Carter's Birthday Party

Carter's birthday planning started immediately after Callie's birthday in August and you would think this would have been plenty of time to plan for a party in mid-September. The theme originally started out as Guardians of the Galaxy however we struggled to find decorations and one week before the party Carter shifted directions towards a Medieval theme. This meant knights and castles and catapults. It also gave Kerry an opportunity to redeem her last castle cake. She made one for Callie when she was 2 and let's just say it's good that Callie didn't remember it. This year was a big improvement.

Carter had arranged for a four hour birthday gala at our house. Most parties are two hours at a location like bowling or trampolining so there was a lot of pressure to make the four hours exciting. Things started off at home with some knight fights, a trebuchet launch and then continued over to the school for some street hockey. Kerry had brought home some sticks from the school and the recently paved parking lot at Frost Road made for an excellent playing surface. It seems hockey is a dying sport though because none of the kids had any hockey experience. Everyone still had a great time.

Dinner for the party was pizza and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Pizza for those that didn't like the chicken and the chicken because that was what Carter felt the knights of the round table would have eaten. We finished off with the very chocolatey cake, gift opening and a dragon piñata which turned out to be really quite difficult to break. Every kid got several hits and we finally had to encourage one of the bigger kids to just wack at it until it was broken. There's nothing like a piñata to bring a big group of kids together in mayhem.

First Day of School

This year was a new first day of school milestone. Callie has moved on to high school. This meant for the first time she would not be just down the hall from Kerry and would truly be venturing out on her own. Just because she was going to a new school however, it did not mean that we could not still do our first day of school tradition of breakfast at Ricky's. The day started with some pictures and then a drive to drop Callie off at school. I didn't quite know what to expect because we had been warned traffic could get pretty bad. I think we went early enough that it wasn't too busy. Once I had dropped Carter off at school I went home for an hour. First day of school continues to be nothing more than a single hour to count attendance and then the kids are sent back home. I picked Carter up first and then we drove to pick Callie up. I was still worried about traffic so we had pre-arranged a pick up spot across the street from the school in the Mohawk parking lot. It worked out well. I was surprised we were the only family that had this idea.

After picking up Callie we went to have breakfast at Ricky's. Another first day of school first was that we did not get the treasure chest sent to our table so Carter could pick a toy. I guess both kids are growing up.

Summer Odyssey - Marvel and Ed Sheeran

We bought tickets to the Ed Sheeran concert in Seattle in October last year. The plan at the time was simply to drive down for the concert, stay the night and then head home. Somewhere along the way I got an e-mail from the Venetian and the Palazzo for a cheap hotel rate. This added Las Vegas to our trip. Then we had to figure out what to do with our dog Oliver so we added Oliver as a destination so we could drop him off with my in-laws. Once we were going to Las Vegas with the kids it made sense to do the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam. We had to get back from Vegas and Reno seemed like a good stop and it's a two day trip so we added Woodburn for back to school shopping. Now our simple trip had turned into a 10 day, 1 province, 6 state, 5,740km odyssey across the western half of North America.

After 9 days we made it to Seattle and where the concert was being held. We met up with Kerry's best friend Melissa and her son Ethan and had some time to kill before the concert so we went to the Marvel exhibit at the Museum of Pop Culture. We've been in the area before but never actually gone to the museum. The Marvel museum was nicely done. It presented the origin of all the characters in the recent movies as well as the history of Marvel. I also got a chance to see the Pearl Jam exhibit. They were based in Seattle and were one of my favorite bands growing up. It was neat to see memorabilia from their entire 30 year career.

At last it was concert time. I've seen Ed Sheeran once before just after he released his second album. Kerry couldn't make it so I had an extra ticket and at the time I literally couldn't give it away. Now he's singing at packed stadiums. He's a unique act to watch as he does all of his songs with nothing but a guitar and a loop pedal. The loop pedal allows him to record short snippets of guitar or vocals and play it back. He layers on his voice to give the sense that it's a full band with multiple vocals. He's also amazing at getting the crowd involved. As someone mentioned to us on our trip, once you've seen him in concert it ruins his songs on radio. Maybe we'll plan another road trip for his next concert series!

Summer Odyssey - Crater Lake

We did it again. We crammed too much into a single day. Our plan was to drive from Reno to Woodburn Oregon and do some back to school shopping. The trip was 8 hours by Google which mean it would usually take us 9 hours with stops. What we didn't plan on doing was stopping at Crater Lake National Park. We were getting a bit bored with driving just as we were about to pass the turn off and it called out to us. On the map it didn't look like it would be too much out of our way but the road was much narrower and curvier.

By the time we got back on the road we were in for an 11 hour day. Having said all that I'm glad we did stop. We always drive by the signs on the I-5 and it sounds like an interesting place. It's an old volcano that blew it's top about 7,000 years ago. It's now the deepest lake in the US and you have to be there to get a sense of scale. We stopped off at the visitors center and the gift shop and drove around the western edge. After that we were back on the road to Woodburn where we finished up the day with some shopping at the outlet malls. Tomorrow we are off to the Ed Sheeran concert in Seattle.

Summer Odyssey - Death Valley and Reno

We had an 8 hour drive ahead of us so we planned on getting out the door by 6:00a. (more on why later.) Were able to make it out by 6:45a. We would have had only a 7 hour drive however we wanted to drive through Death Valley which added about an hour to our trip. Death Valley is home to the hottest temperatures on earth. For our visit it only made it up to 40C. I say only because on our first day in Las Vegas it got up to 43C. The hottest temperature ever in Death Valley is over 56C. As soon as you enter you can tell there is something different. The vegetation mostly disappears and the landscape is very different.

