Hawaiian Vacation/15th Anniversary Trip- Day 1

SUCH A FUN TRIP!!!!

We couldn't have done it without the help of our family though! A huge THANK YOU to Bonnie and Allen, and Kim and Karen (and anyone else that also helped), for watching and taking care of our "babies" (as Anna continually referred to them as, during our trip). We very much appreciate your help!


After a quick trip to AZ to go to Devin's blessing, we drove home Sunday afternoon, to our house. We were only here for about an hour. We did some final packing and grabbed our suitcase and headed out to Pasadena to spend the night. We had an early flight out of LAX. Many thanks to Allen for taking us to the airport so early.


The islands of Hawaii. I believe these are some of the smaller islands around Maui, in this shot from the airplane.

A couple things about the flight: There isn't really a "movie" anymore. Each seat has it's own little tv screen in front of it. It's touch screen navigated, which is kind of cool, but if you want a movie, you have to "buy" it. There were a couple of "complimentary" shows you could watch though. I watched one about the group, "The Brothers Cazimero" that was pretty interesting. There were other "free" things to browse as well. Mostly things to read. But the browsing and anticipation were enough to pass the time (the naps help too).


A taste of Island Christmas at the baggage claim area at HNL.

We had some time between landing and checking into our hotel, so we stopped for lunch at a place called "Nico's at Pier 38". It was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Both of the menu items featured on that show were not on the menu that day... bummer. I opted for a double cheese burger, and Anna got chicken Katsu(? I think). As we were finishing up our lunch, it dawned on me that we just ate cow and chicken at a place that's known for it's use of fresh fish!... Doh! But it still tasted good.

After lunch, we had some technical difficulties with our GPS. It was having trouble locating satellites. Once we got that figured out, we were on our way. We drove around the crazy Waikiki area looking for Champion Malasadas, only to finally find it, and have it be closed. We got to our hotel, figured out the parking situation, and checked in... ahhh, "home" (at least for the next bunch of days). We had some planning to do, so I busted out my brand new laptop, and did some research. The next thing we know, it's dinner time, and we're hungry, and not too interested in driving somewhere... the solution?... Mac 24/7. Mac 24/7 was featured on Man vs. Food. We had to check it out, and it was pretty close by, so we walked there.

We ordered the Mac-daddy pancakes, topped with banana, bacon, and peanut butter glaze. I did mention that they're HUGE right?...

Anna's all excited!...

It's a stack of three pancakes. Each pancake had bacon cooked into it (same as if you were adding chocolate chips), and between each pancake were pieces of sliced banana. Then topped with more bananas and bacon, then coated in peanut butter glaze. It was so good! The peanut butter glaze was awesome.


This was the best we could do...

It was a clear case of the taste buds wanting more, but the belly halting anymore consumption. We were stuffed. We took the rest to go, with an extra side of the PB glaze and waddled home.


Anna was sad that we didn't complete the challenge, and indicates how well we did compared to those that have conquered the pancakes.

I was just happy to have eaten there, and that is was good!

It was pretty late by this point, so once we got to our hotel, we just let ourselves slip into the pancake food coma that was overtaking us.

You'll see that we took a lot of pictures of our food. I wouldn't say we did a "food tour", but we did do some pre planning. Food is the one thing, that no matter where you go, you have to have. Why not have some fun with it? So, we did!

That was pretty much day one. Good times!

Spring Break Trip- 1st half

Anna's spring break was last week, and we did our best to fill it with fun stuff! She did have to teach Monday evening... at Cal State San Bernardino! Yep, she's got a college teaching job right now. She's teaching an Earthquakes and Public Policies class. It's just this semester. She's hoping they'll want to use her regularly.

On Tuesday, Anna went out to lunch with an old friend from H.S. and Sara at Ernie's in Eagle Rock. She had a great time.

Wednesday morning, after breakfast, we loaded up the van and headed out to spend the next five days in Arizona! First stop- Bullhead City, AZ (and Laughlin, NV) for a couple days.

We stayed at the Colorado Belle in Laughlin. We went to visit Kristi and Jason, and help out with the building of their house. Kim, Luis, and Isaac drove out to Bullhead the same day to do the same.

We were there earlier in the day, and went by the house to see if there was anything to help with. As I helped, Anna entertained the kids (that was the plan). She gave them wheel barrel rides, took them on walks, picked up rocks, etc.

They taped down a hopscotch game. It was fun, but it didn't last long enough. After this, I think they went and watched a movie in the van. Here's Jennan getting some pretty good air in her hops.

That evening for dinner, we met up with Kim, Luis, and Isaac, with Jason and Kristi at the Buffalo Wild Wings. Our five days in AZ were somewhat planned around places to eat. BWW was on the list. I REALLY like the food there.

