2010 West Coast Road Trip - Part 1

June 2 - June 11 2010

This year we decided to take a trip to the West Coast, driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and then to the Grand Canyon and back again. It took us a long time to figure out where we were going to go since we all agreed that we wouldn't be going to Disneyland again. Don't get me wrong, we really liked Disneyland, but there are just too many other things to do and see. So this time.......its gonna be a Road Trip!!!

We love driving around.....some of our best family bonding times have been during our driving excursions around the Island. This will be our longest drive to date, so hopefully there will be a whole lotta bonding going on.

The Planning

We initially wanted to do this during spring break so that we could catch some MLB spring training games in Arizona, but the timing on that didn't work out to well. So we swapped spring training for the Grand Canyon. The way we wanted to plan our trip was to figure out several "big" things to do and find a bunch of other interesting, smaller things that each of us wanted to do at each destination. We also spend a lot of time researching interesting/good places to eat.

The Big Things

Since this was the first time we visited Las Vegas as a family, we decided to see some of the more established type shows. We picked Cirque Du Soleil and a Lance Burton magic show.

We also wanted to see a baseball game during this trip and decided to go see the Dodgers since we had already seen the Angels on a previous trip.

The Smaller Things

Blake wanted to check out M&M World and the Coca Cola store in Vegas, I wanted to see the Hoover Dam, and Michelle wanted to see the Natural History Museum in Las Vegas, the Shark Pool at the Golden Nugget, the Pinball Hall of Fame, and I think she secretly wanted to go to Disneyland...I tried to ignore that one.

So thats going to be our family trip this summer. I'll follow this post up with some of the various things that we did. It was a great trip and we managed to do a whole lotta fun and interesting things. Stay tuned for more...

Mahi Time

May 16, 2010

One of our regular trips around the Island, but this time we went along with the Mahi clan.

We stopped off at turtle beach. There were 2 or 3 on the beach and a whole slew (bale ?) of them in the water. Mike had cool sun glasses that literally made the water disappear. The swimming turtles just popped out of the water and could be seen as clear as day.



We grabbed some lunch at Ted's Bakery and took it to eat at Turtle Bay. We spent most of the day swimming there. On the way home, things eventually turned to the red cups.



And then later, a friendly game of Horseshoes.



As always, a fun day with the Mahis.

A Bask of Crocs

June 18, 2010

I've been waiting for a sale on Crocs for the longest of time now. I really like Crocs, they are more comfortable and keep your feet cleaner and more protected than slippers and quicker to put on and off than shoes. My only gripe is that they are so expensive. I just bought a new pair for $30 after I wore a hole through the soles of my first pair and I had them for at least 3 years, so I really shouldn't complain. But still...

Then I heard about a Crocs warehouse sale. I ended up buying 3 pairs of black Crocs for $5 a piece and a couple of "fancy" ones for $10. The black ones do have this ugly yellow strap that says Maui Lifeguard on them, but I'll probably remove or replace those. So now I have Crocs that will probably last me for the next 20 years. Very cool and slightly disturbing at the same time....but I'm all happy now.

Mom's Birthday

June 16, 2010

We went to 3660 On The Rise to celebrate my mom's birthday. It's been at least 5 years since we've been to 3660 for dinner. The food was great...much better than I remember it. The waiter mentioned that they change up the menu items and the sauces for their dishes a little bit every month or so. I had the Ahi Katsu and the New York steak...both of these were awesome.

This was also the first time we got to see baby Shaun. He's only 2 weeks old and already into fine dining.