Home Sweet Home

It is great to be home! It was a good trip - but there is nothing like home. We were all very happy to see Brad at the airport last night. He got lots of big hugs.

Thanks for reading about our adventure!

THE END

Las Vegas II

We arrived in Las Vegas around 3:00 in the afternoon. The drive was long and hot. At one point I saw a thermometer that said it was 113.
We were on the 25th floor this time and had a great view. The boys had me ask them to put us on a high floor. There are 28 floors at the Excalibur. We were pretty high up there.
That evening we walked down The Strip. We saw the water show at Bellagio. They performed it to my favorite song - "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood.
After that we went to the top of the 'Eiffel Tower' at the Paris Hotel. The view at night is awesome.
By that time we were pretty tired and walked back. It was a long walk. We all pretty much fell into bed after that.
On Tuesday we went to Rio to see the show in the sky - but it didn't start until 3:00 - so we missed that. We went to Circus Circus and walked around the Adventuredome. We only rode one ride - SpongeBob in 4D.

We put 1,998 miles on the rental car. We should have driven around the block a couple of times to make it an even 2,000.

View from the Eiffel Tower

The boys at the Eiffel Tower

The view from our room

Last Day

We are heading back to Vegas today. We fly home tomorrow. Yesterday we just swam and hung out all day. Even with sunscreen we all got a bit sunburned. The sun here is very strong.
We won't have internet at the Excalibur so this will be my last post until we get home. Looking forward to getting home.
See you all soon.
Love,
Leisha
PS - It's going to be 106 degrees in Vegas today. eeek!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my daddy, my hubby, my father-in-law and my brother. I hope you all have a wonderful day! I'm sorry we aren't home for it.

The Desert

I don't know if this is technically the desert but it sure feels like it. It's hot! Not sure how hot it got today but it's still 98 right now. After the cool temperatures along the coast it feels even hotter to us. I miss the nice ocean breeze.

This hotel is nice. We have a mini suite so I can shut the door between the bedroom and the living area when the boys start to drive me crazy:) And we have 2 TVs so I can watch something other than cartoons. We are spoiled aren't we.

I think we are all ready to get home now. We looked into leaving the car in Oakland and flying home today from there, but it would have cost an extra $400 for the car and $900 for the airfare. Not worth it! I am glad we aren't driving tomorrow though. Today's drive wasn't too bad. We only stopped twice and not for long. It was all interstate so we made good time. Just a few days and we'll be home. We miss everybody. Especially you Brad :)
Here's some pics from yesterday.

The Golden Gate Bridge

Lombard Street - We drove down it twice and walked up and down once.

Sea Lions at Fisherman's Wharf

Tom Hanks!

I wish it was real - but it's just at the Wax Musuem. Did it fool you?

That's about it.

Love,

Leisha

San Francisco

We left our hotel around 11am and didn't return until 10pm. We went to Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate bridge and Lombard Street. Too tired to load any pictures tonight.
Tomorrow we check out of here and head to Bakersfield. It is half way to Vegas. We will stay there Saturday and Sunday nights at the Homewood Suites. I will write more tomorrow.
Hope everyone is well!
Love,
Leisha, Jason and Alec

Long Day

We had a long day today. We saw a lot though. We drove up Hwy 1 from Pismo Beach to Pacific Grove. Saw lots of beautiful scenery along the way. We stopped many times at the pullouts to look at the views. We also stopped at the Hearst Castle tourist spot but decided not to take the tour. We only saw the castle from the distance through a telescope.

We took the 17 mile scenic drive from Carmel to Monterey. We saw the Lone Cyprus, Bird Rock and some sea lions. After that we drove through Pacific Grove to see if we could find Grandpa and Grandma's old apartment. We never did figure out which one it was.

Once we were through at Pacific Grove - we decided to pass on anymore scenery and just get to Oakland. We switched from Hwy 1 to 101 and could make much better time. With the many stops we made it took us ALL day to get from Pismo to Oakland. That's okay though - it was the journey - not the destination we were after today.

