Over a decade ago my bestfriend, Dan, left our home state of Pennsylvania to begin his professional adventures in Phoenix. A year later during an innocent lunch at Red Robin, he says to me: “When are you moving to Phoenix?” Donna and I glanced at each other, shrugged and moved to the Southwest. After 7+ years in Phoenix, Dan (with his family now) were off for the next adventure, Amsterdam. Surely the family was hesitant because it was harder to see the granddaughters and the friends would miss them, but I was ecstatic. I wanted to visit!

On Superbowl Sunday 2008, Donna, Claire and I dropped Dan’s family off at SkyHarbor International Airport with more baggage than I’ve ever seen carried by two able-bodied adults. We said our goodbyes with promises of visiting and seeing each other soon. That didn’t happen.

Plane fare to Holland never dipped below a thousand bucks a person and there are three of us. We saw them when they headed back to the southwest; I think we’ve seen them in AZ three times in three years. The longest was when they cleaned out their storage and decided to stay in Europe indefinitely. That was February 2010.

Somewhere in late 2009 Donna mentioned off-handedly, “why don’t you just go alone? We can never all afford to go.” (Even though we would LOVE to take Claire to Europe at this age). I hopped at the idea but something always occluded a visit. October 2009 was throat surgery. Spring Breaks are usually professional conference travels. Nothing worked until Fall Break 2010. Yes, yes, why that’s is now. Guess where I’m going TOMORROW? Schipol International Airport, just south of Amsterdam. Yep, I’m gone. Stick a fork in me.

My “gadget” pile of stuff I need to take post-clothes packing.

Last night we took the kids to zoo lights but not before Claire was horsing around with Eli. I was sitting at the table waiting for Terrie to get ready when all of a sudden Eli shouts “Claire knocked my tooth out!” It was one of those moments were you freeze and wait for a giggling punch line and then there is none. I quickly began counting years on my fingers to see how old Eli was, and I realized I had no idea how old children are when they’re suppose to lose teeth. Suddenly the house erupted as his mothers became very excited about his losing his first tooth, and I as relieved that we were ok and not going to be thrown out of the house for destroying their son.

After the excitement of the tooth being yanked from his face, dropping it on the white tile, finding it, dropping it again, and finally putting it in a ziploc bag for the tooth fairy, we headed to the zoo. The Phoenix Zoo has “zoo lights” which is one of the largest outdoor light displays in our state.

After Eli and Claire got out of their respective trucks, they took each other’s hand and Angelika and I rolled our eyes as they spent the next two hours inseparable, running through the zoo hand in hand, checking out all of the lights, looking for animals in the dark, and enjoying the evening.

Dan & Madeline moved to Amsterdam in February 2008, and since then I haven’t seen them until today. They called a month ago to say they’d be in AZ around New Year, and we realized our schedule would overlap just for this evening. We flew back from Pittsburgh this morning, got a ride home, picked up the dog, had lunch and watched the Cardinals kill the Falcons before Dan & Madeline got here with dinner.

Their daughters are 2 1/2 and 1 1/2 and Claire’s 3 1/2, so we all figured our house would be better than going out. It was freshly clean since we’d not been here so we quickly agreed for them to bring dinner.

Dan’s an Intel engineer doing an Expat program, and while Madeline’s in Amsterdam she’s picking up another law degree. Lilliane and Amelie are enjoying learning from the nannies and taking in a culture many american children aren’t exposed to at this age. We spoke of family, holidays and work over a nice meal, which was finished with cake and black tea for Dan & I and wine for the ladies. The girls played nicely together after the Mahoney girls realized Claire’s agressiveness was mostly just excitement to have her friends come over. (I know she shouldn’t remember Amelie, but I sure bet she remembers Liilane.)

We talked, enjoyed each other’s company, watch Peyton bite it in HD, and then we all said goodbye so they could head back to the hotel to pack and fly back to the Netherlands tomorrow.

Got a chance to play with Coop’s Flip Mino recently. Mino’s are a wonderfully simple way to shoot video anywhere, anytime. Then you flip a switch to release the USB port and load it directly into any computer. The software you need comes right on the camera itself.

VloMo08 Day 26: Crappy Video from soul4real on Vimeo.
Disclaimer: I had a single beer with dinner before I made this.

