The Hultgrens - The USA Journey: May 2009

Monday, May 25, 2009

April 2009...

Once again it’s heading towards the end of another month and I haven’t updated everyone on the month before. I guess trying to get the blog out on time isn’t going to happen on time yet again. Although, that does mean we have been busy with life which is a good thing.

Our month started out with nothing out of the ordinary, sports is well in swing and that means we are out of the house most nights of the week with either one or the other. Baseball takes up time, work for me is a little on the slow side, although at the moment I am spending more time on the marketing side of the business, Bruce is a busy little beaver, as per usual.

We were organizing a basketball team function at one of the players houses so I had to get the flyer finished and printed to go out at practice, I had a catch up with Kristie, which is always lots of fun and with their schedule it’s not an easy thing to achieve. We sit down and have a cuppa and a chat with a good cup of Tetley tea. MMmmmm!!!

The boys had a half day at school (they were going on holidays) one month off, we’ll see how that goes. Jamieson had a baseball game Friday night and played really well, he got a great catch in the outfield, some hits and fielded really great and got the game ball. You can imagine the smile…. It’s was a good day. It was a busy Saturday, Bruce and Jamieson went out for Baseball pictures, Jamieson & I went out after lunch and watched Davis (Kristie’s eldest) play baseball (he plays in the majors) great baseball, great skills. We got back and headed over to Cassandra’s for our ‘Heat’ dinner with the team before the game. Another great game from the Heat, a slow start from the first five, but they recovered and the ended up with the big win. It was a good game and they have a big kid on the Cav’s so Bruce and Iman came up with a strategy and the kids executed well.

We finished the weekend with groceries, cleaning the house. Millie came over for a quick visit and borrowed the lawn mover. It was a nice warm day and Bruce tried to get out and do some yard work, it had been raining so the garden as a little mushy. Hopefully the rain is about over and it’s time for the sun to come out for the next few months.

The boys were out of school so they had a lazy week, Justin and Jeremy still came over after school everyday so they did get some homework in everyday which is nice. David came over for the hang out, so much for over! The rain came down this week and it was pouring, to put it mildly. No baseball for Jamieson, which bummed him out. On Wednesday I took the day off to stay at home with the kids while Bruce was on the road for the whole day, the sweat shop ended up opening and we spent the morning doing angels, although it does give the boys a chance to earn some money.

On Thursday (raining still), back to the office and the kids chilled out at home, Bruce went out on the road in the morning, I was home after lunch and the boys and I did some more angels (Mother’s day is coming and we had to get the stock out) Bruce didn’t get home until late that night, he was in the Bay area (San Francisco) and Kristie was coming back from a flight and didn’t have a car so Bruce stayed in the area and picked her up.

Friday, Good Friday arrived and the weird thing about here, which I’m sure I say every year is that for such a religious society, it’s really not that celebrated. No one here really doesn’t eat meat; some people even told me that they would be eating a steak, horrified!!! Bruce was still out on the road, the boys chilled out at home and it was just beginning to stop raining, which also meant no baseball. We went out for Fish ’n’ chips, which aren’t the same as at home but not bad. Then looked around a little to walk the fatty batter off and headed home for a movie.

We spent a very quiet Easter Saturday, chilling out around the house, did some cleaning and tidying and Bruce and I organized our Sunday plans. The boys woke up on Easter Sunday and the Easter bunny had been and left some Cadbury chocolate (Humpty Dumpty’s…mmmmm), the boys scored some cool little pressies and we had some breakfast together and got the boys ready for their trip (which they had no idea about)

They had some fun trying to guess, considering they had to get out, coats, hats, gloves and sunglasses. They had no idea; it was very funny watching them trying to figure it out. Finally when we were half way up the highway we told them, we are going to find some snow and play. YEAY!!! They were so excited, it was great, we snacked in the car and talked about how much fun we were going to have and then found a cool little place to stop.

