It’s official, Kim and I both have reached the Ascent Level on Frontier! We earned this by flying over 15,000 miles in one calendar year. And our miles keep on coming with another flight scheduled before the end of the year for Christmas. One great thing is that we now earn a 25% bonus on frequent flier miles. Other benefits include:

• Free DIRECTV ® service
• Priority check-in and boarding
• Preferred seating assignments
• Priority lines at most airport security checkpoints

There are other things too, but these are what I’m most excited about. Free TV being at the top of my list. Flights have never seemed so quick with 24 channels of TV on my own personal screen. And we get all of these benefits at least through the next calendar year. I’m pumped!

You would think with all of our traveling that I would be better at the Travler IQ Challenge, but I’ve only made it to level eight so far, out of twelve. Give it a shot and see if you can get any further. When they start throwing out African countries, I just start guessing.

My apologies for the late update. I have a good excuse though, I’ve already sorted through all of the pictures from out trip and posted those online.

Now for a recap of the events. We flew into Cancun on Thursday morning. After avoiding the masses of people who wanted to “help” us, we eventually found the ticket booth for ADO, which provides $8 bus trips to Playa del Carmen. Once we finally made it to the resort we met up with everyone else and soon after went out for dinner and then for a stroll along Quinta Avenida (Fifth Avenue). We ended up in a bar to celebrate Doni’s 40th birthday.

The rest of the weekend, we didn’t leave the resort all that much. Our days consisted of laying on the beach, soaking up the sun, and occasionally some beach activities. I wanted to see some Mayan ruins while we were there, and fortunately they offered a bike tour to some, so we took this trip on one of the days. Another one of our afternoons was spent playing a bocce ball tournament and then with a little boogie boarding.

The trip definitely flew by and before we knew it, we were on a ferry to Cozumel for our flight back to Denver. When we left Mexico it was in the mid 80s and when we landed in Denver it was 14 complete with snow and ice. Talk about a dramatic change. For more details on the trip check out Phil’s site and his recap.

This time tomorrow I’ll be on my way to Mexico. We are heading down to Playa del Carmen to help celebrate Doni’s 40th birthday with her, Phil, and some other friends of ours. I don’t know if we’ll leave the all inclusive resort much, but feel free to leave any suggestions in the comments if you’ve been down that way before. I’m excited to finally use my passport for the first time and especially to have a long weekend to relax. From what I’m told, we won’t have cell phone service, so don’t expect to hear from me until early next week.

Hopefully everyone had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. Kim and I spent some time in Cincinnati visiting with our families and friends. It was a great time and I cannot wait to spend even more time there around Christmas. We flew back to Denver on Friday and went out snowboarding for the first time on Saturday morning. Even with the snow from last week, the conditions were still pretty bad. We went to Keystone, our go to place from last season, and they only had 4 lifts running with just as few runs open. After two runs I started to feel a little ill so we drove back home to spend the rest of the day on the couch. I must have had one of those 24 hour flus that seem to be going around. I never got sick, but I had a killer stomach ache for most of the day and massive body pain. It appears to all be gone now. Has anyone else been affected?

As I mentioned last week, we headed to the Finger Lakes region of New York for my buddy Jay’s wedding. This region is the second largest producer of wine in the US, next to Napa Valley. We stayed in Geneva, on Seneca Lake, and explored the wineries around this lake. The wedding itself took place at the Belhurst Castle, and was a wonderful ceremony and an excellent reception. We all had such a great time and wish the newlyweds the best!

Before heading back to Denver, Kim and I made a quick detour to Niagara Falls. It was just over an hour from Rochester, where we were flying out, and Kim doesn’t think she had ever been there before. It was pretty cold for our visit, so we only stayed for a half hour, but we were able to see quite a bit of the area.

Anyone flying in or out of Cincy today? If so, look for me, as I’ll be making a mad dash from one plane to another. Don’t try to stop me though, our layover is only 38 minutes, and that’s assuming everything is on time. We are heading to upstate New York for a wedding of one of my longtime buddies from OARfans.com. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures, as this should be a great one. Have a nice weekend…

Well we had a great time in Kansas City, despite the results of all of the involved sporting events. Kim and I got into KC on Saturday afternoon and immediately met up with my family, our friend Amy, and whomever else was in town. They were already hanging out at the 810 Zone waiting for the UC-Louisville game later that night. The bar is huge, but we still managed to fill up the game room section pretty well to watch the game. It started off well, but in the end Louisville took home the Keg of Nails and ended the Bearcats unbeaten streak.

We woke up early on Sunday morning to catch our chartered bus to Arrowhead Stadium for a tailgate party and then the game. Our bus ended up parking near some other buses from Cincinnati and full of Bengals fans, so the pregame parties were great. The game versus the Chiefs also started off pretty well, but even with a couple of scores in the final quarter, the Chiefs still ended up winning the game. The Bengals are now 1-2 in the last three years at Arrowhead Stadium, and I think it’s time to play against a different team.

My thoughts on the weekend can pretty much be summed up with this photo of Phil and I taken by my mom. We brought a camera along for the weekend, but didn’t even take it out of the bag. Fortunately my mom has a ton up on her flickr site.

My fantasy results for the week are pretty much on par with the results of the Cincinnati games. I lost badly to Kim in one of my leagues, and have dropped out of first place. Kim now sits at the top of that league. I also lost in another league and fell to 9 out of 12 teams. I just completed a big trade, so I’m hoping things will start turning around. In the final league, I actually won and I’m still holding on to first place in that league. Finally, one team that is actually following in the footsteps of good teams, like the Rockies.

I’ve been in Cincinnati for over 48 hours and still haven’t had any Skyline Chili. This is unheard of! Anyway, get a hold of me if you are in the ‘nati and let’s do something tonight. Tomorrow I have a wedding to attend, so this is your only chance. Have a good weekend, everyone.

The last day of Hawaii photos are now up! On the first page are photos from our snorkeling trip, but none of them are actually of snorkeling. Most are photos of the dolphins we saw along the way, and some of the Waikiki sights as well. All of these were taken with the old Nikon camera. I wish I would have had the new camera for the dolphin encounter, but the water scared me.

From there, I took lots of pictures from Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. We tried to go a day earlier, but the wait for the memorial was nearly three hours. We later read that you should visit either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. So when we arrived around three in the afternoon, we got right in, even though we visited on 9/11. You will notice all of the flags in the pictures are at half mast. It was a good place to visit on a day of remembrance.

Later that evening we went on another sailboat cruise, this time on Na Hoku II. This was an evening “booze cruise” with complimentary drinks and amazing views of Waikiki and the sunset. It was a great way to round out our amazing trip to Oahu.
This marks the 38th state I have visited. Hopefully I can get to 40 by the end of the year.

I’ve added a couple more photo albums from Hawaii.

The first contains photos from the North Shore of Oahu, including a beautiful sunrise, the Banzai Pipeline, and some sights that can only be seen with a 4WD vehicle (or a really long walk). Early on Sunday morning we headed to Makapu’u Head, the eastern most point of Oahu, and hiked to the top to take in the sunrise. It was an amazing site, and I think the pictures from that turned out really well. From there we headed up the North Shore and made various stops along the way, many of which I mentioned in an earlier post.

The second album contains photos from a brief adventure up the Wai’anae coast, where we saw some dolphins and a very large cave. Also included are some photos from Waikiki Beach toward the end of the day, with some nice looking sunsets. Those pictures were all taken with the old camera, if you want to look at the differences between the two. One thing I noticed while looking at the dolphins, is that an even better lens for longer distances would be a nice investment. Although I think those are all quite pricey.