Yesterday I turned 34. It’s not the biggest of birthdays for sure, but it was a nice day. Nothing too wild, and I remember when it’s my birthday more when I am at work on a birthday (not again until 2010). The highlight of yesterday would be when Laura and Emma came to visit. I’ve not seen them since summer of 2007, and they moved away in December of 2006 to Portland. I can’t blame them since it’s so damn brown and dry here, but it sure was nice to see them.

Dan from Amsterdam Skyped with me, Alan from Iceland said hello, I talked to my parents, and I’ve not had a chance to talk to the in-laws yet (my fault).

We had the girls out playing in the backyard all afternoon before giving them a group bath. Laura’s birthday is tomorrow, so we hit Macaroni Grill for a celebration dinner. The Penn Rustica rocked as did the Tiramisu dessert, but the Sangria was nothing to write home about. It was bland, boring and expensive.

After dinner we hit a carnival that was in a local parking lot. Laura wanted to ride the Zipper and I love the Ring ‘O Fire, so we did both. Mind you this was after we gorged ourselves. We were fine until the Ring ‘O Fire person sent us through the ride twice! I wasn’t the same after that.

Laura and Emma ended up staying over last night, so we went to Cracker’s Cafe for breakfast before the drove across town to see other friends. Beautiful mild birthday with some thoughtful gifts from Donna and Claire. Really enjoyable.

I’m not much an exerciser, but I do have a friend, Biray, who is fanatical about it. I’ve always complained about having time and the damn hot desert summers (which don’t end until Halloween!), but when she decided to offer an online jogging class I didn’t have any excuses left so I signed up. I’ve actually been doing pretty well, and I feel great! I’ve been fighting some Crohn’s issues recently so as long as they aren’t on the day I want to exercise, then I am ok.

Recently Biray invited us all to run a 5K with her (3.2 miles), and I signed up without really letting myself chicken out. I knew I wouldn’t run it, and I begged my friend Joe to go with me because I figured he was out of shape too and wouldn’t make me look too bad.

I had no idea what to expect, and I was totally out of my element. I would’ve never done it alone but Biray, Coop, and Joe were there with me. We got there early, registered, got out free shirts, and then waited until 8AM. There was a huge crowd there, and when they said “Go!” I was just like “Oh my God, here we go!”. The first part was grass, and I’m not use to grass. Then we had some rolling hills. Joe said he’d jog til he needed to walk, and he went way farther than me. But then I caught up and we were near each other for more than half, and then he fell behind and I began playing games where I’d pick a point and jog to it, then slow down and walk. Then start over. It was a great strategy for me! I finished in 41 minutes and I felt great! I feel really good.

Here’s the video Coop shot of me finishing the race!

My inlaws ended up in Arizona in the hottest part of the year, but for some reason it was unseasonably muggy while they were here. Although the monsoons arrived as soon as they left in the beginning of July, I needed to get the heck out of the valley. I emailed our friends who have a cabin up in Payson, AZ and asked them to rescue us from this abysmal hell of the Sonoran Desert. A day later I got a call that they’d be at the cabin for a week and we were more than welcome to drive up for a couple of days. Donna was amenable to this, so last Saturday we threw our stuff in the car, dropped the extra key with the neighbor to watch the dog, and drove north. Payson is really only a 90 minute drive from our house, and they’ve worked on bettering the Beeline Highway which is a direct shot from here to there. On the road, I texted a friend who loves to ride her hog up and down this highway on weekends and asked what we should see while there. She suggested I dragged the fam to the Tonto Natural Bridge; I’ve never heard of it, so I mentioned it to Donna and filed it away.

We decided to just drive up over night. Claire for two days beforehand wouldn’t stop talking about seeing her friend Eli. Eli’s going to be 5 this August, and so he’s about 1 1/2 years older than her. They’re good friends, and at home, his parents are like our SW family. The weather is the pines was a mild low 70s and the beers were ice cold. Loved it. Good company and drinks. We sat around, snacking, and talking. Those two played and played. Eli’s little sister Riely just stood in her saucer toy and frowned (her favorite thing to do at 13 months old).

That night we had a huge storm. We sat inside playing games and watching it rain. Claire and Eli were relegated to the second floor where there’s a television with kid’s movies. They eventually fell asleep and were put to bed, and we played Sequence and Facts in Five until the wee hours.

I had asked Terri if the Bridge was cool, and she said it was nearby and worth seeing, so we headed up there the next morning after saying our goodbyes and shooting a cool video of Claire & Eli hugging goodbye.

