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.

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.

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.

It all comes down to three things: Amazon Prime, my iPhone, and RedLaser.

I’ve had Amazon Prime for a couple of years now.  It is very convenient to look something up on Amazon, click the “Two Day One-Click” button and whamo!  Two days later it shows up on my doorstep.  And during the holiday season it is really worth it.  We had boxes arriving every other day.  It’s even convenient to send to people who are out of state.  I don’t have to buy a present and take it to the post office to ship — I just buy it from Amazon and have them ship it.

By my estimates about 60% of this years gifts came from Amazon.  That’s a lot more than in years past.  Why so many more than before?  Easy… my iPhone.  I made an earlier post about all the things I could do with my iPhone.  The following are all the things I did just with my shopping this year using the iPhone, RedLaser, and the Amazon app:

• During a conversation with someone about a gift idea I looked it up on Amazon, clicked one button and ordered it.  Showed up two days later.
• In looking at a gift at a store I wanted to see reviews on it.  So I looked it up on Amazon and read the reviews (which were good).  I also saw that the price in the store was slightly better than Amazon (rare) so I bought the item.
• At Target I went to get an item that they had on sale.  They were out of them.  Looked it up on Amazon and they had it for the same price.  I ordered it right there.
• Several times while looking at items in the store I used RedLaser to scan the barcode to see if it was cheaper online.  Sometimes it was and I’d just order it instead of buying it.
• Several times I used the iPhone to look up a store to call them and get hours or information.

So what can I learn from all of this?  For me, having inventory at the best price is what it takes.  With an online shipment only two days away and free shipping it makes it hard for the brick and mortar store to compete, especially with things that are the same everywhere — books, movies, electronics, video games, toys, etc.  (Oh… and did I mention that you don’t pay sales tax when ordering from Amazon?)  Welcome to 2010 ladies and gentlemen.

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?

So I thought I’d put together this quick list of classic Sesame Street moments for myself.  I remember all of these.

• C is for Cookie
• Big Bird and the Alphabet Song
• Grover Serves a Burger
• Monsterpiece Theatre: Gone With the Wind
• Ladybugs Picnic
• Rubber Duckie
• Martians Meet a Clock
• Kermit Reports News on the Princess and the Matress
• Twiddlebugs Postage Stamp
• Pinball and Number 9
• Lost Boy Remembers His Way Home
• Loaf of Bread, Container of Milk, and a Stick a Buttah
• Guy Smiley and Beat the Time
• The Great Cookie Thief

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.

It didn’t start out that way.  It was supposed to be a big time musical/drama/comedy typical Disney production.  They even had Sting write six different songs for the production.  All of it was scrapped when things weren’t going they way they wanted with test audiences.  With a brief extension of time they completely re-worked the plot so we have what we have today.  Knowing all of that, it makes it even more amazing that I consider it to be so funny.  The voice acting is perfect for the comedy and it is very well written.

So with that,  I leave you with the following fine snippets from the movie:

“Why do we even have that lever?”

“I’ll turn him into a flea, a harmless, little flea, and then I’ll put that flea in a box, and then I’ll put that box inside of another box, and then I’ll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives… I’ll smash it with a hammer!”

“Um, what’s with the chimp and the bug? Can we get back to *me*?”

“What are the odds of that trap door leading me out here?”

“Don’t listen to that guy. He’s trying to lead you down the path of righteousness. I’m gonna lead you down the path that rocks!.”

“Oh, look. A golden-throated small-winged warbler. Just one more for exotic bird bingo. I am loving this.”

“Squeak, squeakin’, squeak, squeakity.”

“Don’t tell me. We’re about to go over a huge waterfall… Sharp rocks at the bottom? Bring it on.”

“I’m telling you, we did not order a trampoline!”

“I’m sorry, but you’ve thrown off the Emperor’s groove.”

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.