Great West Adventure - Day 9 - Travel day

The last day of vacation is always the dreaded travel day. We were lucky enough to be able to get some laundry done at mom and dad's before we left (OK, Jenny got it done), so we (Jenny) would not have to do it when we (Jenny) got home. But travel days are always a pain. Most of the morning was spent biding time until our flight. We departed pretty early for the airport - we had a 1:00 flight and arrived at the airport at 11:00, so we had plenty of time to get some pizza and wait at the gate.

The flight was uneventful. Quin slept for 3/4 of the flight. He woke up for about 20 minutes at one point, long enough to put a movie on, then fall asleep again. Ethan spent almost the entire flight doing homework, but he got it done! In the end, the only casualty was Ethan left his new cowboy hat on the plane. We have a lost and found ticket entered with the airline in hopes it might be returned, but we're not holding our breath.

In conclusion, this was definitely one of the best family vacations the four of us have taken together. That is in no small part due to the advancement in age of the boys. Ethan can be quite helpful when he wants, and is very curious about things, which makes it fun. Quin is full of energy, but you can just see him learning new things right before your eyes all the time - it's incredible.

Some miscellaneous observations that didn't make it into any of the 'blog entries but deserved a little space here in my "epilogue."

- Californians are wearing pajama pants. Not sure what's up with that, but everywhere we went in the "hip and trendy" areas, people were walking around in pajama pants. Mark my words, in a couple of months to a year, it will be a craze around the country. Californians are weird...

- Quin is starting the master the art of blaming his gas on other people. While riding in the car we heard a loud sound come from near my side of the car. Jenny and Ethan looked at me but I claimed innocence. Quin was smiling, but immediately said, "Mommy, you stink!!!" I guess that would be a nurture thing...

- Big thanks to Glen and Cheryl on this trip. Not only were they extraordinarily generous with their time and home while we were in Arizona, but they gave us their car for 4 days while they had only bicycles and their own 2 legs to get them around. I only hope I can return the favor to my ungrateful kids when they are vacationing 20 or 30 years from now. Thank you!!!

Great West Adventure - Day 8 - Don't look down...

Day 8 was to be a relaxing day! In that right, it wasn't too bad. Mom and dad wanted to show off their new winter home state to us, though, so we headed out of town on Arizona 88 around 10:30 to catch up on some history and engineering marvels. Our first stop was Tortilla Flat, a (very) small stop on the way up to the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River. What might be said about Tortilla Flat is that it is the last sane place to stop on Hwy 88 before you wish you had brought a dune buggy! After spending a short time in Tortilla Flat getting a beer and looking through some of the buildings, we headed out again on 88 with a destination of the Roosevelt Dam. 88, however, was the real attraction of today's trip. All along my dad was explaining to me how horrendous this road was, and let me drive to prove it to me. Of course I didn't really take this all that seriously - he's old, right!? Well, let me be the first to admit that this is far and away the nastiest drive I've taken in all my years. Not only is it a curvy, mountainous road with little or not shoulder or barrier between the road and the canyon floor many hundreds of feet down, but the road is unpaved and, seemingly, ribbed (for her pleasure). I'm not sure of the science behind dirt roads and why they get so bumpy, but this one seemed to have been made so on purpose, perhaps to keep people from going more than about 15 miles per hour. Anyway, our 28 mile trek from Tortilla Flat to Roosevelt Dam took well over an hour. We did stop for some lunch along the way at Apache Lake where Quin started out napping, and upon waking half way through the meal asked us "where is everybody?" Business was not bustling in Apache Lake today!

The Roosevelt Dam was quite impressive itself. Not so much as the Hoover Dam that Jenny and I toured some years back, but still impressive any time you view an engineering feat like that. We quickly stopped at the Roosevelt Lake Visitor Center and promptly headed to the Tonto Monument, which was very, very cool. Remember when you were in grade school studying Native Americans and you got to the Pueblos built by those in the Southwest? These were those! Of course, these weren't the ones that you see in your textbook growing up as the Salado people were not quite the masons that those in more northern areas were, but it was really neat to see this piece of history that had only been known in books prior.

For the drive back we took the "long route" through Globe on more traditional roads and highways. Now we are resting at mom and dad's place anticipating our return to reality tomorrow...

Disney Day 2

Found this in the archives and thought I would post it. It's pretty dated, but I'm sure it's got lots of good stuff in it!


Good Night's Sleep

Our first night in the hotel was blissfully uneventful.  My biggest worry coming to this resort with an infant was that he would be up and unconsolable in the night and he would wake people up.  Turns out I had nothing to worry about all along.  In fact, I would say that Quin probably slept better at the hotel than he does at home.  That is most likely because we were so close by and it was easy to get up to tend to him.  Either way, it worked out well and I had nothing to complain about.

Ethan slept in Grandpa and Grandma's room the first night, as we thought he might be kept awake by Quin more than by Grandma's snoring.  Nothing really stirred him, though, and he slept quite well through the night.

In the morning, Jenny and I got up somewhat more rested than the day before.  We slept in until around 8:30 having only gotten up once each with Quin during the night, so we felt good enough to try out the 1.4 mile track that surrounds the lake in the middle of the grounds.  The Caribbean Beach Resort is a number of buildings organized into Islands.  Ours was Martinique.  Each of the islands surrounds a big lake in the middle with beaches surrounding it.  Each island also had its own pool, which we took advantage of several times.  Anyway, Jenny and I went for a small run then stopped by the central shop to get water for Quin's bottles and some snacks for breakfast.  After that, off to the parks!

EPCOT

Our first stop for this day was EPCOT, which again stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.  We grabbed a quick snack for breakfast as we had reservations in EPCOT for a character lunch, then jumped on the bus to EPCOT.