Tonto Natural Bridge is an ancient geological creation that essentially eroded through several layers of various rocks until there’s a natural bridge that’s just under 200 feet tall. Terri said which trails to take and what would be easier to do with Claire. When we got there, we were confused. We hit one trail and saw some cool waterfall, but we wanted the Big Kahuna. We took another trail down and it looked a little steep. Donna had her purse shoved in a bag with some snacks and water. I wasn’t carrying much because I still had sutures in my chest. Claire’s new Merrel hiking boots got a work out as we made our way down the side of what amounted to a cliff. We came around a bend, and down the creek bed was the bridge. We made our way as carefully as possible down to the bridge and under it. Up ahead we saw what looked like ants, but were people down where we were headed. I felt like a pack mule going down the Canyon.

We made our way over rocks, slippery with wear. We slipped into Pine Creek water and had a helluva good time. We made it down to the bottom, and a beautiful waterfall fell down under the bridge. We had a short snack, shot some more video and pics, and walked back up the easy way. The way I bet Terri had suggested we walk down.

After our adventure, we headed back down to Payson and tried to beat the storm down to the valley. We lost that battle and drove precariously down the Beeline in the torrential downpours with everyone else who had the same ideas as us. About 30 miles north of Fountain Hills all traffic stopped. Someone had rolled a pickup into the ditch. The truck blew up, and when we finally made it the two miles to where the truck lay (after 90 minutes of waiting!) the rubber of the tires had completely melted off.

Even though the driver had a terrible weekend, we enjoyed our time with our friends and our adventure hiking with 14 stitches, a three year old, and two cameras.

Donna, Claire and I went to Angelika & Terri’s cabin in Payson this weekend. Eli, their 4 1/2 year old, who adores my daughter was so excited to have a sleep over. We enjoyed our visit immensely, and I will write at length later, but I wanted to share the video I shot of them saying good bye when we left today.

People look at me strangely when I say I have a friend who’s a bank robber. I think he’d prefer "reformed" bank robber, and since he can pretty much read this blog tomorrow (and learn what a blog is, since he’s been away for years) I think I’ll call him that – RBR. Sounds like Reebber, but not. Yes, he robbed a bank, and it’s a long story that’s for elsewhere. I will just say that I hope I never ever know what it’s like to get out of jail after so many years. I can’t believe he’s never experienced Web 2.0. No one text messaged when he was arrested, and Google was nothing. This whole blog thing wasn’t around really (yes, people like Wil were blogging but the rest of us weren’t). Anyway, he gets out tomorrow. In the morning. About 7 hours probably. Who knows. I wonder how he’s getting to his next destination. It’ll be odd going home for Christmas and seeing him. As far as I know, Donna and I are the only people who visited him while he was there, so this’ll be interesting. I hope he never goes back there, and I am looking forward to seeing him in December.

No matter how often I fly to San Francisco I cannot believe how much I love that city. The first time I flew there was in late 1996 for New Year’s. Dan and I visited there and stayed in San Bruno. Somewhere on my laptop I have pages and pages of entries from when we were there and the rain and the youth hostels. I loved that trip and have gone back 4 more times since then. I went back for a few days to hit the aquarium and the city in 1998, then I took Donna up there a few summers ago. Last April I was up there for a conference and got together with my friends for dinner. Now this past weekend I was able to take Claire to California. We have wonderful friends who have lived there for over 20 years who went to high school with my mother. Actually, they knew each other since diapers. MaryAnne & Susan have been there for 25 & 20 years respectively. MaryAnne & Susan have begged us to bring Claire up since last year, so we decided to take Claire up for Spring Break.

We were staying back at MaryAnne & Bill’s house where they have a nice sized house with a guest wing in Redwood City, CA about 20 miles from the City. MaryAnne had asked us what we wanted to do while we were there, and I really had no real clue. I’ve done the really touristy stuff, and this trip was balancing friend time with sight seeing time. We never had to fly with a car seat before so we bought this fancy schmancy bag and everything, but when we got to the gate Southwest told us we could stick Claire and her seat in a plane seat since there was a ton of room. That was cool, and even though she didn’t sleep, we still didn’t have to hold her while she squirmed for two hours.

