It's been a while, but I'm back!

I don't know if anyone will check out my blog again, but I hope to post again. With another kid on the way, who knows?

Ta-Dah!

The new Scissor Sisters album is great. Not as great as the first, awesome regardless. It is refreshing to hear a different kind of music again, away from the typical stuff.

Next I will probably go back to more typical by purchasing the Killers new one, but am looking foward to that one as well.

A-

Beverly Hills, thats where I want to be! Part 2 - Hollywood/Beverly Hills/SD

I know this post is long overdue; however, after Catalina was the best part. Yes, the tour of Hollywood and Beverly Hills was fun, and driving around on a Sunday with little traffic was fun too. Instead of going into detail on the rest of the trip. I think I will simply post some pictures from time to time. The least thrilling part of the trip was San Diego, but that was mostly due to that we were there the year before. I would have to admit, that the zoo was great. We had fun on the tour bus and sky ride. Both are definately worth the money. I wish the DC zoo had some transportation inside. But I guess you can't complain when the admission is free (taxes).


Downtown Beverly Hills (view from our hotel room)

For Ron (its Red)

For Val

For Amy

Many more pictures available. More to come when I have time.

I bid you goodnight.

Beverly Hills, thats where I want to be! Part 1 - Catalina Island

Ok ok ok, the long and overdue blog of our trip to the west coast. Fortunately, two years in a row, my work allowed me to visit San Diego again for a conference. Last year, Amy and I had a blast, so when the opportunity arose, I could not pass it up. This year; however, we extended the trip a bit. We left on a Thursday, so we could enjoy Thursday through Sunday. The conference started on a Monday. I have to thank Nathan's mema, because she watched Nathan the entire 9 days or so we were gone. Ok, now to the trip.

We drove Tuesday afternoon to Moon, PA to drop Nathan off at his mema's house. We also stayed Wed at Memas' as well. Thursday morning we left from Pittsburgh International Airport for Las Vegas. Unfortunately, after being dropped off, we discovered that our flight was delayed an hour. It was due to delays in Philly for some reason. We left da burgh about 11am or so and arrived in Las Vegas, to witness a heavy, but small thunderstorm directly on the airport while we landed. The highlight of the flight was seeing the Grand Canyon from the air. I took a few pics, but they did not turn out too well from the air.

At the airport, with only 40 or minutes or so to catch our connecting flight to San Diego, we rushed to the gate, to find out the flight was delayed a little over a half hour. The woman at the gate was sort of a smart ass to me when I asked her if the flight was on time. I should of looked more closely at the screen behind her. Anyway, we had a little time, so we went and grabbed a bite at the Airport BK. Afterwards we donated a dollar to an airpot slot machine, just to say we did it. We eventually left for San Diego. By the time we were finished ascending, the flight was about ready to decend. It is not very far from Vegas to SD. I did not realize it, but SanDiego is one of the more busier airports in the country with only one runway. I think Miami had the busiest with one runway.

Upon arriving at SD, went to pick up our rent a car. I ordered a midsized car from Priceline. I thought it was a pretty decent deal. However, a midsized car to Hertz is a Carolla. I was a little surprised by the car. It was at least 2 cars larger than the cheapest economy/compact car, I wonder if they consider that to be a scotter? Regardless, I could not complain about the new Carolla, it definately had enough pickup for a smaller car. My main concern was having decent enough power to drive on Interstate 5 and in Hollywood, so the Carolla ended up being powerfull enough and economical.

We drove the car up to Dana Point, CA. We had reservations at a Best Western that was 500 feet directly in front of the Pacific Ocean. We could hear the waves crash from our hotel door. The room was fair. That night we were looking for a place to eat, and discovered the Harbour House Cafe. This Diner was fire-engine red restaurant looked like a nice place to eat. We discovered that it had been around since 1939, and served all of the great Diner type dishes and breakfasts all day. At this restaurant, Amy had the best tunafish sandwhich she ever had. And my crab sammich was amazing as well. If we would of stayed at Dana Point again, we definately would had dined there at the Hourbor Cafe again. The place was packed at 8pm at night. It looked like a lot of locals patronize the place. We later overheard other's recommending it as a great place to eat to those not from the area. So we were lucky to find it.

Friday morning we woke up early, 6am, and checked out 630. We drove our car to Dana Point to catch the Catalina Express, a boat that taxis passengers to Catalina. We had a 7:15 departure time. I would have to say that finding parking for this event was a nightmare. The company does not warn you of where to park. I, like 98% of the tourists pulled into the wrong spot, and were told to drive to another part of harbour to park our car, and walk back to wait inline for the boat. That really ticked me off. Fortunately, my father in law packed us with written directions for parking. Unfortunately, I forgot I had the directions.

