Somedays are status-quo, but others are down right exhausting when you look at them.

Take today for example…
- Baseball at 10, but gotta be there before 9:30, it is 30 minutes away so gotta leave by 9
- Tires for the Highlander
- Oil Change for the Highlander
- Home to start some cleaning to prepare to move Nick (or us) to the basement to give the boys more room.
- Practice for 5th Sunday tomorrow
- UGH!!!

Tomorrow is not much lighter…
- Church
- Shopping for clothes for upcoming events…
- Acoustic Sunday (I hope)
- Pictionary
- I am sure more cleaning and moving of stuff
- Church for Movie Night
– Tear down sound system in Fellowship hall
– Move sound outside
– Set up 6×8 movie projector & sound system
– Watch Movie
– Tear down sound system and movie screen
– Move stuff back to Fellowship hall and reassemble

Monday we have a T-ball game and swimming & eating all day

That is just this weekend…

I work Tuesday – Thursday this week. We have a couple meetings or games after work as usual. Then Friday starts our 5 day mini-vacation as we head to Myrtle Beach for Kim’s cousins wedding…

We return on the following Tuesday and then it is business as usual until Sunday the 19th when I pick up our song leader (Neal Brooks) at the airport and we prepare for the Week long West Virginia Christian Endeavor Convention…

So, if you are keen to see what we are up to at any given moment, please feel free to stop back again…

Much more to come I am sure…

- ‘Till next time
- Joby

1. Read my Bible daily
2. Count to 10 before yelling at the boys
3. Eat better
4. Exercise
5. Focus on my web work
6. Drop more ( EntreCard )
7. Tweet More
8. Learn more RACF / ACF2 / and Natural programming
9. GeoCache more
10. Learn to relax

That is ten of about a million things I want to do.

I am off to start at least one of them.

- ‘Till tomorrow
- Joby

We have come to Connecticut for the wedding of my Father’s step daughter. This was the first time our boys have flown.

We arrived in Hartford on time and made our way to the baggage claim then off to the car rental. That is where the fun began.

We have done all of our reservations electronically this trip so we have no ‘paper’ tickets etc. This proved to be a problem when renting the car because they needed a copy of our itinerary in order to release the vehicle.

I had handed him a hand written confirmation number from the airlines, but he ignored that (at first).

I began to ‘try’ to find our information online using my BlackBerry which ended pretty quickly. The man finally said that we could call the airline and get the confirmation number for our flight… Oh my did Kimmie let him have it… remember above when I said (at first)???

Then came the self serve pick your own car. The kids want this one… the wife “don’t care”… the nice young punks call dibs on the one the kids want… we look for another… I get angry and march into the building… the man says any car out there is available if the keys are in it… so we take the one the kids want…

‘Daddy, I gotta go pee’ – yup… we are driving on I-91 S with two lanes of cars on either side of us when we hear the dreaded phrase. When our youngest finally calls out with the ‘I gotta go pee’ statement, we normally have about 3 minutes to get him somewhere. Somewhere ended up being the side of the highway between the front and rear passenger door…

We made it to the hotel and checked in. It sure does not look like it was described. We are expecting a common living area and two separate bedrooms. We get two bedrooms a long narrow hall and a bathroom. No big we can deal. Then, neither TV remote works, two lights are burned out, the iron does not work, and we get the privilege of a 6am wakeup call via room construction being performed in the room above…

Donovan has had a total of 4 meltdowns so far. One ending up with him wearing his sparkling cider from the toast.

Nick just wants to go to WalMart across from the hotel.

Kim and I are trying to figure out how to visit as many people as we can in our one free day…

Aside from that the wedding was beautiful, the weather has been pretty decent, and the boys have enjoyed their time with Ja Ja n Sue.

That was the first two days…

‘Till next time
- Joby

Yesterday marked day 3 of our journey.

I must mention that i shaved my head today. I know that is not much of a surprise since I am the ‘Bald Fat Guy’ but the shave cream that have here is absolutely the best I have ever used! I will make it a goal to have some to take home!

We started our day with breakfast. I have yet to try any of the domestic favorites, but I may become brave someday.

After breakfast we went to the spa. We were given manicures, pedicures, and a back massage. I debated whether or not to post the before and after pictures of my feet here. I decided to save you the agony.