The first day was to the Monterey Aquarium where we’d show Claire all the Otters, Sea Lions, and fish. I was there in 1998 for a few hours by myself, but it was nothing like it was this time. There was interaction and games, and we were armed with our new free Babies R Us stroller, so we were set. We beelined it for the tide pools where Claire could stick her hands in the tanks to touch starfish and maybe a Bat Ray. Daddy got to touch the Bat Ray but it wouldn’t go close enough to Claire. It was as if it knew she may over eagerly jump into the water and ride it around giggling. The other thing she began doing about this time (or a few days earlier) is saying "What that?" "What doing?" She will point and point and point at things and scream "What that!?" at the top of her lungs, and MaryAnne pointed out that the answers are as vast as the universe. If the door green, or is it a door, or is it a portal from space to space. What is it? That’s a good question, Claire.

Friday we spent with Susan, Maryanne’s sister. I’d not been to the Haight since 1997 and Golden Gate Park the same winter. Susan has been in California for 20 years and never went there either, so we piled into her Monterey and took off. Claire fell asleep along the way, so the two of them sat in the car outside the Japanese Tea Garden while Donna and I went to explore. We found a cool botanical gardens on several acres. Each part was a different part of the world and the plants that grew there were indicative of that region. When Claire finally got up, the four of us tramped into the Tea Gardens and looked around for a couple hours before dropping into a couple wooden stools to have some green tea. Next we hit the Haight, where the hippies and everyone else gather on the corners to sell their wares or to buy someone’s Else’s. There was some story I once knew about everyone living with Jerry Garcia down the street from that very corner, but I couldn’t remember the whole thing. But even without the story, Donna was excited about the shopping and spent too much money on jewelry and a jewelry holder in the shape of a model’s dress from a hip-hop guy who had no idea how much to charge. We walked the Upper Haight for another two hours before hitting the Fish Market in SanMateo for dinner. I was adventurous and had Muscles, Oysters, Squid, Clams, Scallops, and Halibut. All of which was over priced and good (for $25 I had probably 4 oz of fish!). We had a yummy dinner before Claire crashed on the way home. It was a long day.

Saturday Bill and MaryAnne acquiesced to humor the internal tourist in me and agreed to take Claire to see the Sea Lions on Pier 39. We stopped by a ~100 year old apartment building Bill’s family owns in Cow’s Hollow where we dropped off some sinks for upgrades, before parking out near Ghiradelli Square. MaryAnne wondered why we were parking so far up the coast, but I though nothing of it until later. We stopped in the coolest shoe store that sold Merrel’s & Keen’s, but Donna didn’t find anything for her trip to Europe this summer and MaryAnne had been looking for a shirt to buy Claire. There was a cute pink hoodie that looked like it would fit a three year old. The lady wanted $7.99 for it, and the fog had rolled in, so Claire got it. We rolled the sleeves and she was cute as a bear. We loved it on her. We were hungry and wanted to get some chowder. I’d remembered going to Boudin’s last spring, so we searching and Donna was worried we’d never find it. I finally called and it was another block down along Fisherman’s Wharf. Everyone wanted to sit down, but the restaurant was about $10 more than just eating in the cafe line on the first floor. Claire was crashing soon, but we still had to see those sea lions. MaryAnne was cold and tired, so she said she’d sit with the truck that Bill had now trudged back a mile to get. MaryAnne parked their ’92 huge ass Suburban that was a big as Moby Dick (which was cool since she parked near a Wyland Wall) in a bus lane while we walked to the pier. The pier has gotten even more and more touristy since I was there 10 years ago, but it was still cool. Claire slept part of the way, but then woke to see the "puppies!" which is what she calls every animal she doesn’t know. The sea lions weren’t close to us, and that sucked, but the view was nice. Sail boats adorned the bay from Pier 39 to Alcatraz and out towards the Golden Gate. By this time we were all worn out, and were ready to head out of the city. We took a short drive up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower for a photo op and then headed out of town.

Today we sat around did very little. We did go to the farmer’s market this morning, and I really wish I lived somewhere less southwest-y and cooler. Ryan and Laura moved to Oregon & North California is beautiful but God-awful expensive. Donna reiterated not wanting to be in the desert forever, and I agree. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon, but it’s something to consider. Somewhere with rain, green foliage, trees, hills. Somewhere we can sit out on the porch and just enjoy where we live so much more than all of this. It’s March, and before I go out tomorrow I need to find shorts somewhere stored away. We’re back now from our trip, and it was wonderful. Everyone already misses us, and Claire did get her own seat on the plane. Daddy & Claire slept all the way home, and we’re looking forward a quiet week around the house.