Recap: Memorial Day Edition

Wow, I looked at the blog and was trying to figure out what happened to the rest of April and May. It's been a lot, and now I have to try to piece back what happened. Bad blogger.

Okay, so... we'll start with the Jazz. I was lucky enough to have the weekend off for Games 3 and 4 of the Rockets/Jazz series, so I made the pilgrimage to Utah and caught both games. This was a pretty spontaneous trip, and I'm grateful to the family for allowing me to use one of our weekends off to do it. The games were awesome (except for that Game 3 loss), and it just makes me want to go more next year...

A couple weeks later, Lorey took the kids to Utah in preparation for our cruise/anniversary trip. This was going to be the first time she had really been away from the kids, and we both knew that may be an issue. But, we knew they were in good hands, and Lorey flew in to Las Vegas on Saturday and we started our road trip to California.

We first stopped in Baker to eat at The Mad Greek diner. We had seen it on "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" on the Food Channel, and figured it was worth a shot. We shared a giant burger and a gyro, and it was pretty good. We didn't try the shakes which they are famous for, so I guess that gives us an excuse to go back.

We ended up making it to Anaheim that evening and had plans to go to dinner and a movie before going to Disneyland the next day. We saw "Made of Honor" which was... meh. It was okay, but I've seen "My Best Friend's Wedding" before and wasn't really excited to see it without Julia Roberts or Cameron Diaz. Neither one of us was too impressed, so I'm not dissing the movie since it was a chick flick. The next day was Disneyland day. We slowly made our way to California Adventure and went on a few rides before deciding it was crowded (this was Mother's Day and we figured it wouldn't be too bad). We're spoiled by usually going during the week at off-peak times, so the lines and the crowds sent us looking for something to do. Another movie! (I'm pretty sure I haven't seen two movies in two days in... well, ever.) We saw "Baby Mama" and enjoyed it more.

The next day we were off to Long Beach to make our way on to the Carnival Paradise destined for beautiful(?) Ensenada, Mexico. We made it on the boat, and started our vacation! The first night Lorey had a bout of motion sickness, so I ended up representing the family at dinner. In case you haven't cruised before, you eat dinner at a specific time at a specific table with the same group each night. It seems strange at first, but it's actually pretty enjoyable (even for a anti-social turkey like me). We survived the first night, and started popping Meclizine for nausea a little more often, which seemed to do the trick. Missing the kids however, had no medicinal fix. Lorey was having a hard time, even though they were in great hands.

We got past that (mostly) and went to Catalina Island, which is actually still in California. We didn't have much time there and the weather wasn't great to swim, etc., so we ended up playing miniature golf out of the blue. I can't remember who won (Lorey), but it was a good time!

Ensenada was next and we had purchased an excursion which takes us on a mini-tour and then to a restaurant to cook and eat our own Mexican food. It actually was pretty impressive. The tour of Ensenada was just long enough to get the history and feel of the place, but not boring and excessive. We took our bus to Mango Mango which was an interesting bar/grill/experience in its own. We made salsa, guacamole, tamales, and a tostada, which was both fun and tasty. They served margaritas (the non-alcoholic ones were gooood...) and took a couple pictures which could be easily stolen from the web.








The rest of Ensenada included us going to several Mexican pharmacies (yes, I'm a pharmacy nerd at heart), getting harrassed by... well, everybody (but not horribly, once you say no they usually leave you be), and having a drink at a fake-type Starbucks. Oh, and we found out it's really not THAT expensive to call Utah from Mexico. After a bit, we ended up back on the boat for our day at sea. From there, we had a much better time (knowing the kids were safe, happy, and the motion sickness was lessening) until our return on Friday.

I really recommend the cruise experience for those who haven't gone. They have a bunch of kids activities (basically all day long), the food is excellent, and overall it's really inexpensive. After all the time away, it was great to have the kids back home on Sunday.

Wow. I'm spent. But, determined to move on. Let's start with Ryan.

Ryan's pre-school has finally wound down, and his graduation "ceremony" is this week on Wednesday. It's pretty amazing to think he'll be starting kindergarden at a real school this September. Man, we're gettin' old. But, on the other hand, it'll be great to have new experiences and people to deal with.

Sierra's dance recital was this past week and she did great! I have video and pictures which I'm gonna try to get to the web as soon as possible. I feel the run-on-blog that I'm working on now is pretty sufficient as far as information goes, and I'll get the pics/vids as soon as I can.

What's next? The kids are going to start some more swimming lessons in a couple of weeks, and it's really our last summer of non-schoolgoing kids. We have a family trip planned in a couple of months, and then it's back to the grind of life. It sure is a fun grind, though.

Until later... I'm gonna go catch my breath.