We returned to our room to find another intricately folded towel sitting on the counter. Today’s towel animal is an elephant. Our housekeeper is pretty talented I must say. He not only doees a superb job making our room fresh and inviting, but I intend to sneak in here the next time he is here and watch him create the next one.

After spending a little time here in the room, we took another walk around the hotel. We went to the gift shop and bought a birthday present for our niece. She turns 6 the day after we return.

We had lunch on outside on the terrace. After this trip I will have to modify my blog to read ‘Blog of a Bald Fatter Guy’ because the food down here is awesome!

After lunch we went to the lobby to wait for my father and his wife. We could not have timed things more perfectly we rounded the corner just as they entered the lobby. They have been coming here for quite some time. So long in fact, everyone knows them by name. ‘Hola Senior Mick! Welcome back’ echoed through the lobby. I now understand why everyone here has been able to pronounce my last name with such accuracy.

Kim and I headed to our room so they could get settled. They called us up to their room – which is smaller than ours but has a much closer view of the ocean – and we talked about their flight etc.

They had an appointment to talk with their representative so we came back to our room. I swear the housekeepers wait in hiding until we leave so they can come into the room and spruce things up. We were gone for maybe 45 minutes but when we got back, the room was tidy. Even the toilet paper ends had been folded into points. Unreal LOL!

We went to the gift shop to get some munchies. There is plenty of good food here, but every now and then you gotta have some doritos ya know? LOL

We ran in to Dad and Sue and made plans for dinner.

Kim and I came back to our room and prepared for dinner. We eat at ‘The Steak’ This is the second time we have eaten dinner outside, and the second time it has rained. It was a brief rain that passed by so quickly we did not move from our table.

After dinner, we walked around outside listening to the waves and the throngs of people chatting with each other. Suddenly We were attacked by Batman and Spidergirl. Ok, not attacked but we were told about the evenings entertainment. They were having a show in the ballroom with some impersonators, drummers, and dancers.  It was a hoot. Check out the pics below.

Before the show stated we headed to the lobby. They have a Christmas tree set up and I had been waiting for it to get dark outside so we could get a good picture of it with the lights on etc. My dad offered to take our picture in front of it. He then made us laugh uncontrollably just before snapping the shot.

After that we went to the show. It was pretty entertaining. When we got there, there was a Michael Jackson impersonator. They also had a Christina Aguilera impersonator. Before the batteries in the camera died, I took the following photos.

It was a good time.

- Joby

When we got up we went out onto the balcony and looked at the ocean. It was so relaxing. There were people swimming already and it was not even 8 am yet. I looked around and saw that the Palace had raked the sand in one spot and written their name in the sand.

There were people out and about already. Each has their own idea of vacation I guess

Kim and I went to our scheduled – buy your membership with us – tour at 9:00. We were introduced to a nice gentleman named Jorge. He was peppy and energetic. He took us to breakfast and then on a tour of the Cancun Palace. He showed us a model the newest one that is being built.

He then took us to a room where there were a crapload of people sitting  and discussing their purchase options. It was loud and busy in there.

He showed us our options and we declined. He had a young lady come over who showed us some more and we declined.

One more lady came to speak with us who showed us a very decent offer and again, we declined.

We are enjoying ourselves here, but I am not sure I wish to commit to a membership yet. Someday perhaps becuase the resorts are worldwide and I would love to go to England soon.

So after our tour, we came back to the Sun Palace to find our room had been cleaned and our mini bar had been restocked with more Coke.  BTW there are no diet sodas down here. They call them ‘light’  so in our minbar, there are both Pepsi Light and Coke Light. LOL. I promised a photo of our room yesterday. Here is our bed, our sink, and the lovely towel swan that was on our dresser when we returned.

We had lunch sent to our room. It was nice.

Finally, Kim talked me into going to the beach. If you know me, you know that the beach and the ocean are not really why I came down here. I don’t normally like either one. The sand was so soft and the water was a heck of a lot warmer than I ever remember it being in New England – even on the hottest day of summer.

