Summer Road Trip

Well here it is November and I'm just now writing about the summer. Needless to say, after being gone for 23 days, I had alot of catching up to do upon returning home. But beside all that, let me get to it.

We spent Lee's 21st birthday (4th of July) in Branson for some quirky fun. We picked up Alicia (Lee's good friend) along the way (Springfeild) and she joined us for a couple of days at Silver Dollar City and Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. We all had a great time, but poor Lee had the flu. We pushed her around in a wheel chair and made the best of it, for her. I think she still had a good time.

Then on July 6, Nikie and I headed out for the great West! We drove on to visit Sheri and the clan. Nikie always has fun with her cousins. Only spending one day, we headed on to a four day trek through Utah. We spent two days camping in Arches National Park. We hiked, and took photos and played with rocks. We went into Moab one day to have Pizza and shop. Nik enjoyed getting back to civilization even though Arches is maybe 3 miles from Moab. (though our campsite was 20 miles into Arches). Pizza never tasted so good.





The weather was much cooler than normal, which was great. I'll take jeans and sweatshirts over 110 degrees anyday. We had storms that came up, so not much sun for nice shadows on the rocks, but interesting cloud formations. We had to stay in our tent when it rained so we watched Spiderman on our DVD player and took a nap. Though the nap went about 30 minutes too long and I missed getting in a good position for some spectacular sunset shots.

We then took the back roads through Utah as recommended by my photographer friend Peter Haigh (www.peterhaigh.com) . We camped our next night in a really neat, narrow canyon called Calf Canyon. They were sold out, but the camp folks were nice and let us set up in the picnic area. The next morning we hiked 3 miles for 2 hours through rough terrain to a huge beautiful waterfall. You could say the hike was worth it..on the way in...but the return trip was hotter and we had less water and no food. It wasn't so bad...it's just that Nik wasn't happy. I asked her to recite Family Guy episodes to me to keep her mind off how uncomfortable she was. That seemed to work okay until she slipped and fell on some rocks, then she was mad. But once we got back, I promised we'd drive on to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Vegas. We took a leisurely time through Bryce and Zion and got to Vegas just past dinner time.

Our drive into Vegas was bizarre. The sky looked so strange and the sunset was intense. Later we learned of a huge fire in California that had smoke that traveled toward Vegas. That explained it. Also, upon arriving at my mom's door step, I got a whooping. Mom was mad at me and told me to never again fall off the face of the earth again. Four days without any phone service or email was more than she could bare, but was the greatest vacation I ever had.


Our next stage of the trip was to now put on the classiest, the grandest, the most special baby shower of all time. And that we did! The army of baby shower workers began arriving. Tom and Lee flew in on the 12th of July. Maddie and Val drove in from Denver that same day. Cousin David drove in from Chicago with in 24 hours (a big NO NO). He slept for only a few hours in Oklahoma taking the southern route. But once everyone was at Mom's they all kicked into Operation Baby Shower!


Everyone helped out with food preparation, shopping, party favor completion and any other detail that needed handling. We couldn't have done it without all of the help. Then came Saturday morning...Tom and I went to check into the Bellagio by 8 am and everyone else came a little later to get things set up. All went perfectly to plan!!! The shower was so nice. We were on the 32nd floor, overlooking the fountain. The room was beautiful, so it needed very little decoration. We had a wishing tree, a couple of games, balloons, punch, finger foods and thee most incredible cupcakes!

Everyone was assigned duties to keep things running smoothly. I, of course took photos and video. Tom, Dave and Val were on greeting and elevator duty down in the lobby. Val felt very official with her guest list and clip board, unfortunately I did not have a walkie talkie for her. Lee and Maddie were in charge of the punch and keeping it refilled. They froze about 8 large zip lock bags full of concentrate and stored them in one of the jacuzzi tubs (yes we had two!). Nikie and Ryan were in charge of the presents. They handed one gift at a time to Larry and Kim so that person's gift was highlighted, then after it was opened, they took the gift back to the bedroom and gave Larry and Kim another. It was so flawless and systematic! Jenna was the record keeper. She wrote down who gave what gift. Everyone else helped out as needed, but because of the organization, preparation and so many hands, there was never a burden on anyone and the time was enjoyed by all. Later that night there were 11 of us who stayed all night. Me, Tom, Lee, Nik, Larry, Kim, Ryan, Jenna, Dave, Val and Maddie. We had a blast!!!
Mom and Dad did stay late, late enough to watch several water shows by night. Watching the fountain from above is so much better than street level! We were so fortunate! We owe that incredible room to our dear friend Elizabeth Fountain. She arranged the whole thing.


The next day we took advantage of the pool area for a bit. Then came the dreaded time for clean up. Wasn't bad though...again, lots of help. When I went down to check out I came face to face with Robert Duvall. That was wild! I had a chance to speak to him, but didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. When it was time to load cars, we had 5 of them amongst all of us. We drove to Larry's house so we could deliver the gifts and we were almost to his house 20 minutes from the Bellagio before we realized that we forgot the kids. Lee, Ryan and Nikie somehow failed to get into one of the 5 cars. Each of us thought someone else had them. Larry's wife Kim was kind enought to drive all the way back to get them. I felt terrible, thought they would be mad or scared, but Nik said, that was cool, can we do it again. They didn't want to leave the Bellagio. Neither did we.

The next day or so we did regular stuff, I took photos for Shelter Insurance and their new office in Henderson and we even took in Pirates of the Carribean. And while we were in the movies my cell phone rang. Mom called to say that Larry and Kim were at the hospital having the baby. We jumped up and ran to the car, picked up mom and dad and raced to the hospital up in Sommerlin. We did have to wait a while, ordered pizza to the waiting room, but then it happened...the little miracle arrived! Three weeks early and just in time for all of us to see him before we were all scheduled to leave the next morning. He was so beautiful! A full head of dark hair already to boot.