I am not too crazy about this Quality Inn. The rooms are small and badly decorated. I think it is clean though - and the have free internet access! I think we will probably go see San Francisco tomorrow and then maybe start to Vegas on Saturday. We can probably find a nice hotel along the way to stay for a couple of days. The boys just want to swim - so all we need is a pool. Oh and we need Nickelodeon and Disney channel :)

Well that's about it for now. I had too much caffeine today and can't get to sleep. Guess I should try again.

Another lazy day

We hung out at the beach and pool again today. I really like the beach here. It's nice and smooth and easy to walk on. We found lots of half sand dollars but no whole ones.

Tonight we went to 'downtown' Pismo. It's a nice quaint little town with lots of little shops and restaurants. We found one called Brad's restaurant. We would have eaten there but we didn't a big meal. We ate clam chowder (me) and hot dogs and onion rings (the boys) at the Splash cafe instead.

We walked down the pier and watched the sunset. There were many surfers catching some waves right around the time. If you look closely at one of the pictures you can see them.

Tomorrow is another driving day. I'm getting a bit tired of those days but I knew what I was getting myself into. It is 225 miles to our next hotel - Quality Inn in Oakland. That's if we take the interstate. I kind of want to take Highway 1 though. It will be longer but much more scenic.

Brad's restaurant

sunset
surfers
steps from beach to hotel

view from our room. If you look close you can see a little bit of the ocean.

The Cottage Inn at Pismo Beach

This is by far my favorite hotel we've stayed in. The room has comfy beds, a ceiling fan, a fireplace, a microwave and a fridge.
The hotel is on a cliff overlooking Pismo Beach. Our room doesn't really have a view but the view from the pool is awesome. Here's a couple of pictures of it.

Here's a picture of the room

The drive up here was 200 miles - but it wasn't bad at all. Most of it was very scenic. Jason has been taking Bromine every day we drive and hasn't felt car sick at all. Yeah!

Lazy Day

We spent all day Monday at the pool and the beach. It was sunny for once. Someone told me that it is mostly cloudy here in June. They call it the "June gloom". Wish I would have known that before we came. Oh well - it probably wouldn't have made any difference.

If you are wondering why I'm updating this at 3:30 in the morning - it's because I can't sleep. I have heartburn from too much spicy dinner, too close to bedtime last night. We ate at Joe's Crab Shack. I would have liked to have eaten somewhere we couldn't eat in KC - but I couldn't find the Happy Clam - so we settled for Joe's.

Anyway - that's about it for Monday. Today we check out of this hotel and drive to Pismo Beach. It is 1/2 between here and San Francisco. We are staying at the Cottage Inn by the Sea. We will be there Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I'm not sure if we will have an internet connection - so if I don't update for a few days - that's why.

Love,
Leisha

Hollywood

Hi all,

I wrote last night but the internet went down and I lost it all :( I'll try again.

We saw lots of things yesterday - Santa Monica Pier, the Hollywood Sign, Mann's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood Walk of Fame and Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum.

Here is a picture of Arlington West on the Santa Monica Beach. There is a cross for every soldier that has died in Iraq. I can't remember the exact number but it was over 2400. No matter what the number - it's too many.

Here's a couple of pics of the boys and the Hollywood sign. Trent- that's as close as we got to it.




Here's Jason's hand compared to Arnold Schwarzenegger's

Here are the boys playing in the surf at Redondo Beach



Just some other fun stuff -
The boys both won stuffed animals at the Santa Monica Pier Carnival area - on their first try. Alec won a bear and Jason won a BIG turtle. It is 'Vern' from 'Over the Hedge'. That will be fun to carry on the plane :)
Jason lost his hat out the car window. Luckily it was still there when we went back and got it. We were all cracking up. You had to see the look on his face.
Jason also managed to lose a beach towel on our walk back from the beach Saturday. We still haven't figured out how he did that. It was not there when we went back.

I hope everyone is doing good back home. It's been great to hear from some of you.
Love,
Leisha

Saturday

We just took it easy. We went to the pool and hot tub in the morning for a while. Then we decided to walk to the beach. The boys had a blast playing in the waves. It was cloudy and a little bit chilly but it sure didn't bother them. They had a great time.