The day at first was overcast and cool. We climbed aboard the Catalina express and set sail for an 1hr 15min journey. It was too windy and cool to sit on the outside of the boat, so we finally gave in and sat in the cabin. Halfway or more through the trip, I went on the outside front of the boat and started snapping pictures of Cataline coming into sight. I could see some rays of sun beaming on Catalina, but it was still an overcast day in general.

Our first impressions off the boat was like we were visiting another country, perhaps a Mediteranian type place with the weather and mountainous terrain. Homes were built on the edge of mountains in the City of Avalon, the only city on the Island. The rest of the Island was uninhabited. The water and city were beautiful. The water was extremely blue, like the Carribian. There were cool shops and other touristy things along the main street. Old homes graced the gentle sloaping town as well as the steep hills. Avalon itself is only one square mile. There was a cool beach area with sand in the middle of the city. We were early enough that there was no one laying out or swimming, and shops were just opening up.

A cool thing about Avalon is that there are not many cars, mostly golf carts. Infact, to obtain a car, you were on a waiting list that was currently 18 years (like getting steeler tickets). We went on two tour excursions. One was the inland tour. We went in a small bus up some steep and narrow roads up through avalon and the mountains. We drove on skyline drive, and along the way saw some of the famous Catalina Buffalo. We learned alot of interesting facts about the Island, like it was owned by Mr. Wrigley (yes the same one for the gum, and former owner of the cubs. He had a mansion on the island that was now a fancy bed and breakfast. The Cubs had spring training on the island for 30 years at one point. You may wonder about the buffalo? The were brought to the island in the early 19 century for Hollywood movies. Later we discovered that John Wayne had a house there, and liked it because he would not be bothered. At over 1600 ft in a very short period of time we ended the journey at the Airport in the Sky. There was a cargo plane parked there, and some rich folks would fly there planes to to the mainland. Beside seeing a ton of cactus and other coold plants, I was hoping to see a Catalina Fox, which are native only to the island, but did not luck out.

We did not have much time to eat lunch, since our second tour was bumped up an hour. So we decided to wait for our Seal Rock tour. This was a boat tour to the southern part of the island. This is a summer only tour, because the seals are only there in the summer. Amy and I had alot of fun seeing the seals in the wild. We actually got a bit close to some of them in the boat who were sunning themselves. On the coast, there were at least 40 or so sea lions. We also saw something that was suppose to be rare, a huge sealion and seal resting a foot or two from each other on a rock. The tourguide sayed the two species do not usually get a long, especially in cloes proximity. The boat trip in general was awesom. We both learned even more about he island. The water was even more beutiful on the souther portion of the island.

Finally, after taking a couple of tours that took up a majority of the day we dined at an Italian Restaurant on the water. It was neat to see people kayaking and swimming only a few feet from our table. We had the "Day Old Spaghetti". It was pretty good.

The rest of the adventure was finding each of us a cool tshirt. We were not interested in getting another one from San Diego, plus Catalina is much more unique. It took the rest of our hours on the island, but we were happy with our purchases in the end. Finally, after a long day, we set sail back to Dana Point at 7pm. We were tired, but had an awesome trip. The sun was beautiful falling behind the island.

Part 2 soon!

I bid you goodnight.

Dutch Wonderland

This blog is a week late, but better late than never.

Last Sunday we traveled 1.5 hours to Amish Country, Lancaster PA, Dutch Wonderland. I had never been there before, and only heard of it about 5 years back from locals in this area. It is a really child focused amusement park. It has lots of little kiddie rides. There are a few child/adult rides, but for the most parts any kid from 1.5-5 yrs old would simply love this place.

We went with my parents and had a great time! DW is ranked the 5th best amusement park in the world according to an international amusement magazine. A neat thing to know is Idlewild Park is ranked at #2. Back to DW. Dutch Wonderland's mascot is a Purple Dragon (no, not a purple dinosaur) named Duke. That front of the park is a big castle. Nathan went on about 60% of the rides. A couple he was not too fond of were the child rollercoaster, and the whip. I went on the rollercoaster with him, and he tucked his face in my belly the whole ride. I guess he did not know how it was going to be, but wanted to ride.