We all hung out at the hospital until at least 11 or so and Lee and Tom had to be dropped off at the airport at 4am the next morning. Mom and I got them there on time, then headed down to the strip to get some cool photos for Shelter Insurance. The sun really wasn't coming up yet, but the eastern sky was a rich shade of royal blue. Plus there was alot of lightning going on.

Nikie and I were scheduled to drive on to San Diego that morning, but we wanted to go back and see Nathan at the hospital again. We bought him some stuffed animals at the gift shop. Lee wanted us to get him a giraffe and Nikie picked out a bear.

We had a nice visit, I held him for a while, but then Nik and I had to go. We got to San Diego around 4pm to sign in for the Comic Con Conference. Luckily we also got to preview the floor and that is when Nik met the folks from Mattel toys. She must have said some impressive stuff about her new favorite show Naruto because they invited her to a fancy lunch. I got to tag along too. We sat across from the editor of Shonen Jump magazine and he wound up publishing the drawing Nikie did on a paper placemat while we had lunch. Mark was such a nice guy and he seemed to take an interest in Nikie too.

Nik and I volunteered at the convention thinking we'd get behind the scenes and meet people, but when being guests on the floor got us more opportunity. We got to see and visit with Greg Sipes for the second time (2004 was the first time). Nik did her impression of him doing one of his characters voices. He liked it so much that he called over the MTV cameras and had her do it again. November 7th is the premeire of a new show on MTV called 24/7 and that is the show she would be on, if they chose to use that footage. We did sign release forms. Greg also then proceeded to give Nik the phone number of his agent. We have been in contact with the agent, they have sent Nikie some scripts, she has recorded some voices but we are wanting to enhance the audition with some sound effects etc... then we will submit an MP3 file back to them. (www.cedvoices.com) They represent Burt Reynolds, Tim Conway, Scott Bao and all kinds of folks.

Nikie had a great time at ComicCon. She was amongst thousands of people who are just like her. We even got to see Stan Lee, creator of Spiderman. He talked about the early days of first creating Peter Parker and Mary Jane. Cartoons and superheros are not just for kids. Infact there were very few kids attending Comic Con. These people were in costume and role playing their favorite characters. They sure knew how to have a good time. We attended a Star Wars fan film awards one night. That was alot of fun. We got to see the voice actors and writers and producers of Family Guy and other shows that Nikie loves. She learned initiating skills. After a session she was so brave to just walk right up to an actor or writer or producer and just start asking them questions about the future of the show as well as add her suggestions. Networks and film studios were there...Cartoon Network, Nikelodeon, Warner Bros, Universal, you name it. So much opportunity! They had screen tests going on, portfolio reviews and so on. Nik can't wait to go back next summer.

My brother-in-law Peter's, mom, Joan was so nice to let us house sit for her while we were in San Diego. I watered her plants, took out the trash and kept an eye on things while she went to her childhood vacation spot with her sister in Vermont. It worked out so great. Nik and I were gone by 8 am each day stopping off at McDonalds for a Mc Griddle and each night it seemed we came home later and later. One night was the Star Wars film fest, another was the costume contest and so on. We had it down to a science...each of our 4 days. We would get down to the convention center parking garage, walk to the window for our job assignment, plot out the times for the sessions we wanted to attend, get to the booths we needed to check out, work our shift, eat a little, take in the night entertainment, get home and crash and do it all again the next day.

A trip like this would not have been possible without all of the couches that were offered to us. Thank you everyone who helped us have such an enoyable, educational, life changing, experience! Our next couch was in Pheonix. We wanted to visit a dear friend from Columbia College. One of Nikie's mentors and star basketball players for Columbia College, Lisa Koweleski. Lisa now works for the Pheonix Mercury and there just happened to be a game the night we would be in Pheonix to visit her. Lisa got us tickets for the front row, floor! I called my mom who in turn called everyone to say turn on ESPN! Tom in Missouri was able to see Nikie and I at the game. It was so exciting. We got to snack at the executive area and tour the entire facility afterward. The day before, at lunch, we were given a tour of the Diamondbacks baseball stadium. I was just in awe of all the special treatment we kept recieving on this trip, over and over again. How and why all of this good stuff kept happening to us, I do not know. But we sure felt fortunate!

Lisa was a great hostess. I wanted to treat her to a nice dinner, but there was a terrible storm that night and a power outage closed many of the restaurants. We wound up at a crazy little mexican fast food place and had to run from the car to the restaurant in the pouring rain. Oh, yeah, and a serial killer was on the loose too. But we did good.

From Pheonix we were supposed to drive on to Mesa Verde for more camping, hiking and photograhy, but since Nathan was born, we wanted to get back to Vegas. We surprised my mom. She was so happy. It only took about 4 hours to drive back to Vegas and we had a nice couple more days with everyone there. Took a photo of Nathan then that I was able to sell to Shelter Insurance for promoting Life Insurance for them. I then drove on to Denver (11 hours) with a stiff neck. I thought it was sleeping wrong on a pillow, but just a few weeks ago (October) discovered I have bursitis. Crazy. My posture while driving 5,040 miles brought it on. A wonderful sports medicine guy at Columbia College taught me some exercises to keep it under control. Thank You John!!!

We spent one day with Sheri and Peter and the kids. Peter treated us to a Rockies baseball game. That was alot of fun, except little Peter got sick and threw up on the bleachers. Poor guy. I guess it was my fault for buying him candy.

Nik and I returned home, but not alone...Sheri decided to follow us. Peter, Ava and Tyler came too. We had some fun Columbia style before they had enough and went back to their house.









So...all in all, What a Summer! Of course there was a lot more...I
just touched on a few of the highlights.