Have I mentioned how big the Disney World Resort is?  Let me put it another way in case I haven't properly explained that yet.  From our hotel, we could see Spaceship Earth, the big ball in the center of EPCOT.  It seemed not at all far away.  However, after boarding the bus in the morning, it took us no less than 20 minutes to get to the park!  Now, after having consulted a map, I now know that it took a long time to get there because the park entrance was all the way around the park, forcing us to weave in and out of several highways to get there, but still, 20 minutes, and they are both on the same property!

EPCOT, much like the Magic Kingdom before it, was BUSY!  There were people walking all over the place.  The weather was somewhat better than yesterday, but still not hot, which was OK since there were so many people around, hot weather would have made things uncomfortable.

The first look at EPCOT is no less amazing than that of the Magic Kingdom.  The huge Spaceship Earth structure dominating the sky right at the entrance, with the Beach Boys music playing (why the Beach Boys, I couldn't say), water fountains splashing about everywhere...  They definitely went the extra mile with this park to make it seem different.

EPCOT is separated into two separate parts, Futureworld where there are a bunch of rides and attractions that deal with imagination, conservation, and life in the future, and the World Showcase, which has buildings and attractions attempting to capture the feel of different countries around the world.  Since it was quite busy, we decided to check out the newest attraction first, Soarin', which was located in "The Land," one of the buildings in Futureworld.  Well, that line was already around 2 hours long, so we did the next best thing, we caught a couple of shows.

The first show we saw was called "Live With the Land," which was narrated by Pumba, Timone, and Simba from the Lion King.  This, along with most attractions, seemed to have the actual actors doing the voice work for the video, which is impressive.  The show was pretty neat.  It was all about how we should conserve and live with the land instead of against it.  I found it somewhat ironic that Disney of all companies was preaching conservation when they pump millions of gallons of water through their fountains and use tons of plastic to deliver food to their hungry customers each day, but hey, the message is still important, and the show wasn't too bad.

The next attraction we took in was again in The Land.  This time we boarded a boat (a common theme in many Disney attractions) and toured through some labs that Disney had setup in an attempt to grow things in different ways.  This trip was pretty cool as it showed all kinds of different plants being grown in a huge greenhouse.  They also tried new ways of growing things, like suspending tomato plants in the air so that the air can get to the leaves properly, or growing tomatoes upside-down.  Fairly interesting stuff.

We had made reservations for a character lunch in The Land's table service restaurant for around 2:00, but after taking in our two shows we still had some time to burn, so we headed outside and went into a building titled "Imagineering."  This was basically a big hands-on playground of all sorts of technology that could change the future, stimulate the imagination, or educate in some other way.  They had stations setup with video games, fire

Disney's Hollywood Studio

Wore Out Part II

Great West Adventure - Day 7 - Permission to Board

There was no plan in the works for today other than to drive back to Phoenix at some point. Small portion of the day, only 6.5 hours... Surprisingly, though, it seemed relaxed since we didn't have an itinerary. So we started out the day like we did any other day on vacation, we ate at a local breakfast establishment. This time we found a local favorite, Panera Bread. Excellent bagels and sandwiches - oh who am I kidding, we just wanted something fast.

The only thing we wanted to make sure we did on this day, other than drive back to Phoenix, was to go to and see Coronado Island. On the way, though, we found the Midway Museum, a decommissioned naval aircraft carrier. Wow, am I glad we stopped! It was fascinating! Of course, Quin was a little less than impressed, but I really liked it... Ethan was even able to earn his Junior Aviator wings by listening to the free audio tour and answering a page full of questions about the topics.

After several hours on the Midway, we found our way across the Coronado Bridge to Coronado Island where we parked on a local road, walked through the commerce district, and found Miguel's Cocina, which I found an interesting confluence of English and Spanish. Regardless, the food was quite good. Their special touch was given to the pre-meal chips and salsa where they provided an additional portion cup of cheese dip for your chips. Quin immediately commandeered the cheese dip until it was gone. He ran out half way through a chip and was quite disappointed to the point of crying and screaming until Jenny introduced him to the Salsa. That kid REALLY likes to dip things!

After lunch we found our way to the beach where we got our feet wet in what seemed like 55 degree water - seriously, it couldn't have been much warmer than that! The beach was gorgeous and large and the kids really enjoyed it. We only wish we would have had a couple of hours to spend there so the kids could play more.

Unfortunately, we had to call it quits in California - I wanted to beat rush hour traffic out of town, and we didn't want to get back to Phoenix too late in the evening, so we packed up around 3:30 and took the arduous trip back to grandpa and grandma's house outside of Phoenix. We arrived around 10:00, not bad considering we stopped several times for bio breaks and food. Jenny quickly deposited a large load of clothes into the washing machine and we tried to wrestle the kids into bed so they wouldn't be too ornery the next day. Jenny and I followed quickly behind them - vacation is tiring!!!

Great West Adventure - Day 6 - It's a zoo out there

In case there was any question to the subtitle of yesterday's post, we were watching the weather where the cute weather lady exclaimed that the clouds were pretty moist and deep, and that she wouldn't be surprised to see them start to rain at any time. I found that amusing - I suppose I've never really progressed past the age of 12 as far as my maturity level goes...

