Day 8 and misc photos

Since we last posted, there hasn't been a whole lot of news. We've spent some good quality time with the family... relaxed around the house and went by my new office late last week. The first couple of days this week I actually went in early to help out on a deadline for today. Now I've got the rest of week to hang out with Renee and the rest of the family before starting the real first full week of work on Monday.

The photos below are of a few things in San Diego from our visit to Balboa Park, and then the garden pictures are actually from the backyard of the home/office that I am working at now... not a bad place to walk out to and just relax for a couple of minutes during the day. The pictures of the family are just a few from the photos that a friend of Becca's took for her earlier this week...they are really great! Until next time...

Home Sweet Hawaii...

Well, the big road trip adventure is over, with a little bit under 5,000 miles travelled in the CR-V!! We spent some great time with a few more family and friends in LA and San Diego. Got to watch the fireworks on the 4th from a boat in San Diego Bay off of Coronado which was really cool. Spent some time at the beach and biking around Coronado. Then got a brief tour of La Jolla with our friend Nicholle who will be in Hawaii in a couple months to get married. We got our car processed and dropped off to be loaded on to a ship... should be here the end of next week hopefully.

We got into Hawaii yesterday afternoon and have been enjoying family time, especially with the new baby... Lily's adorable! I'll get some pics up soon probably. Nothing else really new around here... will update this from time to time probably, but not as religiously as on the road trip. Until next time...

Vegas and Beyond...

Since we last posted, we have explored Las Vegas up and down the strip, and inside many of the popular hotels. We spent SOME time in the casinos at the tables and slots, but didn’t lose too much! I think Renee had more success than I did, but in the end, we still ended up on the overall losing end… pretty sure that’s the story most people have to tell when they return as well.

We did see a couple of shows while we were there. We saw Mesmerized, which was a hypnotist show in a smaller venue. Then we saw KA, which is a Cirque du Soleil show that is running in the MGM Grand where we stayed. It was a really cool show and we definitely enjoyed our time there. The acrobatics and stunts are amazing! Speaking of the MGM Grand, you’ll also see a photo of the Lion Habitat which is within the hotel, and is really neat. The shot I got was of the lion playing a game of some variation of volleyball with the trainer… he’s in mid-spike!

While we were walking on the strip we did see the construction progress that has been made on the huge City Center project (see http://www.citycenter.com for more info) which is really cool (for architecture/design nerds like me). When visiting some of the other more opulent/newer hotels, it’s amazing the amount of money and detail that is spent to create these places as you can see in a few of the photos.

Some of the other photos below are of the Hoover Dam which we stopped by on our way out of Las Vegas. We didn’t take the tour, because we were a little tired of all the walking and tourist things, as we’ve gotten our fill over the last few weeks. It’s still a pretty cool site to see though. In one of the photos you can see the new Hoover Dam/Colorado River bridge project that they are working to complete. The new bridge should help reduce the traffic that we experienced getting to the Hoover Dam.

We got to the Los Angeles area yesterday evening and had some drinks and dinner with my mom’s cousin and husband in Arcadia where they are kindly hosting us for a couple of nights. Then today they played tour guide and took us around LA and downtown to see the various sights. We didn’t really take many photos but we saw Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Dodger Stadium, the Rose Bowl, the USC campus, and the photos we did take were at Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall which is a really neat building. Now we are relaxing around the house and will be traveling to Irvine and San Diego to have lunch with friends and finish our last few days of our road trip… until next time!