Vacation to Pennsylvania (Days 1-3)

We finally made it out east to visit my brother and his family in Pennsylvania. They have spent the past year living in the small rural town of Summerville which is about 2 hours out of Pittsburgh. I'm not kidding about the rural thing... or the small part of that last sentence. Summerville is a town of about 300, there are farms all around, and we have even passed some Amish people in their horse and buggy. We were also able to visit Punxsutawny and the famous groundhog site.

One of the biggest attractions out here, besides family of course, is the beautiful country, rolling hills, and greenery. There aren't really mountains to speak of, but the thick, green, mossy groves have been so scenic, especially for us coming from the desert land of Utah.

Another fun part of the trip thus far has been our nephew, Ty. He turns two on July 4th, and is at such a cute stage of life right now. He has a pretty good little vocabulary and little phrases, but he likes to stick with his favorites like: Weis (meaning Trish), Wado (water), puball (football), and other cute little sayings. He hasn't hit the terrible two's yet and is at a really fun age. He laughs a lot and loves to be outside, usually throwing rocks, playing with balls, or trying to smash bugs with his plastic golf clubs.

My brother and his wife Erica have been wonderful hosts for us. We have been fed well and have really enjoyed our first couple of days in Pennsylvania so far.

Disneyland trip

Time to get back into blogging...

I'll start with a brief report of our trip to Disneyland and Southern Calironia.

We were in much need of a Spring Break trip while Trish was off track from school, so we headed south. Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on how you look at it), it didn't turn out to be so sunny. So on the down side, it wasn't that warm, we got rained on a bit, didn't swim at the beach, and don't have much of a tan to show off. But on the good side of it, we had a great couple days of short lines at Disneyland. The cool weather and rain kept the big crowds away and that opened up the park for us to enjoy. We hit most of the big rides several times. Using our 2-day park hopper pass, we got back and forth to California Adventures and Disneyland to definitely get our fill of rides. Great time.

We still made it out to the beach...
we visited Crystal Cove State Park, Laguna Beach, and Huntington Beach.

We also visited Universal Studios...
saw the Hollywood sign, rode some more rides, saw some cool movie sets and special effects stuff. Pretty cool!

And we made it out to a Yanees vs. Angels baseball game

Tickets? $15 a piece

Parking across the street from the stadium? $20

2 hot dogs and a small soda? $9.50

Seeing the Yankees lose? Priceless

Overall, we had a great time. It was a lot of driving and the weather wasn't what we hoped it would be. We definitely enjoyed a few days of vacation though.

World's biggest burger

http://www.dennysbeerbarrelpub.com/burger.htm

Warning, not for the faint of heart! This looks delicious and is wonderfully presented. Bugers are some of the best tasting works of art, and here's proof.

First Success of 2006!

Great news from the Lewis' house and the first real success of the new year: Trish found my car keys that had been lost for about a month in the cracks of the couch cusions.

Things like this only happen in the movies. I never lose my keys. I have always put them on the key holder in our kitchen, I keep good track of them, but for some reason lost them about a month ago. Luckily, I had a spare set for my car and wasn't hurting for transportation. But missing were my little Leatherman, my USB jumpDrive, my Chicago Bears keychain, my fingernail clippers, and my chapstick (yes that is a lot to have on a key chain with only 2 keys).

But yesterday, my wonderful wife found them stuck between the couch cusions in our family room. I can already tell, 2006 is going to be a great year.

Colin's Column Book Club: Band of Brothers

The next book in our continuing series of our World War II history study is Band of Brothers. The author, Stephen E. Ambrose, is the same guy who wrote our first book Pegasus Bridge. I'm not kidding you, I will probably read everything he has written. He's that good.

Although we haven't finished reading Omaha Beach, we are taking a small detour for this one. A co-worker recommended the HBO mini series that was made from this book. So as I started watching the mini-series I became completely enthrawled with the story.

The story follows the 101st airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. The men of Easy Company were all volunteers for the "Screaming Eagles" parachute regiment. We open up with the men in training at Camp Toccoa. They're soon shipped off to England to prepare for their role in the D-Day invasion. The rest of the story follows their involvement in numerous other battles, seemingly many of the major assignments and tough missions.

But the book and mini-series are more than just a historical record of what E Company accomplished. It is a first person view from the front lines, a broader perspective from the eyes of the officers. It is a tale of the drama and emotion of watching your best friends get blown up right in front of you. It details the hardship and misery of defending a line out of a foxhole in freezing temperatures with little to eat, no winter clothing, and fear of mortar shells. Ambrose does a wonderful job depicting the daily trials of the soldiers using first person accounts and incredible narrative.

I'm only about half way through the book and I've seen 8 of the 10 episodes from the mini-series. But I donated blood yesterday and almost passed out (another story of it's own) for the first time in my life because of the impact this story has had on me. I'm not kidding, I have thanked the Lord a little extra every time I have a warm meal and can wake up in a warm bed because of what I have seen and learned through this.

I'm not trying to go all ethical and serious on y'all, but the book and mini-seris are that good. I am always impressed with the ability of historians to piece together everything (even 60+ years later) to recreate the events. Ambrose has a great writing style that is both easy to read and intriguing at the same time. This is a great, great story and Ambrose and HBO have done an incredible job telling it.

(Disclaimer: Although the HBO mini-series is listed as "unrated" it has a lot of violence, obviously, and typical military speak. Be warned.)

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Other Related Links:
Screaming Eagle Vetrans Website - http://www.screamingeagle.org/
Lock 'n Load: Band of Heroes Wargame - http://www.locknloadgame.com/