I again find myself 3 days tardy in posting this, so I think this will be pretty short. Today was about the zoo. The day started out a bit earlier than any of us would have liked. Around 6:25 AM, the hotel's fire alarm system started going crazy. We awoke in a daze, but figured out what was going on well enough to put some clothes on, grab our "necessities," (my wallet and keys to the car - oh, and the kids), and get outside. We weren't outside more than a couple of minutes before they gave us the all clear stating that it was a false alarm. No kidding... By this time, Quin was finally starting to wake up. As I was holding him in my arms, he took his head off my shoulder, looked up at me and said, "please I push the button?" Apparently to a kid of three, pushing the elevator button is pretty much the coolest thing you could ever hope to do. The entire week he would dash to the elevator anytime we hinted at going up or down in it. Ethan caught on, being the mean big brother, and taunted him at every turn, threatening to push the button instead of him, sometimes succeeding. Of course, being the opportunistic parents that we are, we used it as leverage to get Quin to do the things we wanted him to do. So, whenever we were heading to the elevator, he would ask us if he could be the one to push the button...

After our early start we needed to find a good place for breakfast. I turned to my mad internet skills and consulted "the Google" to find The Old Townhouse Restaurant at Ocean Beach. Now able to navigate the city proficiently, I got us there with minimal assistance from my navigator (Jenny) who manned the iPhone map application. The restaurant was on Newport Ave near the beach. We parked on the street right in front of a hostel, which I mistook as some sort of halfway house - I suppose I wasn't that far off... The restaurant didn't look like much on the outside, but the food and the service were fabulous!

The zoo is pretty much what you would expect from one of the most famous zoos in the world. Completely beautiful. Most of the time I didn't even know we were in a zoo. The animals just blended in with the surroundings. We did get lost from time to time before we finally figured out the lay of the land. Of course we were surrounded by some of the most exotic animals we've ever seen, but Quin was most impressed by the squirrel that passed in front of us. That's sort of his thing right now. Anytime he sees a squirrel, regardless of what he's doing, he will stop everything, point, and scream "squirrel!" Have you ever seen the Pixar movie Up! I believe it was Doug the dog. Anyway, here's a link.

We headed back to the hotel pretty early by our going standards, 4:00, where we finally got to enjoy the pool for a bit while Jenny and I enjoyed a beer on the patio. We finished the night at Oggi's Pizza and Brewing Company which was a short walk from our hotel room. The kids ate free, the beer was adequate, and the pizza above average.

After that, we were spent. Quin fell asleep by 7:30 again, the rest of us watched Gulliver's Travels on HBO (seemed like a short movie to me, though I may have napped through some of it).

Great West Adventure - Day 5 - Moist and Deep

Man, I have to start doing these as they happen. This is my third log today!!! To get me through it, I've gone to the fridge to finish off my San Diego brew sampler with a Karl Strauss Brewing Company Boardwalk Black Rye. Tasty!!!

Today's plan was to go to Seaworld. We figured we would do things a little differently today since we completely missed supper yesterday, so we opted for a smaller breakfast of Subway sandwiches and Starbucks. After breakfast we headed north to Seaworld, San Diego.

Much like yesterday, Seaworld seemed pretty dead. To start the day we were walking right up to anything we wanted to do! Later in the day the park filled up a bit more, but it is definitely nice to be here "off season."

We started out in the penguin habitat where we got to see a trainer feeding some of the penguins out front. Interesting things we learned about penguins included the fact that Seaworld is the only place in the Western Hemisphere where you can see Empire Penguins, and that some birds can dive up to 1700 feet, almost twice as much as a killer whale!

We then went to see an educational program on Shamu - it turns out Shamu is more of a code name for the killer whales than the name of an actual whale. There was once a whale called Shamu, she was Namu's partner in the Pacific Northwest, the first two killer whales purposefully captured and kept in captivity. They gave us a little bit of a peek into some of the training methods they use with the whales - quite impressive.

Most of the day was spent attending shoes, from the sea lions and sea otter show, to the dolphin show, to the Pets Rule show, then back to the Shamu show. The dolphin show was particularly good, and the sea lion show was a family favorite. The kids had their ebbs and flows throughout the day - we did get a quick lunch, but the kids waned in the early afternoon hours while we hit show after show. Later in the afternoon they rallied as we started doing rides instead of shows. Ethan, Quin, and I went on Journey to Atlantis, a combination flume ride and roller coaster. Quin just qualified to go on the ride, so he was pretty excited. Jenny didn't want to go on it, however, since we stood a good chance of getting wet. When it was our turn to board the boats, Quin advanced towards it and tripped, hitting his face on the side of the boat. Looked like it hurt, and the waterworks came on. The people manning the ride were a bit concerned, thinking he was afraid of the ride. I checked to see that he wasn't bleeding, then convinced him that he wasn't hurt, and he came through to smile before they would let the boat go off. It was quite a ride, quick drops, splashes, dark caves, then it went out of water to a roller coaster area. Lots of fun. Quin was all smiles. At one point he looked at me and said, "that was awesome!"

We again spent the entire day in the water park. When we got out of the park we drove downtown for our first glimpse of San Diego proper and got a quick dinner at the Edgewater Cafe. The kids were most likely overtired, and that translated into them being very loud and acting like robots for quite a long time. When we got back to the room at 7:30, we put Quin in his pajamas, brushed his teeth, then kept him still for about 30 seconds before he crashed, which brings us to now. Ethan is complaining that we aren't letting him go to bed, so Jenny and I are heading into the other room to entertain ourselves while he goes to bed on the couch - that's right, Jenny, Quin, and I are sleeping together on the king bed in the bedroom while Ethan occupies the couch by himself. I suppose that's why they call it a trip instead of a vacation when you travel with your kids...

Great West Adventure - Day 4 - A Ton of Bricks

Day 4 - San Diego. Today started out early with Quin waking around 6:00 - he's getting better. He and I passed time playing iOS games on the iPhone and iPad in the second room of our suite while Jenny and Ethan grabbed 90 more minutes of sleep. By 7:30, Jenny got up and I hit the road for a quick run along the water.