The biggest mistake was putting him on the whip. It is a small ride that I have seen at other amusement pars that travels sideways around an oval track. When the car gets close to an end, it whips you around. Nathan started crying almost immediately. We should of had them stop the ride, but none of us said anything. I actually remember riding it as a child and remembered it was too rough, so I thought it could happen.

DW had a bunch of the typical kiddieland rides. It also had some really nice ones that went around the enitre park like a monorail, and sky lift. It also had a few boat rides.

When Nathan napped I dragged my mom on the older child/adult roller coaster. Amy went on it with me as well. It was pretty nice for a small park.

What makes the park great was it was relatively small, and easy to get around Enough you could cover the entire park. Plus, even with lots of kids there, there was never a really long line for any one ride. You definately get your money's worth of ride if your a kid.

The park also had a pony ride. Nathan looked really cute on it. It was his first. However, he was really sleepy, and looked like a cowboy who just got back from a long ride. He took a 1.5 hr nap after lunch.

They also had a lot of live entertainment and shows. We attended a high dive one. Where they put on a play about a frog and a princess. The frogs dived off highdives. One actually dove from a real high dive probably 100ft or so in the aire, like the ones you see on the olypics.

It was a blast.

I bid you goodnight.

Way to go Nathan!

We have been trying to potty train Nathan off and on for the past few weeks with virtually no success. Fortunately, on Saturday, Nathan did a 1 on the potty about 4 times.

Now to the best news: This evening Nathan laid his first deuce! He also dripped out an uno earlier in the day. Before he did the uno and the 2, he uno'd on the steps before Amy had a chance to get him to the potty. He's seems like he might be getting this whole potty thing afterall. I know we have a real long way to go, but its a start.

I bid you goodnight.

Nice little vacation to the beach.

We just went to Rehoboth, Delware for a nicle little 4 night vacation. Because it is so close to where we live, 2.5 hours, we could further maximize our Monday and Friday there. This is my 3rd time going the Deleware beach. We went 2 years ago to the same hotel, and prior to that 8 years ago to Bethany Beach. This year we went with my inlaws like 2 years ago.

We had a blast. I love the beach. Granted, I used to have more fun as a kid body boarding/boggie bording, but I still enjoy walking and wading in the ocean, but now with Nathan, he brings a new type of exitement. In a few years he will probably want to go further into the water, but for now, he is getting warmed up to the idea.

Nathan loved the sand. He would dig and make sandcastles/lagoons all day if you let him. One of the best parts of the trip was the walks on the boardwalk and taking Nathn on a bunch of kiddie rides. He rode the classic boat ride, motorcycle/car (with the annoying buzzer horn), the rocket, helicopter, mini ferris wheel, and swing. He also was daring enough to try a fast car ride that goes up and down in a circle. I went on it with him. It was definately an older child to adult ride, but he loved it. I liked it too.

Another great part of any trip is the food. We ate at Grotto's Pizza, and Nicola's 2 times a piece. It't hard to top Grotto's. It is a very good pie. Nicola's is an awesome mom and pop (literally) run Itailian restaurant. There was usually an hour wait there. My momma inlaw says that they make the best Ziti she has ever had. I have to admit, they give Grotto's a run for the money on the pizza category. Plus its hard to touch their Nicabolis. I consider Nicola's the Pappy's of Rehoboth. The food the very reasonably priced, including the bear, plus it is made from scratch and is delicious. The wife owner, Joan, who is 64, is always keeping the place in line, and stops after dinner to see how the food was. She is great, and is in semi retirement only working 5 day a week shift. Also, they have Yeugling on tap. The cost of the first mug of beer is $225, and all refill mugs are just $1.00 more. It is the same price as two years ago. This place is definately in my top 20 on places to eat for atmosphere, food, and price. I love it. There is also a train constantly running on a train track above the tables the entire time. Nathan loved watching it go by.

Weather wise, we had a really hot day for our first. The second day was overcast, but still warm. So we could go to the beach that day too. We tried going to see fireworks at Bethany Beach July 4th, but mother nature put on her own fireworks, and the show was called off. We had a rain morning on our last full day there. So we did what all other beachgoers do, hit the outlets. Donna Lou would do anything to go shopping. She walked 2 miles to get from one shopping center to the other. Amy and I had a nice walk on the beach. The weather was really comfortable. Ofcourse the day we left was the best day of all. Clear, and comfortable. A high in the mid 70s and no humidity. Fortunately, we stayed after we checked out of the hotel and got some Grotto's for lunch. We also walked the boardwalk, and did not leave the beach until 2pm.

It was a great time. I could go back there anytime.