We stopped and had a blast, played in the snow, made snow men, snow fights, had some greasy hamburgers and chilled out. We jumped back in the car with wet feet, but mostly dried out and found another cool place to stop. We got there just in time, we had been there a while and it was like a wagon train of cars arrived…so the boys finished with the sliding down the hill and we went exploring to find some other little gems to play in, it was lots of fun, we all did dome sliding and when Mum is coming down the hill screaming, it’s very amusing for the children (& husband!). By this time it was mid afternoon and we were all saturated, we jumped into the car and drove a little more until we got to “Donna Lake”, we stopped and got changed into dry clothes before heading for home…. The boys slept most of the way, it’s tiring all that playing in the snow, but what a fun day.

We made a pit stop on the way home at the batting cages for Jamieson to get a little practice in before his next game, his last couple of games had been cancelled due to rain so a few swings wouldn’t do any harm.

The next week was fairly typical, Bruce and I had work, the boys just chilled at home and played at the park, the weather was warming up. Jamieson had baseball practice and game on Tuesday night, they lost but played well. He’s not setting the world on fire but playing fairly consistently. Dad’s birthday on Tuesday, so I rang home and had a birthday chat!! On Wednesday we booked our trip to Southern California, a place called Indio which is about 15 mins past Palm Springs. Jamieson had another game on Friday, it was a great game, and all the boys played really well. As always the mum’s had a really good time too. We sit behind home plate, because Karen is scorekeeper and chat and score and just generally have a great time. We have as much fun as the boys.

We/ (I) spent Saturday getting ready for our trip, packing etc. Conner had a basketball game, won again, it was a good game, Conner got bumped around a little but they all played really well and it ended up being a blow out.

On Sunday morning we packed the car and were off…… see trip blog.

We were up and out of the house to Jamieson’s baseball game; he was clearly out of sorts, maybe still in holiday mode, a little flaky. Not baseball ready, as they say here. We went home and I tried to unpack amidst all the chaos, boys running around etc…. we went to Conner’s basketball game; we played Jordan’s team. Jordan was a boy that Bruce coached in one of Jamieson’s teams and he was supposed to be on Conner’s team this season, great player, even better family, they are really cool fun. The poor kid; Jordan plays point guard and let’s just say Bruce put the dogs on him (which means, Conner and David trap him, and I have to say as a team, the Heat do a GREAT trap!) poor Jordan didn’t stand a chance and by the time the scoreboard was turned off around half time (which means they are more than 20 up) poor Jordan was looking a little disheartened. I walked past his family and I said, sorry. His dad Riz, laughed at me and said, tell your husband to call of the dogs. I yelled out to Bruce and he went,

Ooppps, sorry I forgot. The team goes into trap mode and it’s hard to get them to take a step back. Another great game, it will be sad when the season is over, we headed home for a long sleep….

AS you can imagine, Sunday consisted of finishing unpacking etc and doing NOTHING!!!!

We ended the month with a fairly usual week. Bruce went out on the road a couple of days, the boys chilled out around the house. We had basketball practice and baseball practice. Jamieson had a baseball game; it was a really windy day and let’s just say, our pitchers couldn’t get it together in the wind so it ended up being not a fun game for the Cardinals….

We had a busy month, but part of that was having a fantastic family vacation.

April Pics....

Jamieson - Cardinal N#23

Conner - Heat N# 0

HAPPY EASTER - We went chasing snow. What did you do for Easter 09?

Indio trip Vacation

We all got up Sunday morning and starting getting ready for the trip, the bags were packed I just had to organize some of the food. We left a little behind schedule but made up the time, we made great time down the highway and with only a couple of stops, one time we didn’t want some of the incompetent drivers who sit in the fast lane pass us so we did a pit lane stop, (on the run), we hit ‘The Valley’ mid afternoon and we were in Indio at 5.00pm.

Sorry not too much exciting news, it was driving for most of it…. The boys slept for a lot of it, but we did see/ drive through some new places on the way to another new place. I’d say we can now add a few more places we’ve seen to our list, which is always a good thing and part of the reason we love doing this. Bruce got to see the complete nothing between Sacramento and LA, as he’s only ever driven it in the dark.