By 9:00 we were off for a full day of vacationing. We decided to load up on breakfast since our plans for the day included Legoland, and our guess was that food would be somewhat expensive there. So I mapped out Perry's Cafe near the freeway where we all ate enough to skip the next several meals - well, I did anyway! Delicious!

We then headed north to Carlsbad, the home of Legoland California. Our day there started by 10:30 and the park was next to deserted! Apparently Mondays in October aren't a high traffic time for amusement parks in Carlsbad. No worries. We took in a couple of immediate rides and weren't so impressed. Hopefully this wasn't going to be a stinker! By noon we still hadn't really done much that was too exciting - in fact we waited for about 30 minutes in line for this bicycle ride that was really pretty lame.

Things started to pick up a bit when Jenny and Quinton found full sized, human powered Lego firetrucks lined up for a fireman competition. Our family took on 4 others in moving the firetruck about 50 feet by pumping it like a manual rail car (like in O! Brother Where Art Though), then getting off and putting out a fire using 2 squirt guns, then powering the vehicle back 50 feet. We came in a close second - I blame Jenny as she was manning the device that determined the direction of the vehicle. About 10 feet into our initial surge, she decided to throw it in reverse to test how it worked. I'm pretty sure that cost us precious feet that ultimately would have left us the champs! Oh well.

The day REALLY picked up when we found our way to Miniland, which is an area with Lego models of the United States and several scenes from Star Wars. The Star Wars area was very cool - the designers capturing some of the pivotal moments of all 6 movies and one of the cartoon movies. We spent quite some time there. Then we discovered the USA where they had modeled large sections of San Francisco, Las Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington DC, and New York all in bricks. They even had a small patch that was apparently "The Midwest." I have to say I was a little insulted. The seemed to put thousands of hours of thought and workmanship into painstakingly replicating every last detail of Las Vegas, then the midwest had a couple of tractors, a church, and a rodeo... We had a hard time getting Quin out of this area - he was completely transfixed by these Lego cars that were automated. He stood and watched this piano truck in San Francisco for no less than 5 minutes. We had to tell him about all the other cool moving cars in the other areas. In all I would estimate we spent at least an hour in Miniland.

After a quick lunch (Jenny didn't eat enough for breakfast) we ended up with some really fun rides in Adventureland, Pharoh's Curse (or something), and Castleland. Ethan and I got onto a decent roller coaster, but they wouldn't let Quin on. Even though he qualified for the minimum height of 42", Jenny mistakingly admitted his real age of 3 and a half, when they had a strict minimum of 4. The most fun ride of the day turned out to be in Castleland, the Knight's Quest. It was a strange confluence of new and old with chairs nestled atop these huge robotic arms. Two people would sit in the chairs and select one of 5 different programs, each program getting progressively more aggressive. Jenny and Quin were unable to do any program by 1, the only one allowed for folks under 48". Ethan and I had no restrictions, however, so we went for a 4. I'm pretty sure we could have gone for a 5. Our last ride of the day was the Dragoncoaster, Quinton's first roller coaster. As we expected, he loved it. It's sometimes easy to forget how easy going and adventurous Quin is. I remember taking Ethan to an amusement park in the past, he was 4 or 5, and he was petrified of many rides. We also saw lots of kids at Legoland, kids Ethan's age and older that were crying uncontrollably at the thought of doing a "scary ride." Not Quin, he wanted to ride everything. After the ride he loudly exclaimed, "That was awesome!"

After a long day, we headed back south toward our hotel. Carlsbad is about 30 miles north of San Diego, and since it was rush hour we decided to take the scenic route back, so we got onto Hwy 101 and headed south. Quin fell asleep before we got out of the Legoland parking lot, but the rest of us enjoyed a beautiful drive along the coast. At one point we spotted a large group of dolphins feeding or something, so we pulled off the road and watched them for awhile. It was the first time Ethan saw dolphins outside of captivity.

The day ended much like the previous. Quin finally woke up around 6:30, so we had a hard time getting him to bed before 9:30, but once he went down, the rest of us followed in order and quickly. Vacation kicking our butt once again!

Great West Adventure - Day 3

Since we were up by 6:00 anyway, we decided to try to get an early start at things, so we got ready and left by 8:00. My parents graciously lent us their vehicle - they are currently going without any sort of motorized vehicle of their own, relying instead on pedal power and favors from friends - so we loaded it up and took off on our 6 and 1/2 hour drive to San Diego. Before we left town we had to make a quick stop at Starbucks to get Jenny her vacation nectar, Tall non-fat Chai Tea Latte, and at the gas station for a Pepsi Max for me - it's not a diet soda, it's a zero calorie soda for men! At one point, Quinton asked "where are we going?" I explained we were going to Starbucks to get mommy a coffee - he responded, "oh darn it, I wanted to go to California." I need to take this opportunity to say that the gas station/car wash/oil change establishment at the intersection of Highway 60 and Signal Butte Drive in Apache Junction is perhaps the most beautiful gas station I've ever encountered. From the clean, modern, southwest exterior, to the wide aisles, copious beverage choice, leather chairs, high definition televisions while you wait... It was spectacular!

The drive took us south almost immediately. After about 2 hours we were ready for a quick stop just as we were about to get onto Interstate 8 headed for California where we picked up some Mike and Ikes for Ethan and quickly used the bathroom. As we got onto I8, we had the option to go West to San Diego, or South to Mexico. So I gave the family the option, Mexico or San Diego. Ethan and Quinton both shouted simultaneously "San Diego," so I guess we were committed.