Walking back was not quite as fun. Alec's feet hurt and he sand in his swim trunks, etc. It is more than the 1/2 mile they said and there is a lot of traffic. I think we will drive next time.

After that we just hung out in the room for awhile. The boys have a renewed interest in Insanaquarium and want to play it a lot. That's okay with me. I got to take a nap :)

After that we went and saw the movie 'Cars'. It was really cute. We all liked it.

We didn't get back to the hotel until 8:00 but of course we had to swim some more. The boys went back and forth between the hot tub and pool. The pool is heated but still not very warm. I sat this one out and just watched them.

That's about it for Saturday. I think we will spend Sunday exploring Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Brad - we MISS you!
Love,
Leisha

Very long day

We drove ALL day today. It was a long one! I got lost once along the way but we got here finally.
We are at the Best Western at Redondo Beach for the next four nights.
Tomorrow we are not driving at all. Just going to hang out at the pool and the beach. The beach is about 1/2 mile away. We got to it tonight just in time to watch the sunset. It was a little chilly but very nice to see it after the long day.

That's all for now. The boys are bugging me to play on the computer.

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon was awesome! The morning didn't start out the best - but it got better. At our very first stop it started pouring down rain. We spent about 30 minutes crammed in a little store with lots of other people to take shelter. Luckily the rain let up and we were able to move on to the next stop. We sure didn't have to worry about sunburns or heat. It was pretty chilly after the rain.
Our tour guides name was Millie. She is originally from Sweden and still has quite an accent - even though she's been in the US for 30+ years. She was very knowledgeable and had good stories. Our tour group consisted of a family of 5 from Houston, a couple from Modesto, CA and another couple from Long Island. Everyone was very nice and told me I had very well behaved boys. They were pretty good the whole time.
We stopped at 4 different lookouts throughout the day. I took lots of pictures - but as everyone says - pictures just aren't the same as seeing it in person.
We got back the hotel around 6:00pm. We went to eat and then got some 'floaties' for the pool. We swam for quite awhile. There were lots of people swimming tonight. Good thing it is an indoor pool.
Alec is sleeping and Jason is watching TV. As soon as I post this I'm going to bed too.
Please feel free to make comments on the blog or send us an email. We would love to hear from any and all of you.
Love,
Leisha

Wednesday night

We are in Williams, AZ. We just had dinner at Pizza Hut and are now just hanging out in the room.
We arrived in Las Vegas last night at 6:35pm Vegas time. Our flight was actually 25 minutes early! We ran into old friends Vicki and Dan Brewer at the airport. They were going to Vegas too and were on our flight. The boys had fun on the flight and laughed a lot. They said there must be laughing gas in the air.
When we got Vegas we rented a car and drove to the Excalibur. The boys were very impressed with the hotel. We didn't do much last night. After we walked down to the M&M store - they were ready to go back to the room. They complained that there is nothing good on TV. I told them most people in Vegas don't spend much time in their room.
This morning, after breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and drove down to the Stratosphere. We went to the top (108th floor). It was a great view. We weren't able to go to the outside observation deck because it started lightening and then raining. After that we started on our way to Arizona. The Hoover Dam was right on the way - so we stopped there for a little bit. It started raining there too. I thought it wasn't supposed to rain in the desert!
We made it to the Holiday Inn in Williams, AZ at around 5:30 tonight. They have an indoor pool and hottub so we went swimming for a bit before dinner. And now here we are!
The Grand Canyon tour will pick us up at 10:00 in the morning. Should be fun!

This first picture is the boys on the plane.
#2 is our view from the Excalibur
#3 is our view from the Holiday Inn. - what a crack-up!

Take care everyone!

Today's the day!

We leave at 5:55pm on 6/6/06. hmmmm
We are all packed and ready. We will be at the Excalibur in Las Vegas tonight.

We leave in 3 1/2 days

I need to finish some laundry and get everything packed. We are going to have to travel light. I don't want to drag bags and bags of 'stuff' around.
We don't leave until around 4:00pm on Tuesday - so I have time. I guess I'm just ready to go NOW!