I drove down to Hollister yesterday to visit my grandmother and on the way back I stopped to see Wendy and Dave.  Laine had just the day before decided that she could ride her dirt bike sans training wheels so of course I had her demo for me.  Those girls are just too damn cute.  Check out the quick video I took with my new Flip Video Camera (more on that later, it rocks).

Yep, we went to Las Vegas this weekend to see Bette Midler’s new show at the Colosseum at Caesars.  She was amazing.  Of course the vast majority of the audience seemed to be either Jewish women or gay men, so there was a significant amount of pushing and shoving to get at the limited number of black underwear with the word “Divine” printed on the ass in rhinestones.  She did all the old favorite, including a great set as Dolores the Mermaid.  Her and her entire cast (the Caesar Salad Dancers and the Staggering Harlots) managed to pull off the entire segment wearing mermaid fins and performing the dance numbers in motorized wheelchairs.  During this number she actually did sing both “Play That Funky Music White Fish” as well as “Bad Fish, Bad Fish, You’re Such a Stinky Bad Fish”.

Truly, the show took a tremendous amount of energy to put on, and Bette looks awesome.  She totally pulled it off and we have said that despite the high ticket prices, we would totally go back again if we were with other people that wanted to go.   The show’s at Ceaser’s seem to be on a rotation with Bette, Elton John (saw the show, loved it), and Cher.  And who says Vegas isn’t gay?

We took a bit of a risk and stayed at the new tower at the Venetian, called the Palazzo.  We were a little worried because the hotel only opened in January, but it turned out to be a good choice and we will probably stay there again.  We reserved The Siena Suite which turned out to be vast, and we also rented the attached Luxury Suite for our friends Matt and Kevin.  Combined, the two rooms were over 2000 square feet.  There are some pictures below which show that they were very well done.  The only complaint I have is that they were under furnished (maybe they just are not done yet?).  Some critical pieces seemed to be missing, and although some of the hooks were on the walls, not much of the art had been hung, so it gave the room a bit of a stark, empty feeling.  We were on the 45th floor overlooking the Strip so the views were amazing.  We even had a very large bird perch on the ledge outside the window, which was cool until we realized that he was there to rip apart the smaller bird he had caught for lunch.  In general it was a great place and we will probably return once they have some of the details worked out (like how to get our room cleaned before 3:00pm!)

I don’t think any of us really won or lost any big money, but we had a great time and finished off with an amazing breakfast at Bouchon before our flights back to San Francisco.

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Tim and I had the pleasure of spending last week on the Big Island of Hawaii with my parents and some of their friends for their 40th wedding anniversary. There was also a roping over the long weekend, and I have posted some pictures of that here . We had a really great trip though, just the perfect amount of some time on the beach and by the pool, as well as quite a few fun side trips.

On Tuesday we drove south of Kona and went out on a boat to do some snorkeling and whale watching. I created a separate entry and gallery for that here . Later that afternoon we went to the coffee farm of a guy that Pete and my dad met while they were roping over the weekend. Roger (of Captain Cook Coffee Company ) was really very nice to have us up to his place for beers and then give us a tour of his plants as well as his mill. Who knew there was such a complex process for getting the damn bean out of the red berry? Anyhow, Tim loved learning more about the plants, since he has tried to grow coffee plants indoors here in San Francisco, but with little success. Below is a picture of Roger’s farm, more pictures in the gallery at the bottom.

On Wednesday we had a great dinner at Pahu i’a . Tim and I went for breakfast in the morning and scoped out the perfect table. It was practically on the sand and was about as close to eating on the beach as you can get. We went the the Lava Lounge upstairs early so that we could watch the amazing sunset adn then sat down for a long and wonderful meal. Here is a picture of Mom and Dad and Tim and I in the lounge before dinner.

Almost everyone left on Friday during the day but Debbie and Tim and I were on the night flight. We had a great afternoon walking along the water at Hualalai and we finally did see a giant turtle. Below is Deb and Tim with the turtle, as well as both of them at dinner.

we finished off the evening with a perfect dinner at Alan Wong’s . The lobster bouillabaisse was amazing! Check out the remainder of the pictures in the gallery below, or click here for a link to all three galleries of pictures from Hawaii.

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Actually it was the Hula Kai , not the Minnow . And it was about five hours, not three, but we did give ourselves Gilligan’s Island names when we went out snorkeling and whale watching today. I of course had to be The Professor. Debbie was Ginger, the glamorous movie star. Tim said he was opting for Mrs. Howell because she never had to actually do anything and she was filthy rich.  My dad will always be Gilligan.

We left from a little harbor just south of Kona on what turned out to be a very nice boat with a very nice and helpful crew. I always worry about tours like this because you can get crews that are snotty or rude, but these guys were great. Food was good, equipment was well maintained. All around it was a fun day. We did see some whales but pretty much minor sightings (too bad they don’t hurl themselves out of the water for every boat that goes by).

The snorkeling was in a good spot too, and we all went. Tim bought a disposable underwater camera so a couple of the pictures are from that (including the one above). Plenty of other pictures of our day at sea in the gallery below. How’s that mask mom?

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