The drive was mostly uneventful to Yuma where we used the iPhone to locate a park, Kennedy Park off of Exit 2, then navigated to it for a quick picnic lunch compliments Grandma Cheryl, meat and cheese sandwiches, Fritoes, bananas and apples. It was nice to stop and stretch our legs and let the kids play on the toys in the park. It was a beautiful day - 95 degrees, not humid, not a cloud in the sky. In fact, Jenny and I were amazed that there was almost nobody out to enjoy the beautiful day. As far as we could tell, people were either sleeping in (until noon), going to church, or it was just not such an oddity for them to have such a beautiful day on their hands so nobody was out taking advantage of it. A day like this in Wisconsin in October would be a recipe for some of the poorest daytime television ratings days of all time!

On our way out of town we had our first vehicle mishap. While putting Quin back in the car and trying to close the automatic sliding door, the door started to "misbehave." We have a similar car at home, and if something gets in the way of the door closing, it reopens then starts beeping crazily. If you try to drive with the door open, it does the same thing. Well, that started happening. The door opened and would not close. When we were able to get the door to close by quickly locking it before it re-opened, it would beep uncontrollably. We drove for about a mile with it in that state until we got to a gas station where we filled up with gas and continued to debug the door. After about 30 minutes, I finally found a combination that left the door closed without any beeping of any sort. Since then, we have not touched it - Quin has been getting out on Ethan's side!

We finally entered California for the last part of our drive. We were mildly nervous that we would get searched at one of three border patrol stops along the way and that they would make us open Quin's door, but our fears were not realized and we cruised right through to San Diego, where the weather finally turned cooler. In fact, we stopped at a gas station for some Slurpees about 20 miles East of San Diego and the thermometer read 87 degrees. Not more than 5 miles down the road, the thermometer read 67!!!

We eased off the interstate on Rosencrans Road and were greeted by a big sign, "Live Nude Girls." Jenny and I looked at each other and wondered without saying anything if our recent hotel luck was going to continue. The last two times we've gotten hotel rooms we've had less than pleasing experiences. Were we staying in the red light district? Well, again our fears were not realized as within a few blocks we started seeing signs for Trader Joes and seeing nice cars parked on the side of the road.

Our hotel, the Courtyard in Libertyville, is nice enough - clean, dry, and in a nice area. We took some time to walk around the area before we ventured out for some supper in the Ocean Beach area, only 4 miles from the hotel. We ate supper at a Mexican restaurant near the ocean while we watched Sunday night football. We then headed down to the beach to let the kids get their feet wet - Quin scared the heck out of me when he started to chase the tide out to the ocean. I had glimpses of the tide taking him out to sea and me having to frantically try to find him in the dark waters, but he must have seen the fear in my face and quickly came back up the beach towards me.

When we got back to the room it was about 8:00 - we got Quin ready for bed and he fell asleep within perhaps 2 minutes - the rest of us didn't last much longer...

Great West Adventure - Day 2

As should probably be expected, since Quin went to bed at around 6:00 local time, he woke up around 4:30 local. I suppose the day was going to start early! We aimed to do quite a bit during this day, but ultimately decided to back it off a bit seeing as how we were still a bit groggy from the previous day's travels. We did manage to get to the Superstition Mountain Museum which is the site of an old Hollywood set for westerns which only recently burned to the ground. We also spent some time at Goldfield Ghost town where we got to see a gunfight, Ethan bought a cowboy hat, and we ended up taking in some old west entertainment at the Saloon.

The day was not without excitement, however. In the morning, Jenny and I went to get some Starbucks and to get some things from WalMart, something we have to do each day during vacation. When I went to get my credit card from my wallet, I was shocked to find it missing! Luckily I remembered using it at a different WalMart the day before, and a quick call to them proved that I had indeed left it there. Something about vacations makes me sloppy with my wallet!

At the end of the day, while my dad cooked chicken for supper and Jenny and mom went to Kohls to look for sweet deals, the boys and I were watching the Superstition Mountains turn different colors in the sunset. Ethan and I got onto the topic of Spanish, saying different phrases in Spanish to each other. At one point, Ethan said to me, "Say shut-up in Spanish." Quinton, without missing a beat, said "Shut-up in Spanish." Not a single hint of irony in his voice... He's got great timing, I'll give him that.

Great West Adventure - Day 1

3:45 AM - the alarm called out the start of our Great West Adventure. We were ticketed for a 7:00 departure from Milwaukee's General Mitchell Airport. With 3 and 10 year old in tow, we didn't want to leave anything to risk. So we all showered the night before, set the alarm for 3:45, and aimed to leave by 4:15.

The plan went off without a hitch - the crew was excited for the trip. We pulled into our offsite parking lot at 5:10, plenty of time to spare. I suppose we could have probably slept a little longer, but who knows on a work day how bad traffic will get. After a quick shuttle ride we were at the ticketing counter, then off to the gate to meet up with our first trip on Southwest Airlines.

I'm not sure if you've flown Southwest before, but here's how it works. Basically it's like a bus - you get on the plane, pick a seat, and sit there. Their fares are pretty low and they don't charge for luggage, so we decided to risk it. In actuality they do give you a number to board, so we would have been the 90th people to board the aircraft, if we hadn't "won the lottery" by traveling with Quin. After the preferred ticket holders, group A, Soutwest lets families with children under 5 board so they can hope to sit together. Us and another family took advantage of this rule and boarded the plane. Quin and I sat together in one row with Jenny and Ethan sitting behind us.

The flight was pretty uneventful. Quin couldn't wait to "blast off". As we taxied down the runway to do so, however, he promptly fell asleep for about 30 minutes, some of the most peaceful on the flight for me!! Actually he was a good flyer. Surprisingly, another set of good flyers were the set of 2 dachshunds flying in this woman's carryon a couple rows ahead of us. I couldn't believe that they would sit still and quiet for a 4 hour flight in that little bag!

