Summer Travels

This is a re-post from my family blog, but I wasn't about to rewrite and reformat this whole thing. We've needed to update everyone on us for a while. This summer has been practically non-stop travels. It started out being fun, but week-after-week in hotels can start to wear on you. But we've got lots of pictures, so without further ado, here are the summer escapades of Joseph and Melinda.

The first of June we went to Texas for the Draschil Family Reunion. There was skiing, kneeboarding, swimming, lots of food, corny talents, and plenty of relaxing. It's amazing how rewarding it is to get back together with people you love and to just spend time together. At the end of June (June 29th to be exact) I waited in line for most of the day in order to buy an iPhone. See my post below for more details. In short, yep, it is everything it is marketed to be and an absolute joy to use. I'll let you play with it the next time you see me.

Setting aside my materialness and idols of plastic and chrome, we move into July. The first two weeks of July we were on vacation, first at Melinda's family reunion and then in California with Melinda's school kids.

The reunion was in Waterton, Canada, and we rode four-wheelers, relaxed, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We stayed in a quaint Swiss-looking lodge (the first of our 3-week hotel rooms). I tried my hand at fishing for the second time, but there's no picture for that because I didn't catch anything.



That vacation ended all-too-soon as we headed out to California for the FCCLA National Competition. Melinda had 12 kids qualify for the competition, and we spent the week chaperoning (babysitting) them...even on our anniversary. The good news is that we also got to go to cool places like Universal Studios and Disneyland for free.

Herding 12 kids around for a week ain't easy, so believe me when I say we were glad when it was over.

Home, you say? Nay! How about our third straight week in a hotel room? Melinda was a week-long Tour Guide for a group of elderly tourists in Utah Valley. We stayed at the La Quinta Inn near Wal-Mart in Orem despite the fact that we were only a couple of miles from our apartment.

Finally this past week we've been back in our own apartment and it has been great, although I've noticed the bed doesn't make itself while we're gone during the day. Not to worry, though. Melinda is doing the Tour Guide thing again this week and we're BACK in a hotel room.

As a final treat, here is what Melinda and I would look like as characters from the Simpsons (courtesy of SimpsonizeMe.com)

Compare those pictures with this one of Mel and this one of me. Not bad. And here we are in our natural habitats (i.e. at our jobs): Melinda @ Dixon. Joseph @ Decade Media.

Enter the iPhone

I hadn't planned on getting one. 

Melinda and I were with Sprint and had a great service plan. She had a camera flip phone and I had a Treo 650. All was well, until Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be producing a phone/ ipod/ internet communicator. 

 Still, I wasn't sold. Not that I didn't want one...I just had it so good with Sprint and my Treo.  

In June, Preston mentioned he needed a Treo for medical school and I started getting monetary contributions to my iPhone fund for my birthday.  Mel and I gave our phones to Preston and Annette and transferred our contract to them .

Soon, June 29th had come around and I found myself camping in line outside the Apple Store in Salt Lake waiting for 6 pm when the iPhone would go on sale.

It was a long, hot day (from 10 am to 6 pm), but Melinda spent some of the time there with me. I was there with Decade Media's sales guy, Kevin, and we spent the day on our computers and phones working (and drinking lots of water). Apple treated us right by periodically bringing out bottled waters and sno-cones.

Finally, the time came. Amidst cheering and clapping, we entered the Apple Store just after six o'clock. I broke down and bought the 8 GB model and took a few last photos with my Treo inside the store.

That's a happy boy.

I didn't take pictures of the next hour because I was too stressed. Turns out I'd left Melinda's phone on the sidewalk. We searched through a trash compacter and all around the area. I went to tell the Cingular/AT&T store to deactivate the phone, and they gave me a new one! 

So, what's the verdict on the iPhone? Love it. It is everything they advertise it to be. Works just like the videos show. I'd never been so excited to drop $600 in my life and almost a month later I've had zero regrets. 

Goodbye crashy Treo. Enter the iPhone.