My Mother the Orator

The primary reason my parents were visiting Las Vegas was to celebrate the 35th anniversary of her club -- the Filipino Women's League. And, of course, when folks from Hawaii want to celebrate an anniversary of anything, they have to come to Las Vegas.

Go figure.

Unlike other Bicoys who shall remain nameless, my mother isn't all that comfortable standing in front of an audience talking to a crowd. However, here she is in action, doing quite a good job...



Of course, being the dutiful son that I am, my job was to take as many pictures as possible so that we'd have lots of reminders of the event.

And, being the son that I am, here's the one picture of the event that I just had to post on the internet...



Shhh. Don't tell my mom!

David Monkey

Alyssa really didn't like her picture so we put a good one of David up so that she'd see that she has nothing to complain about...



My son David, after being genetically merged with a Colobus Monkey.

Will the Real Alyssa Please Turn Around!

Ah, the wonders of a teenage daughter.

My lovely wife noticed that many of our pictures of Alyssa seem to look a lot like this...



Amazingly enough, Alyssa always seems to turn herself in exactly the right way to avoid having her picture taken.

Aha, a challenge has clearly been issued to her father!

So the quest began for the perfect picture of Alyssa.

But Alyssa wasn't going to give up quite that easily. She has developed a number of different methods to avoid the camera.

For instance, she has mastered the last second head turn...



If that doesn't work, she has more moves, of course.

Like the crouch and duck...



Or sometimes Alyssa must resort to some less exciting methods of ducking the camera.

Like the "talk to the hand" maneuver...



But after an incredibly determined day of sneaking around the corner to capture the perfect picture, we finally got it.

Here is our wonderful daughter Alyssa in all her glory...



Hee hee!

Maybe after seeing this she'll sit still for a real picture!

Visiting Old Las Vegas

When you think of Las Vegas today, most folks think of the famous "Strip" -- with all its overwhelming opulance and extravagance! Well, with my parents visiting from Hawaii and my brother Bernie and his family driving in from California, we took a little trek to Fremont Street -- "the place where it all began"

Here's a wonderful view of the Fremont Street Experience, which is a four block pedestrian street covered by a giant canopy which is really the world's largest big screen television...



And how could any stop in old Las Vegas be complete without a visit by the King himself...



Elvis is someone worthy of a museum (and accompanying gift shop, of course).

Well, this is Las Vegas where people come ready to part with their money for a good time -- so lot's of things are in need of a museum and gift shop -- even fast food restaurants...



This is an exotic place where the risque is the norm. Everyone's trying to use an angle to generate business -- even one of the grand old hotels like the Tropicana...



See, in Vegas, baby, even our birds are exotic.

We stopped by a mall at one point, but ordinary malls are so passe. So how about a mall that's built to look like Venice -- complete with the canals and gondolas floating by...



After a long day of walking, my three sons needed to take a break with Grandpa Bernie...



Although one can't help but wonder what Kekoa (in the middle) and Bretty (on the right) have on their mischevous minds!

We did gamble a little -- and after four months in Las Vegas I finally placed my first bet. I'm proud to say I quickly doubled my money (only to lose all my winnings shortly thereafter -- at least I broke even!).

Here we all are (my parents Bernie & Betty, my brother Bernie Jr., and his wife Pat, my nephews Derek and Blake, and my lovely wife Cari) after an evening of gambling on Fremont Street...



Notice the biggest smile on my mom's face. She quintupled her money that night!

Of course, according to the sole protestor on Fremont Street, it really doesn't matter whether any of us won or lost because we're all doomed anyway...



Bummer.

Viva Las Vegas!

There's no place quite like Las Vegas...



This is the fastest growing city in America -- with Clark County adding roughly 6,000 new residents every single month! What is not well known beyond those that live here, however, is that the people moving to this wonderfully quirky city were inevitably the most popular people in their former home towns.

How do we know that everyone who lives here is extremely popular? Well, why else would we all have so many friends and family who want to visit us?

Tomorrow morning my parents arrive from Hawaii. That makes the sixth set of visitors we will have had in our home since our arrival in Las Vegas a mere four months ago!

