Maui Wowie! I surprised Dawn with a trip to Maui for her 50th birthday.<span><span><span><span><span><span> We had talked about going for a long time and so this was a great opportunity.<span>We flew American out of Houston and had to change planes in Dallas and Los Angeles so it was an exhausting trip to get there. We arrived at 8:00pm at night so it was dark and there was a light drizzle.<span> But, we were pleasantly surprised the next morning by the gorgeous weather since weather.com had predicted 30% chance of rain every day.<span> I learned you really have to check the weather on the specific part of the island that you’re staying on because the weather can vary so much from one part of the island to another. I had booked the Mana Kai Maui and a ... read more

OUR BIG FAT GREEK VACATION It had come time for Dawn’s kids to come home from staying with their father in Greece for the summer. After putting it off last summer, we committed to going to Greece to pick them up this time. The journey started with booking our flight. We weren’t going to need a hotel since Dawn has friends and family there. We stopped by the travel agent only to learn that you had to have your passports with you to book international flights. Dawn was waiting for hers to be renewed which she did receive about two weeks later. So we went back to the travel agent. Unfortunately, we were disappointed with the service and the prices so we decided to book it ourselves through Continental’s web site. We had to stick with ... read more

Each New Year’s Eve we try to do something special. Dawn had recently been to Natchitoches, Louisiana (pronounced Nakatish) on a business trip and raved about how beautiful it was. It was the site of the film “Steel Magnolias”. If you saw that film you saw a good amount of the local scenery. The Cane River runs through the middle of the town. There is a nice little park along the shoreline. Shops and restaurants line Front Street which runs along the river and is the centerpiece for tourism and events. The main attraction at Christmastime is the “Festival of Lights” The river along the downtown area is lined on both sides with an incredible display of Christmas lights. Front Street also has strings of lights above the street criss-crossing it through the downtown area. The ... read more

San Francisco Treat! My brother, who lives northeast of San Francisco in Benecia, thought it would be a good idea to have my mother and I come visit his family during the Christmas holidays. It sounded like a good idea so I started looking at package deals online. I wanted Dawn to go with me so that meant that we would drive to Dallas to pick up my mother and fly from there to San Francisco. I looked extensively on expedia.com for a good deal for the period of December 26 to December 30. The prices on Expedia were a little better than on Priceline. Prices went up and down while I was looking but I happened to catch them while they were down. I booked the Galleria Park Hotel for four nights with airfare on ... read more

New York In a New York MinuteDawn had to go to New York to pick up her kids who were returning from Greece after staying with their father for the summer. She decided to make a little trip out of it and made reservations for two days before they arrived to spend a little time sightseeing and asked if I wanted to go as well. I thought, “What could we do in just two days?” But we always manage to have a spectacular time wherever we go so I started looking for cheap airfares on Priceline and Expedia. Dawn booked the Hilton Newark Airport since the kids were flying into Newark Liberty Airport. I managed to get a good fair into on Priceline on Continental and even managed to get on the same flight coming back ... read more