fun. We went to Williamsburg, Virginia for a week and we had Elena’s parents join us as well.

The trip started out with a red-eye flight at midnight to New York.  We did that because I used the last of my miles to get the tickets for free, but I don’t think we’ll do it again.  It really wore us out.

We went to Busch Gardens and it was awesome.  We rode every single roller coaster (Griffon three times!).  We spent a couple of full days in Colonial Williamsburg and I think the kids learned a lot (at least the boys did).

We spent another full day at Virginia Beach.  It was great weather for the beach.  80 degrees and nice and sunny.  In fact the weather was great the entire time except for the last day when it rained.  The beach wasn’t crowded at all.  We even rented surrey bikes and rode up and down the boardwalk (quite the workout).

We spent another day and drove the two hours to Washington D.C.  We parked out at the end of the Metro line and rode it into the center of the mall.  That was an experience - the family hadn’t ridden a subway before.  D.C. was great.  We did a LOT of walking, but we did get to see many of the monuments.  We also went to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.  It was really good, a great museum.  The kids liked that one.

We spent the rainy day driving the Colonial Parkway and visiting the battlefield at Yorktown.  That was really good too.  I especially like seeing it since I have read 1776.  Good history.

There was also a lot of eating, sleeping, swimming, and playing as well - always elements of a good vacation.  Good times, and of course it was over too quickly.  I’ve been back at work this week and I’m ready for another vacation.

I’ve posted all the pictures on Flickr for your viewing pleasure.

We just finished our week long vacation in Williamsburg, Virgina.  It was very good, and I’ll post later with details and pictures.  But let’s first talk about hitting a deer with the rental car.

Yep… on our way back from Washington D.C. on Thursday night, at about 10:30pm I hit a deer on the interstate with the mini van.  Completely took me by surprise.  Deer in Virginia aren’t as big as the deer we see in our backyard everyday.  This one was small and was just hanging out in the right lane eating something off of the road.  I had just passed a car on the left and was changing lanes back into the right lane and suddenly there it was.  I barely had time to get my foot to the brake.  Must have hit it doing a full 60 MPH.

As you can see by the picture at the right, it did quite a number on the car.  Everyone was fine, just a little shocked.  Elena and the girls were in the car with me.  The girls were mostly asleep so they didn’t see anything.  Elena’s parents and the boys were driving behind us and they didn’t see anything either.

It made for a really long night.  The state trooper came and wrote up a report.  She was really nice and helpful.  She called a tow truck for us.  And she made me laugh too with the following conversation while we waited for the tow truck:

Trooper: “Umm… by chance do you think you hit it hard enough to punt it off into the trees?”
Me: (with a laugh) “I don’t think so, not that hard, but who knows.”
Trooper: “Aw shucks… that means I’m going to have to go looking for it.”

By the time all was done and we got back to the hotel it was 2:30am.  It made for a really long night.  So that was the downer part about the vacation.  Other than that, we had a really good time.

See below for a satellite view of the area of road it occured on!

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