Over the Desert and Through the Cactus

Early Thursday morning, we set out with some of Devoted Wife's family members to drive to Mesa, AZ to spend Thanksgiving at Devoted Wife's sister's home. I think the decision to drive on Thursday morning rather than Wednesday night was the right one, as we made decent time, at least until we got into the Phoenix valley, where the traffic slowed to bumper to bumper. We got to Mesa in the early afternoon in good spirits. Devoted Wife's sister is 7 months pregnant, and since we knew that none of the rest of us would really felt like cooking a Thanksgiving dinner after 6+ hours in the car, we'd planned to have dinner at a local restaurant. The food was OK (dry stuffing), but the company was great.

Kate and her nonna

Kate absolutely loved having her grandparents and two aunts dote on her for the entire trip, and Devoted Wife and I enjoyed having others around that wanted to play with her, feed her, change her diapers and keep her out of mischief. I got to watch some Thanksgiving football without constantly scanning to make sure Kate wasn't putting cornbread in the DVD player or sticking a bobby pin in the power outlet. This girl gets into EVERYTHING these days.

On Friday morning I woke up at about 4:30 (3:30 California time) and lay in bed for a few minutes before deciding that since I was already up, I should go brave the Black Friday crowds and see if I could find us a video camera at a good price. I stopped at a convenience store to buy a Thanksgiving newspaper and sat in my car going through the ads. Half an hour later I was headed to Best Buy, Walmart and Ultimate Electronics, armed with their ads and being slightly caught up in the "doorbusters" euphoria that almost had me driving over to Old Navy just to try to be one of the first 20 in the door so I could get a free $20-value mp3 player that I didn't need or want. By the way, this marketing gimmick must work great -- I later heard on the news that a couple of morons near Palm Springs got into a shootout at Old Navy, presumably because one guy got the last free mp3 player. But I overcame that desire and stayed focused on my goal.

After doing some searching, I opted for the Flip, a low-cost digital videorecorder made by Pure Digital Technologies that is small, compact and only has a handful of buttons on the whole camera. I'd previously read that The New York Times called it "one of the most significant electronic products of the year," largely because it was so simple that anyone could use it immediately after taking it out of the box. It attaches directly to your computer with a flip-out USB port, and contains editing software right on the hard-drive. After arriving back at DW's sister's house, I justified my purchase to Devoted Wife (I got a smokin' deal on an already low priced Flip), and after popping two AA batteries into the Flip, I was shooting video. The video is of similar quality video you'll get from a decent point-and-shoot digital camera, but this purchase is a step forward for us since our little camera shoots only 30-second clips (and my SLR can't be bothered with video at all). We can get a nice camcorder in a few years when its time to shoot school plays and soccer games, but right now I think the Flip will work just fine. Once I get the editing software downloaded to my computer you can expect some masterpieces. For now, I'll probably post quite a few vids of Kate just being Kate:

On Saturday we went to the tennis courts for the annual Anderson Thanksgiving Round Robin Tennis Tourney. This essentially consists of all of us being systematically humbled by Devoted Wife's father, Stan "The Shark" Anderson -- the man is the master of wicked drop shots and vicious backspin that make the rest of us chase all over the court just to keep up with him. Its a lot of fun, and I do my best to add to our vacation fund by making a few donations to the "Swear Jar".

The family that plays tennis together, swears together

On Friday Devoted Wife's brother-in-law Scott took Stan and me out to the desert to an outdoor shooting range where we burned up a lot of .40 and .223 ammo through our pistols and Scott's AR-15 rifles. He also had his 300 cal. rifle, which kicks like a mule, and we were firing at a steel target several hundred yards away. Its crazy to pull the trigger, feel the explosion of the stock into your shoulder, and then wait to eventually hear the far-off "ping" as the round slams into the steel target. Here's Stan showing us how its done with my .40 Glock and Scott's AR-15:

Devoted Wife and her mom and sisters were able to get some good Thanksgiving shopping in, and since I didn't ask what she bought I'll have to wait until the credit card statement comes to find out. Just kidding -- Devoted Wife is a very responsible spender -- she really made me justify my $79 Flip purchase (and the $98 Garmin GPS that we now can't live without).

Out on the town with the Anderson ladies

We had a great time in Arizona, even though the return drive started at 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning Arizona time and we didn't get home until 8:30 p.m. California time. I think half of the whole drive was spent on a short 15-mile stretch between Indio, CA and North Palm Springs that had us tearing out our hair. But it was a great trip and we had a fantastic time with Devoted Wife's family. We missed the East Coast Andersons this year, who congregated for their own family gathering in Boston and missed out on our Tennis Tournament. I've posted all of the action photos here so they won't feel too left out.