When we got to Arizona, Mom and Dad Grady picked us up at Sky Harbor Airport, still the best name for an airport as far as I can determine. Though we arrived fairly early in the day - we got to mom and dad's southern home by 11 AM local time, we were pretty well spent. We took the rest of the day fairly easy by picking up some odds and ends that we weren't able to pack and swimming in the old folk's pool at the community. One smallish faux pax on my part was that I bought the wrong pull-ups for Quinny. He still sleeps in night-time pull-ups. I was assigned to go to WalMart and pick up some various things that we couldn't get, one of which were pull-ups. Jenny and Ethan were shocked to find that I had actually purchased princess pull-ups rather than the normal Cars 2 pull-ups. Luckily Quinny was OK with it.

We dined out at Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa for dinner, truly an amazing sight! This largish restaurant is completely filled with glockenspiels, pipes, drums, dancing cats, and gobs of other things, all hooked into the central organ where the organist controls it all. We got to take in a 45 minute show while we polished off a pitcher of beer and 2 pizzas.

Back to the folk's pad, we finished up the evening fairly early. I'm pretty sure we were all sleeping by 8:00 local time. Mom and dad were surprised until they realized that we had been up since 2:00 AM local time... All in all it was a decent travel day.

Staying in Shape

Four years ago I ran in my first organized race since I graduated from high school when I participated in a sprint level triathlon. Since then I got in shape, got out of shape, lost 30 pounds, and have been in pretty decent shape since then. I've also managed to run in a half marathon, 2-200 mile relays, a number of 5Ks, 10Ks, a 20K, trail runs, road runs, you name it. After all of these races, my last two have been the most enjoyable for me.

My first half marathon was a year ago at the Lake Country Half Marathon in Oconomowoc. This year, a friend of mine told me that his son of 11 was going to run the 5K version of that same event and he was going to run it with him. I thought this was a great idea and immediately convinced Ethan it to do it with me. Throughout the summer he "trained" off and on, but never wavered from the course, he was going to run the race with me. Well, my buddy's son ended up not running the race, but Ethan and I ran it. He didn't train a whole lot, and when he did, he ran SLOW, so I figured we would finish the race in around 40 minutes. When we finally got to the race, though, he ran the whole thing and completed it in just over 30 minutes, that's about a 9:40/mile pace. It was very gratifying to run a race with Ethan. It took me 34 years to discover the joys of staying in shape - I only hope that I can instill it in him early so he doesn't have to go through that painful period of getting in shape once he's well beyond it!

My most recent race was today when Jenny, Tim Z, Steve K, and I participated in the Warrior Dash. This race is one in a series of many "mud runs" that have been popping up over the last couple of years. It's a 5K run in a farm field with a bunch of obstacles thrown in. Jenny and I ran it together and had a great time! A sign reading "Danger, Obstacle Ahead" would warn us of each impending contraption to slow our pace. Obstacles included climbing walls, cargo nets, barbed wire crawls, fires we had to jump over, and finally a 50 foot long mud pit that you had to swim through to evade the barbed wire hung over it. It was a very fun event, very well run, but what made it most fun was doing it with Jenny.

I'm pretty lucky to be able to enjoy this pastime with my family. I'm really looking forward to the day when we can corrupt Quinny into doing these crazy things. Maybe one day I can cross a finish line with my whole family beside me - that would be fun.

Welcome our new Family Member

A big welcome to Heinz Doofenshmirtz Grady, our new puppy! Heinz comes to us from Little Buddies Rescue where he was dropped off from a puppy mill. We originally went there intending to adopt his sister, but she had already been spoken for by the time we got there. No worries! Heinz immediately endeared himself to us by fetching a toy for Ethan - a sure way to his heart! He had to stay at the rescue for a few more days so he could be neutered and have his initial vaccinations, so we went and picked him up yesterday. Unfortunately Ethan is up north spending some time with his grandparents, so he was not here to help us bring Heinz home. Quinton has been a lot of help, though! He was so impressed yesterday by the decrease in attention that he pooped his pants!

Heinz is about 11 weeks old. I had forgotten what a pain in the butt new puppies can be! He's pretty well behaved so far, but I fear he's still being shy and will quickly show his naughtiness. He did not come crate trained, but took to it with little complaint last night. He even lasted through the night (7 hours) without having to go to the bathroom.

We look forward to many years with Heinz Doofenshmirtz as our new family member!

Catching up with Quinton

Neither Jenny nor I are very good about creating content for a baby book. In fact, I know I could not tell you where either of my children's baby books are - perhaps in the top of our closet collecting dust. To capture memories, though, I've turned to this 'blog. It worked out pretty well with Ethan so far, and Quinton has been no different. This post, then, is going to be some quick hitters to get into Quinton's virtual baby book.

I really enjoy age three for some reasons, and really detest it for others. Most of the 3 year olds I know are some of the funniest people you could ever hold a conversation with. Quin is no exception. The other day Jenny bought a new swimming suit as she's prone to do from time to time. She brought it home and tried it on. While looking herself over in the mirror, Quin came into the room, looked at her, and said to her, "Mommy, you look fancy."

Quin is quite a lady's man, from many perspectives. For one, he's never shy about telling us about the girls he likes. He'll see what I would consider an attractive young lady walking past and loudly say, "Hi!!" to her until she responded. If he gets a little extra attention from her, he'll put his hands on either side of my face (so I can hear him better) and tell me, "I like that girl!" He'll do the same thing with women on television. Another example is at Ethan's baseball games. A couple of weeks ago, one of Ethan's teammate's sisters decided she was going to play soccer with Quin for like an hour (God bless her!). She's about 12 years old, and Quin had a blast with her. Last Thursday, then, we were at another park playing on the playground equipment while Jenny watched the game (we have to take turns). I had convinced Quin that we should go sit by mommy for awhile so I could take in some of the game. He agreed in principal and started to follow me when he spotted his playmate from the previous week. He stopped short, got my attention and said, "daddy, wait here, I have to say hi to that girl," after which he immediately walked over to her, said hi, and started playing with her again.

