I spent most of last week in Orlando meeting my new employer. Stayed at the Rosen Shingle Creek, near Tiger’s place. Very impressed with the new owner and the corporate staff. I got to meet the greatest American mountain climber: Ed Viesturs. He was a guest speaker and I got to chat him up for ~30 minutes at a banquet before he spoke to the group. Very interesting, amazing and adventurous person. He has climbed all of 14 of the 8,000 meter peaks in the world WITHOUT OXYGEN! He’s climbed Everest 7 times and was there in ’96 with the IMAX crew when all those people died. Got to see my high school buddy Tom while I was there.

Saturday the whole family participated at our stake’s Mormon Helping Hands project. About 300 of us went to a huge children’s shelter to work on various project. The youth were tasked with organizing their 13,000 rubber ducks that they use for a fund raiser. We had to sort them in order, record them and package them up. It was a very tedious task! There were 75,000 of us working on service projects across the state.

Saturday night we had a birthday bash for Gavin. Took the group of 12 kids bowling then went back to the house for swimming and games.

Happy Mother’s Day to my babies Momma and all the other Mommies in my life!

We drove to the NW for spring break. We stopped in Portland for a couple days to visit friends. I got dropped off to work for the week. The manager that replaced me there decided to move back to Michigan to be closer to family, so I will be spending some time covering until they find someone else. Rest of the family drove up to BC to visit Shannon’s parents. They missed the open house for the new Vancouver LDS temple by a day or two, but luckily the temple president is a lifelong family friend so they were able to get a super deluxe private tour. They all loved it. More visiting in Portland, then we made our way south to Shannon’s sister’s near Sacramento.

My sister Margo lives near the Paul Kruger’s family in Utah valley. He was a beastly, defensive superstar for the University of Utah football team and now plays for the Baltimore Ravens. He is Ty’s favorite football player since they are both running on one kidney. Kruger lost his from an ATV accident when he was young. Margo asked his mom if she could get Paul to autograph something for Ty. He sent Ty an autographed Ravens ball and two autographed 8 x 10 photos. Awesome!

The original plan was to go to Sedona to bike and hike. My parents came from UT to watch the kids and we hit the road. Saturday morning we discovered what was causing the bumpy, rattling ride: the Finnish snow tires, designed for cold climates, had separated. When we left the hotel and headed to the van I noticed that the passenger-side rear tire was low. A nearby tire shop pulled the tire and showed us the giant hole that was forming. We had worn thru nearly all the layers in one 6-8 inch section of the tire. Since I had trouble finding the weird tire size in the past I figured we were spending the weekend in Bullhead City, AZ. Amazingly they had two of the tires we needed in stock, so with 5 guys working on the van we were out of there in 20 minutes. We drove I-40 thru Kingman and Flagstaff. Just before Flagstaff we ran into some pretty heavy snow. The snow continued was we drove down 89A to Sedona. By the time we got to Sedona it was raining, but VERY cold and low clouds were obscuring the view of the red rock hills. We decided to keep going south to Scottsdale and see what Hotwire could come up with for us. Got a $500/ night room in a 5-star luxury resort for $117/ night. It was a beautiful property: Intercontinental Montelucia. Pappadeaux, one of my top 5 restaurants in the world was booked Saturday night, so we went there for lunch on Sunday. Had filet mignon and it was amazing. Sunday night we watched the US vs Canada hockey game. First time that the US has beaten Canada since the 1960 olympics at Squaw Valley!! Awesome! We headed back home Monday.

Gave surfing a try for the first time on Saturday. We drove down to Carlsbad to spend the day with Bishop Dave and his family. The waves were OK when we first went out, but quickly started breaking wrong and I was denied the transformative experience. Looking forward to giving it another shot soon.

We went skiing at Mammoth on Monday and had a great time. It’s been cold, so the snow was in good shape. We were able to ride/ ski together all day for the first time: no lessons and everyone kept up pretty well. After going back and forth, Gavin seems to have settled on snowboarding.

We made a quick trip to SF for the weekend to meet some friends from Portland. Had a great time, gorgeous weather, great food and good company. We ate at Scoma’s, Tommy’s Joynt and Kate’s Kitchen…a few favorites that have been around forever. We biked across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito and took the ferry back. Saw Beach Blanket Babylon for the 3rd time, which is always fun. Saturday was the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake!

Halloween fun here.

Went houseboating on Lake Mead last Thur, Fri, Sat with group of young men from church. Friday the water was AMAZING…glass smooth for all but a couple hours when there were some ripples. The air temp was 113, water temp 89, but we stayed comfortable by jumping in the water and chillin’ in the houseboat with central air. Friday night some big wind gusts blew the houseboat off our anchors, but we were able to reattach to shore and make it thru the night. One of the YM left for BYU the next day, another is leaving for Y’daho this week.

I hadn’t heard great things about Mead, so I was pleasantly surprise: interesting scenery, not crowded, smooth water and convenient facilities. We got to Callville Bay right after a houseboat with kids on it exploded. 5 people were injured, but no fatalities.

Finally made it home at 1 AM this morning after ~16 hours of flying and 5 hours of waiting around airports. Had a wonderful time in Greece and Turkey.

Here is a quick list of cities, sites: Greece: Corinth, Epidaurus, Nafplion, Olympia, Athens, Sounion, islands of Crete, Santorini, Kos, Turkey: Ephesus, Istanbull (sort of), back to Greece: Thessolonikki, Meteora, Delphi and back to Athens all in 13 days. More details and photos to follow…

I took Gavin and Grace to Phantom at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood last night. Great show!! We were on the 1oth row, dead center, so we had to duck when the chandelier was swinging around. We could feel the heat when they did the flash effects. The Phantom was John Cudia, who played the Phantom AND Jean Valjean (Les Mis) on Broadway. Amazing voice, got a standing O at the end. Gavin and Grace loved it.

I rode in my second Stagecoach Century on Saturday. There are usually only 2 stop signs on the whole course, but this year, right at the entry into the Anza Borrego state park, there was an impromptu border patrol inspection site (they waved my thru..). Like last year, the weather was amazing: ~75 degrees and sunny. Unlike last year, not much of a headwind on the way back!! Knowing what to expect also made this year better.

Brought the family this year. We stayed at the Residence Inn Downtown SD. Shannon took the kids to the San Diego zoo while I rode in the desert. They had a great time…the gorillas were a big hit. We met back at the hotel, soaked in the hot tub, then went to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. We then shared a Ghiradelli brownie sundae for dessert.

Finally got to tour the USS Midway aircraft carrier…AMAZING!! How does something that big float? They have a great collection of warplanes on the flight deck. We played 3 or 4 games of Ticket to Ride. Also went rollerblading around Mission Bay.