I want to move to California... well kinda.

So we spent part of last week in California. It was Lynne's birthday and she wanted to go to the "Pageant of the Master's" in Laguna. Ok why not? Sounds like a few days in California. "Maybe I can find some cool art for my house," I thought while boarding the plane. Um... no. No I can't. I figured $100 might get me a cool vase or a small painting. And yes it would've gotten me a SMALL painting. But really who wants to display something the size of a postage stamp. I mean you'd have to be like 3 inches away to see what it was. Don't get me wrong. There were some very very VERY cool things there. The cheapest of the things I would've liked to bring home was hovering somewhere around the $800 mark. And trust me, there are about a dozen million things I'd rather spend $800 on right now.

Ok how about onto the part about I want to move there. Hello, 75 degrees the whole time. I mean it dipped a little lower than that late in the evenings and Thursday when it was over cast. But think, it's July. It's touching the 100's at home in Utah and it's only 75 in Cali. Love it. Want it. PLEASE?! The downside? Holy expensive. We went to brunch on Balboa Island the morning we got there. My 3 slices of french toast, scrambled eggs, and 2 slices of bacon was $12.95 BEFORE tax and tip. Now add up brunch for 7 people. Ouch... And that is brunch. The least expensive meal of the day. We went to birthday dinner at the art festival before the pageant Cory and I paid $10 to split the Pork chops. Delish! But the extra $10 was the cheap option to a second $25 meal. I think the hefty price of California helps keep the AC going all summer.

The trip home was quite the adventure. We fly standby to most of our destinations (Lynne retired from Delta giving the fam a few benefits). Well because of this, if flights fill up or people with higher priority come along, we get booted. Which we did. 3 times. After the 3rd boot, we decided to explore some other options. Buying tickets would cost a whopping $500 a person (here's a tip: buy your tickets as early as possible. Last minute flights are expensive). Ok there are 6 of us still here (dad took the only open seat on the earliest flight cause he had to be back for work) 6 x's $500 = way too much money. Rent a car. Hey we can do that with a military discount for less than $200 + gas. Ok keep that on the table. We can wait for the next flight which has lots and lots of open seats, but it leaves in 4 hours. Ok keep that on the table too. Too bad we left the terminal to check on rental cars. So it's back to check in to get new tickets and back into the terminal. As we are about to check in, the lady behind the counter says something to the effect of, "You won't get on. Looks like a few flights just got canceled." This means our empty flight will be filled with frustrated travelers who's flights got canceled. Rental car it is. To the dismay of Danaca who had a date scheduled for the evening. So we got in a very nice Chevy Tahoe and headed home. Stopping once for lunch, once for a bathroom break, once for fuel, and once in St George for some dinner at my aunt's house. 12 hours later falling onto my bed and being asleep before my head hit the pillow.

What an adventure. If getting home from California was such a mess I'm super excited to see what it will be like trying to get home from Florida in October. DISNEYWORLD 2011!!! WOOOOO!!!!

AT, Wendover, and soccer

Wow, it's been a little while since I've posted. A good reason for that is because we spent the first 18 days of June at AT (annual training). It's the two week part of our army contracts. Luckily for us, we got to go all the way to Camp Williams. For those of you who don't know where that is, next time you drive on the freeway and pass over the point of the mountain take a look off to the west. That's it. That's Camp Williams. Super awesome. It goes from all the buildings you can see off into the mountain out west as far as you can see. Meaning it's huge. And there is nothing there, except a few machine gun ranges, a long range artillery range, and of course, a few gravel piles for the engineers to play around with. Well it was a long couple of weeks full of lots of dirt pushing. We fixed up a couple roads that had been washed out from all the rain we've been getting and built a parking lot for September's upcoming Governor's Day (basically the worst day of the year. We stand in formation while the governor and some other people speak. Then we leave. It's very hot and we generally get a few heat casualties.) We did do a fun event that our battalion has decided to make an annual competition. We split into squad's and had to hike somewhere between half mile and a mile between 9 different challenges. It was a blast. Possibly the one thing we're looking forward to about next year.

Wendover! Ugh. So not as cool as the commercials try and make it look. As soon as I got back to work after AT I was told I was going to Wendover for the weekend. At first I was kinda dreading it but I eventually learned it was for an airshow. Since I'm a big fan of flying and airplanes I got a little excited. Until we got there. Super creepy. The town is split into two sides. One in Utah and one in Nevada. The Utah side is certainly worse, but the whole place is kinda no bueno. There are very few actual houses. Most people live in trailer parks. Now not that there is anything wrong with that, but combining the fact that half of the trailer parks look abandoned and falling apart and the fact that the only thing that is green is the small strip of astro turf grass one of the hotels has our front makes it look like a barren creepy little town. I didn't get the chance to actually go into any of the casino's, but I feel like unless you are hiding out inside you probably wouldn't want to spend too much time there. And I probably won't be going back any time soon, or any time ever for that matter. As far as the airshow goes, it was pretty good. They only really had two acts. One was a local guy that built his very own little plane, and the other was a group of retired military pilots who travel to shows and competitions. They certainly did some fantastic flying.

This week was soccer camp for the high school. Probably one of my favorite weeks of the year. It's basically an extra 4 days of tryouts for the coaching staff. We get to see what the incoming freshman look like and also how the returning kids are doing. And coming from a high school team who had a hard time finding 20 people for a varsity team, it's fantastic to see all the talent that is growing. We're going to have a hard time finding 20 people, only because there are close to 40 who could easily make the team. Look out 4A, Timpanogos is here to stay.