The next morning, Thursday, we got up early to go to breakfast. There's a place called "The Black Bear Diner" in Bullhead. I remember the food being pretty good, and the portions being rather generous. It had been a few years since then, and I wanted the whole family to try it. We all met there- party of 11! Here are the kids posing with some of the bears out front.

That breakfast was REALLY good. Anna ordered a breakfast called "the Bigfoot". A large Chicken fried steak, a mound of hash browns, 2 eggs, and 2 huge biscuits. She finished everything but one and a half biscuits. She can EAT breakfast!

After breakfast, Luis and I went with Kristi and Jason to work on their house, while Kim and Anna took the kids to play in a local park.

Bullhead City sits right next to the Colorado River, so there are lots of spot to "play" in the water. There's just something about rocks and water that keeps kids happy.

The park they went to is covered, so that makes it a really nice area to spend some time. This park is right next to the river in the same area as the picture above.

Tegan, with Isaac in the background.

Later that evening (5:30pm-ish) the moms and kids came by the house. It was a good stopping time. My energy tanks were running low. With that huge breakfast, we didn't even stop for lunch.

Kristi keeping an eye on the nieces as they play on the pile of dirt and rocks next to the house.

This picture looks hilarious! It looks like Duncan is hosing down Jason! Great shot by Anna.

Jason let Luis and I take a turn with the back hoe. Here I am with Duncan on my lap, as we "play" in the dirt.

That night after we all got cleaned up, we went to dinner at a restaurant called "The Mohave 'King of Steaks' Steakhouse". ( I think that's what it was called?) Here we are, leaving our hotel. Across the street is the Tropicana(?) lit with Green lights. Liam really liked it.

Friday morning was our last time in Bullhead. We all had cereal (Anna and I shared the left over biscuits from the day before), and loaded up the van. Here are the kids in our hotel room. Good sized rooms there at the Colorado Belle.

We had a great time in Bullhead. It was a lot of fun also having Kim, Luis, and Isaac there. Hopefully Luis and I helped to shorten the time the house takes to build. I hope to be able to go out there again and help out some more.

From Bullhead, we are now headed off to Queen Creek, AZ to visit Kevin and Dawn and family. Look for the pictures from that visit in a different post.

Good times!

yummy to my tummy

Last night was Anna's last night in town till Wednesday. She'll be in Portland, Oregon at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting, presenting the research she participated in over the summer. She'll have five days of guided hikes, geological presentations, rooming with up to 4 other interested persons depending on the day, etc. So...

We decided to take the family out for dinner!

Originally the plan was to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings because I have a coupon for 6 free wings, but the Dodger game was last night as well. I called the restaurant to see how busy they were, and they were slammed. It would be at least an hour wait from the time we got there. Darn.

Earlier in the day, I needed to get gas in the van. I like to gas up at Sam's Club because it's usually cheapest there, and right next to it is a BJ's restaurant. Duncan had mentioned he remembered eating there, and why haven't we eaten there for a long time. So when we were considering an option B, I tossed out the BJ's idea. That was fine with Anna, so we loaded up the van with the kids and headed out.

Side note: I had a headache earlier in the afternoon that turned into a borderline migraine by early evening. I took pills a little too late, and the pain was ahead of the relief. Luckily it kicked in by the time we were at the restaurant.

We weren't sure what would be safe for the boys there other than we knew the fries weren't ok (Anna called ahead to ask if the oil used to cook the fries was also used to cook breaded items, and it is). So we stopped at the In-N-Out in the near by area for fries and hamburger patties (we had our own buns) for the boys. The girls shared an order of mini burgers from the kid's menu.

Anna continues to maintain her dieting efforts, and ordered a dinner salad that she said was pretty good. It was pretty big too. I continued my unofficial quest to find another New York Strip steak as good as the one I had at Texas Roadhouse in Arizona, by ordering the one on the menu at BJ's. It came with a huge baked potato. I remember having a steak the very first time Anna and I ever ate at BJ's years ago, and I remember it being quite good. Since then, every other subsequent time, we've been unimpressed... BUT, the New York was excellent! Great flavor, very juicy and tender. It was a joy to eat. That, with the baked potato and green salad was darn well close to a perfect meal. I washed it all down with a BJ's root beer and topped it all off with a root beer float to go. (After typing that all up, I'm ready for more.)

