30 Tuesday Sep 2008
Posted in Marini Family: Main
29 Monday Sep 2008
Posted in Marini Family: Main
Thanks to my sweet Mother being in town and needing a ride to the Boise Airport, we were able to have a roadtrip to Idaho! We had a wonderful time. The weather was great, traffic was light and everything just went smoothly. We left home Saturday morning around 8am. We stopped in Twin Falls to get lunch, at McDonalds. In Utah, as you might know, McDonalds does not sell the $1 McChicken.
McChicken
Instead, they sell some horrible Hot N’ Spicy Chicken. It’s always a treat to go out of state and enjoy one of our favorite fast foods. They were as good as remembered! We continued on the road and arrived in Boise around 2:30. Pretty good time, considering the stops and some light road construction. One of my former co-workers who moved up to Boise recently, recommended The Discovery Center of Idaho. It was very cool! Wyatt had a blast. I had a good time. My favorite was the bridge-builder computer program they had. It’s great because it’s totally hands-on, kids can get totally wrapped up into things. Wyatt still found a way to get into trouble. As well as playing tour guide to “help” other folks know how to work the different exhibits. I took Mom to the airport to see her off. Later, we met Rachel’s friends at On The Border (another favorite of ours that isn’t in Utah) for dinner. They let us sack out in their spare room.
We slept good, hung out for a few hours to visit before they had to go to Church. We packed up, and left town around 12:30. We filled up there the day before. I refilled in Salt Lake City and calculated just shy of 35 MPG! I love my little Civic! That was running the AC the entire trip too. We ate some dinner and headed home for the night. It always is rewarding to settle into our own home on our own bed.
Tons of thanks for everything to my Mom, and Amy and Mark. You all were great and made our trip possible and very enjoyable.
-Timmy
26 Friday Sep 2008
Posted in Marini Family: Main
I caught a bit of a hint that she’d be coming into town for my birthday last weekend. Then when Rachel said we’d need to clean out the spare room, it was pretty obvious. She arrived late Tuesday night with Aunt Kris. They had flown from Seattle to Boise, rented a car then drove the 6 hours here. Aunt Kris’ daughter, Sherry, works for Alaska Airlines and was able to get them good, cheap tickets. Unfortunately, Alaska doesn’t fly into Salt Lake. Aunt Kris left the next morning and ended up having to just stay in a motel as her brother, David wasn’t at home at all. She flew out yesterday, from Boise.
With Mom at the house, we arranged with daycare to drop Wyatt off at home after kindergarten. This has been a great thing. Wyatt loves his Grandma Marini! They’ve been hanging out. Mom’s been busy doing projects, both big and small, around the house. She cleared out our planter area in the front of our house, trimmed the rosebushes and is looking to plant some more flowers. She also fixed our back screen door that’s been all jacked up since we put it in when we moved in. It’s been really good having her around. I feel a little ashamed that some of this stuff we could have done, but never had the motivation to do it.
We are definitely happy to have her here! It’s been wonderful having her. I’m grateful that she is healthy and well enough to make things like this happen. I love my Mother. She is wonderful. She’s been though a lot and while she’s become more eccentric, she is still my Mother and is just wonderful! Thank you for coming, Mom!
-Timmy
25 Thursday Sep 2008
Posted in Marini Family: Main
Not ranked among some of the more important ages in a person’s life, I reached my 32nd birthday yesterday. Some of those ages could include 13, now a teenager; 16, I can drive now; 18, I can go to jail now (I’m an adult); 21, I can legally drink; then pretty much each decade is a marker year. Over this past year, much has happened. It felt like at each corner I turned, my life was changed in some major way! The hormone therapy and all it’s consequences, getting a dream job that turned into a nightmare, Rachel getting a job that made our finances even worse, my new job (again!), Wyatt’s education debacle (Castleland episode), and on and on!
The day started pretty normally, other than being extra tired due to staying up late the night before when my mom and aunt arrived. That was the first gift! Work was typical, not too busy. I got a great birthday card everyone signed and a Gift Card for the movies. That was great. I went home and my mom and son had put up a large sign on the garage door wishing me a happy birthday. We went to eat at Tucanos, mom’s treat! I got a cool dart-tag game from Wyatt, a giftcard for Costco from Bekah, the 3 star wars prequels on dvd, a country CD, a nice polo shirt, and some more Drakkar Noir cologne from Rachel.
I’ll try to add some pics to this post later today.
Thank you to everyone who pitched in to provide me with another memorable and fun birthday! I had a very good day!
-Timmy
23 Tuesday Sep 2008
Posted in Marini Family: Main
Tags
Entertainment, Mamma Mia, park city, time share, utah, westgate
We had a late anniversary, early birthday celebration up in Park City, UT. Park City was the home of the 2002 Winter Olympics and hosts the yearly Sundance Film Festival. It’s a cozy little town filled with great shops and eateries. If you’ve been to Marin County, in California, you might see some common themes. Not necessarily in building styles, but in an almost elite fashion. You see a lot of natural foods, organic ingredients and a very healthy overall feeling. Park City is home to many more wealthy residents. The folks at the resort mentioned they just sold a whole wing of their resort as condominiums to individual owners from $500,000 up to over $2 million! Since they are classified and insured as vacation homes, they can’t even live there full time. This gives you an idea of the environs.
We saw this opportunity when we were at the Utah State Fair earlier this month. We own a timeshare with Westgate Resorts in Orlando, FL. As owners, we were able to stay free for 2 nights up at their Park City resort as long as we completed an owner survey. We arrived and after some difficulty getting a room (they were fully booked), we got our place at the hotel next door. It was just as nice and we had full use of their amenities as well as the Westgate Resort amenities.
Turns out we didn’t really need these amenities as we were able to keep busy with crusing around town and other entertaining activites. 
The survey/tour/tryandgetustospendmoremoney was a headache as somehow our registration we took care of well in advance had vanished. We got taken care of, heard some upgrade options and went about our merry way. We saw Mamma Mia! at the local cinema. I actually liked it! It was Rachel’s 2nd time seeing it. We went around, seeing things, dodging rain and thunderstorms. All in all it was a great trip!
On our way home, we stopped in Layton and watched Burn After Reading. Please, don’t watch this movie. It is very oddball, which is typical for a Coen Brothers movie, like O Brother, Fargo, Raising Arizona, etc… We nearly just walked out. We headed back, picked Wyatt up from his Aunt Bekah’s house, grabbed some dinner and went home.
If you have the chance, check out Park City. It’s a lot of fun. It’s about 20 mins from Salt Lake City, east on I-80, towards Evanston, WY.