As soon as we got into the park we stopped at a very small visitors center that was nothing more than a billboard and an outhouse. There was no staff but there was a place to pay to enter the park. It's honor system and we were a bit surprised by the $30 cost. I imagine many people don't pay, especially since there was nothing on the highway saying you should. The most interesting feature we saw in the park was a lookout that looked into the valley in several directions. The landscape looks very foreign with many different colored rocks. I was definitely happy we chose to take the detour into the park.

Our destination for the day was Reno. Our plan was to make it to our hotel by 3:45p so we could go to the movie theater in our hotel. $4.00 for a movie and they were showing Avengers-Affinity War. Unfortunately our late departure and detour slowed us down and we didn't quite make it. It was all for the best because it gave us more time to tour our hotel and take in the buffet. It may take a few days for my stomach to recover from the dessert bar. We finished the evening with $20.00 of gambling at the slots before heading to the pool. Kerry was up to $26.00 and Callie and I figured she should stop. She did not. We lost it all.

Summer Odyssey - Hoover Dam and Las Vegas

We are staying in Las Vegas for a few days and using it as a jump off location for some local trips. Tuesday was the Grand Canyon and Wednesday was the Hoover Dam. The dam is only 45 minutes outside of Las Vegas so this was by far our shortest driving day. In hindsight, I think the next time we do a big road trip we will make sure to have some 'no driving' days interspersed. I'm not driving of course so it impacts Kerry the most since she prefers to do that herself,  but it's still a lot of time spent in a vehicle. We seem to enjoy about 6 hours and after that it gets to be a bit much.

I didn't know what to expect when we got to the dam but it quickly became apparent that the US is very proud of this particular achievement. the visitors center and parking are extensive and security is everywhere. We paid for a tour of the power plant which was $15. There was also an option to tour inside one of the stair wells of the dam itself for $30. The power plant tour was excellent. We got to see the enormous turbines as well as the pen stocks. You could walk over the dam itself for free. The family enjoyed this day trip very much.

We were finished the Hoover Dam and back to our hotel by 1:00p which finally gave us some time to check out the pool deck at the Venetian. Carter and I had to use the 10th floor pool the previous two days because the pool deck closes at 8:00p but the other pool is open until 10:00p. The Palazzo and Venetian share a pool deck but there was construction going on so it was a lengthy trip to travel between the two inside the hotels. We wanted to see both so we made the trek. Both sides had similar Italian inspired amenities and a total of 10 acres of pool areas. It was a hot day and very busy.

After the pool we went to check out Buddy V's Restaurante. Buddy is also known as the Cake Boss and it was of course an Italian theme. We chose this restaurant mainly because it looked like it had something everyone would like and because we had a $150 resort credit burning a hole in our wallet. We needed to use it up before the end of our stay.

After dinner we started our final tour of the Las Vegas strip. Carter really wanted to check out the Marvel Experience which was at Treasure Island across the street from our hotel. The price was a bit steep at $32.00 per person and we didn't expect it to be worth it but he got everything he wanted out of the gift shop. There were opportunities for pictures and some merchandise to round out his collection of Marvel figurines. The gift shop advertises itself as 8000 square feet of Marvel but it was very sparsely filled. They did have some good deals though so all went well.

For the remainder of the evening we walked down to the end of the strip and back which means we made it down to the Luxor. The hotels past there are mostly just casino and less interesting. Our first stop was at Caesar's Palace. I came here the last time I was in Las Vegas and warned the family that we would likely get trapped. I was correct. You enter the main door and hope that when you reach the end you can just exit but that's not the case. You end up having to come all the way back out the way you came to get to the front door. We also planned on stopping at New York for the Hersey store as well as the roller coaster. Carter was planning on going with Kerry but it was a bit too intimidating. Perhaps next time. Our last stop was at the Luxor which is a giant pyramid shaped hotel. It looks neat from the outside and has a few neat Egyptian scenes inside but is starting to show it's age. Our only stop on the way back to the hotel was the coke store. Carter really wanted to do the flight of 16 different coke products. Do not try the Beverley.

Summer Odyssey - The Grand Canyon

I'm happy to report that we did get our car back. We were out the door at 6:30a this morning for a 'Day Trip' to the Grand Canyon. In hindsight it was a fairly long ways to go just for the day. Kerry compared it to going from Vancouver to Oliver for lunch and back in the same day. We got to the village around 11:30a and suddenly realized how incredibly unprepared we were. We only planned on seeing the canyon and doing one of the easy hikes however we were only prepared to do that in sunny weather. The canyon had other ideas as there was a giant thunderstorm with a couple inches of rain in a short period of time and it was only 15 degrees.

As we sat in our car wondering what we were going to do, I remembered I have an emergency poncho in my back pack and Kerry remembered she had one in the car. We also had several garbage bags in the emergency kit. Several minutes later we were all prepared to brave the storm. We weren't about to travel 5 hours only to turn around without seeing something. It was still raining as we walked to the look-out and there was no one around. Thankfully the weather turned sunny and warm fairly quickly. The canyon was still a bit smokey/foggy but it was still spectacular. I would even call it grand.

We spent a few hours hiking the canyon rim and checking out the geology center. There were several nice places for pictures. Plenty of them were safe but there were still dozens of people taking selfies only a few feet from some steep drop offs. I wonder how many tourists they lose each year?

We headed for home in the afternoon with plans to stop in Flagstaff which is apparently one of the former Route 66 cities and we had visions of it looking like Radiator Springs from the Disney Cars franchise. It is actually a large bustling town with a university. We stopped off at the visitors center for souvenirs and some pictures before heading back to Las Vegas along a portion of Route 66. The route between the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas goes from desert, to shrubs to sparse forest with a ton of neat rock formations. I would highly recommend it as a drive if you are in the area. Tomorrow we take a rest day with just a short jaunt to the Hoover dam.