Funny story about the root beer float... It was pretty much determined that we wouldn't get a dessert because the boy's wouldn't be able to have any. As we completed our meal, I wondered out loud if they did root beer floats to-go. We shrugged. When the server came around to ask about dessert, Anna said no, and the server left to put our bill together. I didn't even get to ask about a to-go float. Anna's reply was something like, "Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry." A couple minutes later, the boys needed to use the restroom, so I got up to take them. Our server was a couple tables over, and as I walked by, I asked about the float to-go. He said they do, so I said I'd like to order one. Our trip to the restroom was successful. Upon our return to the table, I can see that there is no float waiting for me yet, but that's ok. I sit down, and Anna's smiling at me with a "you're so busted" smirk, and says, "Uh-huh... root beer float huh?" I smiled back. Turns out that the server walked by our table after I mentioned the float, and Anna flagged him over to order a float for me as a surprise, and he said I already asked for one. I guess I foiled her plans. I stole her chance to do something nice for me. I said I'm too used to having to do nice things for myself; She better start upping her game. We had a good chuckle over it.

It was a good dinner. The kids were behaved, the food was delicious, and we shared a laugh.

Jennan's Birthday Cont.

Because Jennan's birthday was on a Sunday, we chose to have her birthday dinner the next day. So Monday, for family night, we went to Red Robin for birthday dinner!

Here is our crew, waiting to get their eat on.

Here's Tegan trying to tickle Jennan. They're getting along really great these days.

After dinner, we came home and executed a pinata. There was no rope used to give the pinata a fighting chance. It was tied to a tree. The birthday girl got the first whacks.

Then Tegan used her brutal one handed attack to soften the pinata up a bit.

Liam felt that the head shot was his best bet to crack this elephant open.

But it was Duncan's "homerun" swinging that finally did the pinata in.

Birthdays are fundays. Next one for our family isn't till December, when Duncan will be turning 8 years old.

Duncan's Birthday Stuff

Duncan's birthday party was Dec. 20th at a park in San Bernardino. It is a nice park with plenty of room to play.

Duncan's birthday cake was actually 4 cakes (all wheat and dairy free), in the shape of various balls. Anna did a great job with them as usual. Duncan actually wrote his own name on the bowling ball cake.

We held the party in the afternoon, but this day was particularly chilly. It felt like the first really cold day of December. We were not prepared for the cold weather, so none of our kids had jackets. They didn't seem to mind while they played on the playground, but once we were doing cake and presents, they got a little cold. Luckily, others that came to the party were better prepared for the weather, and shared some extra jackets.

Cake and presents time. We had ice cream too, but it was too cold for anyone to enjoy it.

Duncan had a really fun time at the park with those that came to his party.

Then on Duncan's actual birthday, the 22nd, we went to Red Robin for his birthday dinner. Jason and Kristi were driving into So. Cal. that afternoon from AZ, so they joined us. Red Robin is the kids' favorite restaurant.

One of the nice things about Red Robin, is their bottomless fries. So after the kids have picked at their grilled chicken or hamburger patties, they'll usually eat a bunch of fries. The kids meals also come with a plastic cup you can take home, so the kids like that too.

Duncan was not shy about telling our server that it was his birthday, and because we mentioned he had a dairy allergy, they gave him a nerf type football while they sang their birthday song to him. We were not expecting anything other than the singing, so that was very cool.

At home we cut into the bowling ball cake after a little happy birthday singing and candle blowing. Duncan was insistent on making a wish first though.

It was a fun birthday weekend for Duncan. Now that he's 7, we're looking forward to the fun of Duncan preparing to be baptised next December/January; And so is he.

Duncan's Award

On Tuesday, Duncan was one of a handful of students in his class to get an award for the work they've done in school thus far. Duncan's award was for outstanding effort in math. I think some of the others were for writing, and being a "peace builder", etc.

We came to watch him get his award in front of the student's on his track. The next day was the last day of their track before having winter break, which for their track lasts until January 5, 2009. That's like 6 weeks!

With his award was a coupon for a free kid's meal at Claim Jumper. The girls were picked up for a sleep over at grandma and grandpa McAlister's house that afternoon, so Anna and I took the boys to Claim Jumper for dinner. CJ is not a good place for a kid on the GFCF diet. The only kid's menu item he could have was the two mini hamburgers meal. We asked for no bun. The fries are cooked in oil that is shared with coated onion rings, so they couldn't have fries. We opted for fruit side items instead since the boys like fruit. One side was frozen grapes; not as good as they sound, and apple sauce. Except the apple sauce is coarse, and seasoned with cinnamon. Neither of which the boys liked. So they basically had hamburger patties with ketchup and apple juice for dinner that night. Once we got home, I think Anna gave them each a GFCF cookie, and they were content for the night.

We are very happy for Duncan to receive some recognition for his hard work with math. We hope he continues to do well with all of his school work.