We got to the apartment, it was really nice, the boys up one end and Bruce and I up the other, yeay we won’t be able to hear them bickering. We changed and headed down to the pool, there wasn’t many people there which was great. It was HOT, we chilled out at the pool then went on the Lazy pool (which was the pool with a one way current, you sit on tubes and go for a ride around the pool) very cool and relaxing most of the time.

Hunger was starting to set in so we headed off to the supermarket, got some food, had some dinner and watched some TV. Bruce and I were exhausted so we headed off to bed and left the boys watching the end of the movie and playing game boy. It’s a holiday, so they can stay up as late as they want, the good thing is they are usually ready for sleep not too late so that makes life easier for us.

We woke up and had some breakfast, Bruce and I went down to the lazy pool and walked (adults can go down between 8.00-9.00am and walk against the current for a morning workout) which was nice, no noise, time to talk.

We got back, Bruce and the boys went down to the game rooms, I packed the pool bag and I headed down to the pool around 10.00am. There was next to no one there, spring break was officially over so it was really, retired people – who have spent WAY too many hours in the sun – some of them looking like they had crocodile skin and families with young kids. The boys went to play in the game room and participate in the shoot out @ 10.00am. I went and found them and they were the only contestants which was a bit of a bummer, but they got some shooting in, by this time it was getting really hot, (suppose to be 102F (about 38C)) we chilled out by the pool, the boys swam and swam, we went back and forth from the lazy pool and headed back up the apartment for some lunch around 1.30… a nice relaxing but hot morning.

We headed back down to the pool later in the afternoon for a while and headed back to the apartment for some dinner. We ate out on the terrace over looking the pool area, it had cooled down a little and it was nice to sit there with the family and talk and relax over some yummy food.

After dinner and darkness had set in, we headed back down to the pool and the boys swam and Bruce and I had a spa…

AARRHHH!!!!! A perfect day in the sun!!!

Another day in paradise, even if it is a HOT paradise, Tuesday was scheduled to be the hottest day of the week; we got to the pool early, found a great spot with some shade if we wanted and had a fantastic morning in and out of the pool, lazy pool, laying in the sun, it was perfect. Bruce and Conner went and participated in the Trivia Comp in the morning, again they were the only ones there but they had a fun time. We chatted to some nice people, in and out of the pool, the kids played. Conner headed up around lunchtime and we followed not long after.

We had some lunch and spend the hotter part of the day in the apartment, watching a movie, playing game boy and reading….we headed down and to the pool in the afternoon, not long, went back up stairs and had some dinner. We had a quiet evening in with the basketball playoffs… aarhhh; on holidays and still a basketball widow.

Another day in paradise, again, we spent the morning by the pool, by this time Conner is done with the whole sun thing and I think was a little water logged, so he just wanted to chill out in the apartment. The rest of us went to the pool and Conner stayed behind, he came down later and played with us for a while, then we headed back to the apartment for some lunch.

After lunch Bruce and I went out and did some shopping and looked around while the boys chilled out in the apartment. We headed back to the apartment with some goodies we found and organized some dinner. After dinner Jamieson and I went out and looked around the rest of the resort and to find the tennis courts, we were booked in to play in the morning and I thought we should know where we were going. We walked around the buildings and found the tennis courts and saw another pool area which looked like ours in the background, it was dark by now, but the tennis courts were lit up and we were really looking forward to playing. The wind started to pick up so we made our way back home.

We woke up on Thursday morning and the wind was BLOWING, we had to cancel tennis, it was just too windy to bother, Jamieson was upset but he got over it when we said we were going to the pool. Bruce and the boys went for a walk to video some of the resort, they found the other pool and there was a fountain back there, they went off to play. I relaxed for a little while longer then made my way down to the other pool, it was really hot by this stage. It was our last day at the resort and we didn’t really want to leave, I got to the pool and the boys were having sooo much fun.

