Better Late Than Never

Brig here. I am about to return home from Iraq and have been naturally been thinking about home and vacation. Well, one of the things I thought about was the last time I was home and our vacation then. That was six months ago--Christmas time--and I agreed to chronicle my December "R&R" leave with a post or two on this blog, since Shayla posts all the other times. Well, I kept part of the bargain with a post about the first week I was home. It took so long to post because of the internet speed here (loading one picture can take 15 minutes or so at times) that I joked then that I might not be up to finishing recapping our vacation. I wrote then, "I had no idea blogging was so demanding. Hopefully I'll still have a desire to post about the rest of my R&R time. We'll see!"

I kept putting it off, and as time passed I forgot to finish up...

So, here I am trying to keep my end of the bargain with my wife. It is small and trivial at this point (who really cares about what we did last December?), but it is still a promise--and a promise kept late is better than a promise never kept.

At least you might get to see some pretty pictures and possibly get some vacation ideas.

Here goes nothing...

For our little Christmas vacation, we drove from Provo to Southern California with a two-day stopover in Las Vegas.


Max discovered what a buffet is while we stayed at the Luxor. After the looks from the waitresses and the increasing number of used plates, we felt like we should have paid full price for him!

Checking out the Christmas decorations at The Bellagio.

There is no grass in Iraq where I am, so after eight months, I couldn't resist.

After seeing some sights in Vegas, we headed off to California for our stay on Catalina Island. We spent Christmas out there and it was really peaceful and relaxing. It certainly wasn't a traditional Christmas holiday, but it was just what the doctor ordered.


Here is the boat that took us out to the island. It was about a 45 minute ride and Max had the time of his life.

Here is where I go off on a little tangent, so bear with me. An interesting thing happened while we were waiting to get on the boat. While we were eating a quick lunch in the waiting area, this guy next to us started talking to Max and laughing at him. I thought he looked really familiar, and he was acting a little strange and his behavior was somewhat outlandish. He was strangely dressed--red flannel jacket, jeans, UGG boots, and a ball cap over his bleach blonde hair that was in a pony tail. He also had a brown moustache, piercing blue eyes, and a dimpled chin. Anyway, I couldn't figure out where I had seen him before. Then it dawned on me: he was John Travolta! I kept staring at him out of the corner of my eye while he played with Max and I noticed that the hair was a wig, and that his jeans had a crease in them--brand new jeans. Then, I thought, who wears UGG boots when the rest of their outfit is that of a lumberjack? It was a disguise! He was trying to look like some regular guy. I put all the pieces together...I had always heard of celebrities who went out in public in disguise so they could be "normal" again. He really avoided eye contact with us and just kept acting so weird--he was just doing his day job. While he was playing with Max, I discreetly wrote "That's John Travolta!" on the back of our receipt and showed it to Shayla, and her surprised face as she took a better look confirmed what I already knew to be true.

Anyway, this is starting to drag, so I'll try to wrap it up. There were other things he kept doing as we got on the boat, during the ride, etc. that just fueled our suspiscion fire. Then, when we got off the boat, he waited until everyone had left and then stood there waiting on the dock. Meanwhile, we waited at the top of the ramp because we wanted to see his eyes and face directly. While we were waiting, a little boat came and picked him up and took him somewhere on the island, presumably to his vacation home there or something. How come all he had was a small backpack if he wasn't John Travolta with a vacation home on the island?

We later saw the guy who came and picked him up and Shayla even asked him about it and he acted kind of strange and denied it all. But, after I finally googled John Travolta, I realized it couldn't have been him because that guy was my height (6' in shoes) and according to various trustworthy internet sources, Travolta is 6'2". So, we were a little disappointed, but it made for an interesting time. The sad part of this story is that not long after, Travolta's son died.


"John Travolta" is the guy on the right...

Here are some pictures of Catalina Island for your enjoyment...It is a great place to go, just check it out online if you want to know more. I'm tired of blogging! :)











Almost finished. On Christmas Eve we ate dinner at a place on the beach called El Galleon. You can see that we had to turn Max around so he couldn't watch us eat because he was eating so much that his eyes were crossing...




The next day after our little Christmas morning, we went on an underwater tour and saw fish and sea lions. We also goofy-golfed and took Max to a movie in the old Casino building you see in all the pictures. Max was worn out! At least he had some energy to help me drive back to Utah.




P.S.
If you are looking to save gas $, consider Catalina. Most people ride bikes, walk, or drive golf carts. Here are a few neat ones we saw.



That's it. I'm finally finished. We'll see if I have another one in me in about six months or so...