INTO THE WEST SUMMER VACATION



It was planned that we will drive into the west for our summer Vacation, since Anna will be with us for 3 weeks during her summer vacation. We packed out little car and prepared Mark to drive for the long haul, with his little pregnant wife ( "that's me") and his daughter, Anna. Mark drove 12 hours to our first stop, Albuquerque, NM. The we saw Pueblo houses and interesting colored rocks and canyons....Before we ended up that night, we drove to Barnes and Noble to buy Anna some books for her to read during our journey. Mark enjoyed his coffee in the bookstore and I browsed through the pregnancy magazines. The next day, our destination was Flagstaff, AZ, but we stopped at Earl's Family restaurant for brunch where the Native Americans have their little jewelry stand outside and some of the come to our table and sold pottery and jewelries. I bought Mark couple of the potteries and Anna few bracelets, of course I bought me a bracelet too.
We arrived in Flagstaff to our Hotel, which was very conducive, then we decided to drive to the Grand Canyon since it was 80 miles away and we had the time for that day. It rained during our drive, but as we got the the park, it was dry. We had a little trouble finding one of the lookouts....but the price of it all was to see one of God's wonderful creations... the Grand Canyon. It was peaceful....I heard the smoothness of the mild wind blowing through the Canyon. As our day ended, we went to sleep to our cozy bed.
After breakfast, we headed to Las Vegas wherein we planned to stay for 4 days for my Father's side of the family's reunion. However, we also met my cousins at my mother's side. It was nice to see them. It was hot and tiring to walk around the strip during the day, we wanted to see alot of the hotels, but time was not enough. Out last night in Vegas was nice, because we watched Mytere by Cir de Soleil. It was a beautiful, funny program.
Monday, July 28, we headed to Sacramento to meet with Mark's bestfriend, Steffan & his family; and one of my bestfiends, Menchu and her family too. Steffan was Mark's best man on our Wedding and Menchu was my matron of honor. What a coincidence that they are both around Sacramento, CA. We also met my cousins on my father's side, they cooked us dinner, "pinakbet," because I haven't had rice for a while. Menchu and Val bar-b-qued some ribs and prepared lots of food for us to eat. Anna loved the Cantaloupe that was sliced....they were sweet. We also ate at a Japanese restaurant and on our last night, Steffan grilled some bratwurst, hotdog and my beef for a little gathering in his house. We ended up with our good byes for our 2 weeks of vacation was about to end.