Consider my Aunty Kani and Uncle Adrian (with my family)...



Or my Aunty Mary and her crew...



Then there was Thanksgiving with two sets of guests -- my in-laws from Green Bay and my Aunty Lori and her family...



Such is the challenge of my father being the eldest of 12 children -- that means I have lots of Aunties and Uncles and cousins!

Of course, I love it when folks like my cousin Fred visit...



L&L Drive In. Mmmmmm, good.

Marietta's Sternwheel Festival

Every year in Marietta, this lovely little town hosts the Sternwheel Festival -- a terrific event which lines the banks of the Ohio River and Muskingum Rivers with all sorts of sternwheel powered vessels...



Marietta has made an entire event of it complete with car shows, concerts, and lots and lots of food...



Of course, when it comes to my kids, the best part of the Sternwheel Festival is the myriad of junk food available. Despite my repeated request that everyone smile for the camera, the boys just couldn’t turn around for fear that another of them would snap up the rest of the food on my lovely wife Cari’s plate…



Sort of reminds you of a mother bird surrounded by screeching hatchlings.

Here Comes Santa Claus - DUCK!

For a few years we lived in the wonderful city of Marietta, Ohio. It is a wonderful little community that has a character all its own. Of course, like every place that is truly unique, it does have it's little quirks.

I just dug up this little picture...



North Pole Gunsmithing.

Because when Santa comes to Marietta, he's packing heat.

The Bicoy Beacon 2004

The Whole Family!

Happy Holidays and welcome to this year’s internet edition of the Bicoy Beacon. Since my lovely wife has entrusted the authorship of this year’s epistle to me, you can be sure that you’re reading this far later in the year than she had planned. Since I’m horrible at keeping track of snail mail addresses, some of you are receiving this via email this year. So if you’re even remotely amused by this nonsense, please send us your mailing address so we have it in the future!

2004 has been a time of exciting change in our lives. We left Marietta, Ohio – a community we had grown to love – so I could accept a position with the Nevada Community Foundation in Las Vegas. Needless to say, Vegas is most definitely not Marietta!

Living in Las Vegas is as surreal an existence as one can find in this world – and I mean that as a compliment! Where else can you walk through Wal-Mart and see Elvis buying a jar of Vlasic Pickles. Okay, maybe he was an Elvis impersonator, but the pickles were definitely real.

This remarkable city has been growing at a phenomenal rate for the last 25 years. Nearly 6,000 people move to this place every single month. Since 1980, the population has tripled to nearly 1.7 million residents. To add to the nuttiness, Las Vegas is the most popular tourist destination in the country. Some 37 million people will visit Vegas this year. (As a basis for comparison, my home state of Hawaii hosts only about 6½ million tourists annually.) If you drew a two-mile wide circle in the heart of the hotel district in Vegas, you would encompass 17 of the 20 largest hotels on the planet. Just imagine the whirly burly possibilities! The mere thought truly boggles the mind!

(For the uninformed, a “whirly burly” is what results upon the collective flushing of all the toilet bowls in a metropolitan area simultaneously. As a former elected official with the City of Green Bay, I can testify that this is a real concern of municipal solid waste departments during restroom breaks in major television events like half-time of the Super Bowl. I’m sure how I choose to use my high priced college education makes my parents extremely proud.)

And we mustn’t forget that Las Vegas is also the city of love, although we leave that brotherly stuff to Philadelphia. A total of 99,310 marriage licenses were issued in Las Vegas last year, only 478 of which involved someone named Paris or Brittany.

I could go on and on about what a wonderfully quirky and exciting city this is, but my wife is continually smacking me on the back of my head in an effort to refocus me on the task at hand. Hence, I will now commence with the highlights of our past year. Should you ever find yourself in Las Vegas, be sure to drop my wife a note at ccbicoy@yahoo.com. Since we’ve moved to Vegas, we find that we’ve become far more popular with our old friends and family!

Mele Kalikimaka…

Bret & Cari Bicoy