It doesn't end there, however. Quin is quite smitten with pink. He also likes to dress in Jenny's high heels and sunglasses while carrying around one of her pretty purses. He gets mad at her if she takes the purse away, complaining that "I had it first!"

In the last two days he's been particularly enamored with pink and princesses, though I suspect the sudden surge in interest has more to do with what he did yesterday than some new trend. Yesterday morning we were up north for our 20th class reunion. We went out to Jenny's folk's house to drop off some cargo and Jenny's sister and her two boys were there. Emmet is 4 and learned to ride a 2 wheel bike this year. Grandpa had found one of the older grandkid's bikes, and pink princess bike, and lowered the seat so he could ride it. Emmet was so excited that he had to show Quin right away. I was inside, glancing out once in awhile, and I noticed that Quin was striding the bicycle and trying to push himself off. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I rushed outside, held the bike for him, pushed him off, and away he went! Unbelievably he was able to ride for quite awhile before crashing into the grass. Each time he would fall down he would want to get up and try it again! Emmet got a little upset, so we had to take turns, but Quin insisted on taking his turn. I took this video as proof - I'm not sure I still believe it.

Buyer Beware

A couple of weeks ago I ran a Webelos Scout Camp for Ethan and his Cub Scout cohorts (I know, the scouts are an intolerant bunch, but that doesn't have to affect Ethan's learning - let's keep this among adults, shall we). The camp was pretty enjoyable - the boys were tasked with setting up the tents and camp themselves, had to take part in meal prep and cleanup, etc. Part of each camp is doing some kind of craft. After observing how crazy the kids went for this Indian neck thing they made at the winter camp, I thought it would be fun to do some kind of craft where the kids could make something and take it home with them - something they could wear. I came across "Paracord Survival Bracelets" through my searching, which turned out to be right up their alley. A week or so before the camp, I practiced by making one for myself, then I showed Ethan how to do it. After about 5 minutes he had picked it up, and about 10 - 15 bracelets later, he had decided that he was going into business!

So - if you find yourself heading down here for the party this coming weekend, please don't be surprised if Ethan attempts to peddle his wares on you. His business is making survival bracelets, obviously. For $5 you can get up to a 9 inch premade bracelet. For an extra dollar, he'll make it custom for you on the spot, specially fit for your wrist! I am interested to see if he actually follows through with it, because he's been talking about it for weeks now. His goal is to earn enough money to buy a laptop, his latest obsession. When I asked him what his company would be called, without missing a beat he proclaimed "E-biz." He then went out to explain what that meant to me, which was pretty funny...

Anyway, we hope to see you at this very special occasion this coming weekend. And we apologize up front if our first born tries to weasel you out of some of your money. Laptops aren't cheap, you know!!!

Quin's First Movie

Cars 2 is out! We've been waiting for awhile for this event as I had unofficially earmarked it as the first movie I would attempt to take Quinton to. I'm happy to report that there was nothing out of the ordinary that happened... Yeah, boring blog post, but I'll take it. I'd say he was as good as, if not a little better than Ethan when we took him to his first movie (I don't recall which movie that was right now).

One nice side bar of the first movie story was that I got to enjoy a rare treat this morning. Since the movie started at 6:45, Quin didn't get to sleep until about 9:30 last night, so I had the vary rare pleasure of waking him up this morning! Ah, payback. I can't wait until he's a teenager - I plan to wake him up every weekend for at least 3 years!!!

My Mac is actually a Slot Machine!!!

The other day, Jenny wanted me to burn a DVD for her to give to a person at church. I told her no problem, grabbed a blank DVD which I promptly attempted to insert into my Mac superdrive. I was somewhat surprised to find that I could not put the DVD into the drive, however. The cmoputer did not say there was anything in the drive... Quite strange, I thought. I suppose that there could be a disc in there that the OS didn't know about somehow, a computer glitch. So I went to "the Google" and researched how to force the Mac DVD drive to eject. Having found my solution, I executed it according to instructions. The drive whined and made that mechanical eject noise, but no DVD appeared.

So I did what anybody would have done, I grabbed a letter opener and jammed it into my Mac's drive. OK, maybe a dumb idea, particularly with the power still on, but I'm not always the brightest. I was surprised that at one end of the drive my letter opener met resistance, and that resistance moved when I prodded it. So I unplugged the computer (finally coming to my senses) and continued my surgery. My efforts were quickly rewarded when a nickel and 2 pennies dropped from the drive! I wonder who could have put those in there? I suppose it's possible that the computer is actually now making money...

Well, the story didn't entirely end there. I was now able to put a disc into the drive, but it would not read. By now I suspected there was probably more in the drive, so I unplugged again and this time tipped the machine on its side when another penny and a quarter dropped out!!! In short, my computer somehow generated 33 cents for me.

In the old days, I would have quipped that this was a result of one of my sons wanting to play a video game on the computer - but in today's terms, putting any sort of coin into anything is quaint - so I really have no idea what would have led Quinton (yeah, I'm pretty sure it was him) to try to put money in this location...

Quinnie Quickie - TMI

File this one under TMI (that's "too much information" for those not in the know). I believe I've discussed how Quin and I have pee races in this blog in the past. On Friday I went on a field trip with Ethan, and to make a very long story much shorter, I didn't have much to drink during the day. When I got home, Quin wanted to have a pee race. While we were racing, I said, "wow, daddy's pee smells bad" (I told you this was too much information - you had been warned). Quin leaned forward and sniffed and said, "Yeah, it does. You need a new penis daddy. A black one!"