We stayed at the pool and the boys played in the pool and in the fountain, we all swam and played chasey in the pool and had a great time for out last afternoon in the pool….we had plans to go to the outdoor market in Palm Springs so we had to leave, much to the boys disgust. Bruce booked us to go and have a tour of the new Presidential Suite which this resort has, so we went and had a look. It was a gorgeous suite, like an up market apartment. We did however have a great chat with the great people who work at the resort, they were really nice and we even got some great tips on vacationing with them.

Our little outing ended up putting us a little behind our original schedule, we showered and changed and headed up to Palm Springs for this outdoor market that everyone has been telling us about.

It really was a beautiful place, they blocked off 8 blocks of one street, there was no wind and the gorgeous desert mountains were an amazing back drop. We walked up and down the street, it was a real festival feel, we got some pressies, the only thing we didn’t like was the food, it really wasn’t anything that the boys eat, so we ended up stopping on the way back and grabbed something then.

We were up and trying to get out of the apartment before 7.00am, which we nearly made. We had some breakfast, cleaned up the apartment a little and left just a little behind schedule. We made our way up the freeway towards LA and Universal Studio’s. The boys must have been tired from all that doing nothing all week, because they slept that whole way to LA. I checked the traffic on Bruce’s IPhone and updated Facebook (I love the IPhone, it’s fun) We got a great run and made it to Universal earlier than expected so we stopped and had some more breakfast at Macca’s (Hotcakes... mmmmmm) before heading into Universal Studios and parking the car. As in all parks etc over here, there is no food or drinks allowed through the gates so we stuffed some muesli bars etc in our pockets and headed in.

You have to walk through a small retail street with stores and Movie Theater before getting to the entrance which we checked out when we left. We headed into the entrance and it felt a lot like when we went into Disneyland…. Just down the street the boys had their picture taken with The Simpsons characters. We decided to do the Studio Tour first and get it out of the way and then do the rest of the park for the rest of the day.

We got onto the bus and we headed off, we were at a Movie studio so of course there would be effects etc, and Jamieson just freaked out, it was like he thought it was real, luckily Bruce had been on it before and tried to give him a heads up, but for some of the stuff it didn’t really matter, especially when we were in the strain station and floods, trains exploding and fire, the poor thing could not get more under Bruce’s armpit!!! Conner enjoyed it so that was a good thing, we can also say we were there when Desperate Housewives was shooting; we had to be quiet while driving past, so that was pretty cool.

We made it back and Jamieson could not get out of the train fast enough, then we made our way around the rest of the park, Jamieson isn’t so much into rides so Bruce and Conner went on pretty much all of them, the difference with some of the ‘experiences’ at Universal is that they take about 20 mins, so there were some times where Jamieson and I were walking around waiting!!! And when Jamieson is bored, Jamieson is hungry….

We made it through the day without too many arguments, had some yummy lunch at the diner, walked up Abbey Road, got some good pics for the albums (blog), had a couple of nice family ones taken too YEAY!!! It wasn’t as great as Disneyland, not nearly as big, but it was wrong of me to think it was going to be a similar experience.

The day was getting on and so we left and looked through the stores, Conner was in heaven at the sports store which was pretty much LA Lakers stuff, he even found a key ring with his name spent correctly as well as a sign plaque in another store, he was in CONNER dreamland…poor Jamieson didn’t have any souvenir from the day yet and wasn’t happy at all, poor kid. We managed to find him a Cleveland Cavaliers flag so that made him happy. We looked around a little bit more and made our way back to the car, because we were all hungry. We ate on the road and got caught in some traffic heading to the grapevine (which leads out of Fernando Valley out of LA heading North on Highway I5) on the way home.

We stopped and woke up the boys about half way home at a little roadhouse and had some dinner, it was very yummy and our waitress was nice, we jumped back into the car and drove and drove and drove…..Bruce drove into the driveway around 1.00am….. We got out of the car and fell into bed!! What a great week, another fun family holiday with a few more places ticked off the list.