Next thing you know I am in the ocean laughing and actually having fun. Thanks Kim

We laid on the lounges for a bit and watched people. If I would have had our camera, this post would have become rated PG-17. Have you even noticed that you rarely see people wearing thongs or speedos that actually should be? We saw a lady in a thong that probably I was sure was going to give me nightmares. Then was the 70 year old man in a speedo that I pointed out to Kim.

Ok I digress…

After the beach, we came back to the room and got showers and went downstairs to do some shopping. We found some really nice items for our family.

After we shopped we came back and got dressed for dinner.

We had dinner outside on the terrace at the Oriental Lounge. It was wonderful until the rain came. It did not last long, but they moved us over to the bar to have our meal.

After dinner, we went to the lobby bar and sat out on the dek listening to the waves. It was nice. We met two couples from Pittsburgh. I asked them where they were from because they were all wearing Steeler shirts. It was kinda neat meeting people from our area all the way down here. LOL.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We went back to our room sat on the balcony for a few minutes and retired for the evening.

We have some spa time planned for this morning and my father and his wife will be here around 2:30.

More tomorrow.

- Joby

This is totally worth getting up at 3am and driving to the airport.

Our flight was 3 1/2 hours long. It was so cool to look out and see the clouds below us. At one point, Kim even pointed out a ship. It was so small I could not see it from my seat. She took the window seat and I was in the middle one. The view from the plane was awesome. I liked seeing the clouds and their shadows on the ocean.

We landed and went through customs. I was a bit nervous as I did not know what to expect. It was pretty quick and painless. We got up to the part where you push a button which determines if your bags will be searched or not. Being ‘Head of the household’ I had to push the button. The light turned green and we were on our way.

My father had warned us about the throngs of people who would want to sell us stuff. We ignored them – we thought. One man came up and asked us who our transportation group was. We told him and he walked us over to a young lady who welcomed us and seemed pretty sincere. She showed us a map of where we are and where things were. She showed us some sites to visit and then it came… The spiel, buy it here for the cheapest price of $80USD. We said no, and then no again, and finally no one more time.

We then went outside to find our ride to the hotel. It was beautiful outside. Warm, sunny (81 degrees) and busy with people moving about to find their transportation.

We found our driver and were asked to wait a few minutes as there were more people expected to arrive. We waited about 10 minutes and were escorted to our hotel. I saw a sign that read ‘You finally found it. Welcome home!’ LOL

When we got to the hotel we were met by a gentleman who gave my wife a flower and shook my hand. He welcomed us to Cancun and wished us a pleasant stay here.

We went in and were welcomed again by woman who pointed us to the front desk for check in. We were immediately handed a glass of champagne. We had arrived way to early and our room was not ready and would not be for about 2 1/2 hours.

We checked in and went to speak to our assistant (I forget what they said she was) Patricia. She was a pleasant young lady who told us of all the attractions that were included with our stay. Remember the offer to see the sites for $80USD? Yeah FREE with our stay!

We had breakfast, sat in the lobby and stared out at the ocean until our room was ready. It was worth the wait! It is awesome. I only have a picture of the view at this point, but will take some more today. I am sitting on the balcony right now typing this. – Going off tangent for a moment. My body is stuck on EST and I wake up most days at around 4:30 so I have been awake since about 3:30 this am.

After we got settled, Kim and I sat on the balcony with our beverages and admired the view. The room has 4 types of liquor and 2 types of beer in the  mini-bar. I tried a light beer domestic to the area, but did not care for it too much.

We chilled out either on the balcony or in the room for a bit and then went to lunch. We chose the same restaurant but sat outside. The food was awesome. They had a decent variety at the buffet. Leave it to me to have Prime Rib on one side of my plate and nachos and cheese on the other

We walked around the hotel outside. There are 4 pools and two outdoor bars.  One of the pools has lounge chairs IN it. I took this picture of one as we walked up the ramp that wraps it. It almost looks like I am in the water because the pool is filled to the very top.

We walked around the inside a bit looking at the shops and admiring the view. The outer wall of the hotel is huge panes of glass so no matter where you are, you can see the beauty of Cancun.

Dinner was again at the same restaurant (there are 4 here) and the food was superb.

Today we are going to take a taxi to the biggest hotel in the Palace Resorts chain. We will have breakfast and listen to a sales pitch – we knew it was coming – we will then come back and spend a whole lot of time on the beach.

More pictures and updates later.

- Joby