I'm pretty sure mommy's been feeding him information...

Ethan's 10th Birthday Party

My son is 10 years old! It's tough really to get my head around that fact. I can only imagine what it is like for my parents to think about each year one of their aging children reaches another annual milestone.

9 was a pretty good year. Ethan's shown a lot of improvement in school, thanks to his mother's constant prodding and encouragement, he's begun to really shine at the piano, and is starting to show real promise at soccer. I'm not saying that he's looking like he may be Pele one day, but considering our dismay at his total lack of competitiveness or energy in previous years, this year has been one of wonder! It's hard not to have high, unreasonable expectations of your kids. Lord knows how badly we've screwed him up already. Well, I suppose we get pretty good contact with him for the next 8 years or so (man, is it that few?!?!!), hopefully we don't mess it up even worse than we have...

So this year we decided to allow Ethan to have a friend party with all the boys from school. Since Ethan's class is pretty small, it is easy, or rather required to invite all of the boys in his class. Luckily, all 6 (including Ethan himself) were able to attend! I picked the boys up at school at 3:30 and traveled with them into Waukesha for a couple of hours of lasertag. I'm not sure when the last time any of you has spent a considerable amount of time with a carload of 10 year olds, but it really opens your eyes about all the stuff they already know. Their conversations ranged from cars to jokes ("that's what she said" - they are getting better with that one - probably 70% of the references would work) to music (ACDC is the best, Mr. Grady) to movies. It ranged quite a lot. Even though the topic was anything but constant, one thing that did not stop was the chatter! They can talk A LOT! It was kind of nice to see that they are still, for good or for bad, very much influenced by their families. All of them liked the same cars their dad's liked, the same music their mom's liked, and had the same opinions about the world as their parents. I'm guessing that's going to change sometime soon, but for now, it seems we still have influence...

Lasertag was pretty enjoyable. Jenny and Quin met us there for the first game. Jenny quickly purchased $40 in game tokens for the arcade games which the boys burned through in about 15 minutes. Luckily they were completely loaded down in prize tickets which they each exchanged for handfuls of candy and some alien in a test-tube toy. Candy... Good idea!!! After the second game of lasertag was done and they had burned through all of my cash for game tokens, I tried to buy them all a slushie at the snack counter. Unfortunately the slushie machines were on the fritz, so I said, "just get a soda". What do you suppose they all ordered? "Mountain dew", "Code Red", one of them actual asked me if they could get a Monster Energy Drink... I was quickly losing control!!

After the last game of lasertag I loaded the gang up into the van to leave. That's when one of the boys flipped off a passerby... Oh boy, now I'm going to get beat up! The kids explained to me that this group of 11 year olds was really giving them trouble in the arena and demanding their respect, so they really had no choice but to flip them off!!!

The ride to our house was somewhat quiet. Most of the boys settled in to watch Ironman 2 which I had playing on the van DVD player. When we got to our house, the kids ran in and bee lined up to Ethan's room, right past a smiling and anxious Quin. By the time I got into the house, Quin was in tears! He had been patiently waiting for the boys to come home and play with him, but none of them even said hi!!! Luckily after a couple of minutes they came back down and started interacting with Quin as well. He couldn't have been happier! He came up to me and said, "daddy, he was nice to me!"

The rest of the night went about as expected. We had pizza - each of the kids ate about 1/2 a piece. I made root beer by special request - unfortunately it didn't fizz up very well, so it wasn't all that popular. That was OK, because one of the boys found our stash of Mountain Dew in the basement pantry!!! Many a Nerf Gun war was had, both inside and out. Quin and I actually played with them for awhile. During one game, Quin cautioned us to "keep our eyes peeled." I'm guessing that's a phrase he picked up from the older boys!

As I dropped each of them off for the night after insisting that we were NOT going to be entertaining all of them for a sleepover (that didn't go over well - too much caffeine), all of the boys clamored out of the van at each stop, wanting to see each others houses. It was like herding cats to get them back into the van to make the next stop in a reasonable timeframe. I'm pretty sure it took an hour and half to deliver each of them home!!!

All in all it was a nice party. It's always good to interact with a group of kids so you realize that yours isn't the only weird one - they're all weird!!! I'm happy that it is almost a full year until we will have another one, though! I suppose next year we'll be doing it for Quin, too!!!

Not my friend...

Quinton has experimented with lots of different ways to express his anger with people when they don't do things he likes. Initially he liked to call people "poopy butt," but we quickly tried to squash that. He then moved on to calling people "stupid," which I think I like worse than poopy-butt. Lately he has categorized you as either his friend or not his friend. If he likes you particularly, or if he wants something from you, he tells you, "you're my best friend (he pronounces it fwond)." If, on the other hand, you tell him that he cannot have a candy bar after he hasn't eaten his supper, he says, "you're not my friend, Ethan's my friend." Of course, he will pick whoever else is around at the time, but you get the picture.

I can't wait until he gets old enough to know what swear words are for...

More Adventures with Potty Training

So - potty training boys... Yeah... Well, we're still doing pretty well, but something new has reared its ugly head. Now that Quin knows when he has to go to the bathroom, and no longer does it in his pants, he has decided that he wants to find other things to pee on other than the toilet. Jenny caught him peeing in the bathtub the other day. Yesterday I stopped him from going in the garbage can and in the refrigerator, while Jenny caught him trying to spray down the plunger in the bathroom. I have to admit, I didn't see this one coming. Oh, the joys of raising boys!