WATCH AULANI COME TO LIFE

Hopefully all of you readers and followers had a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday. At Kijubi everyone ate lots great food with Family on Thursday and came back to work on Friday. Except work wasn’t the usual that day… we spent the day packing our stuff and getting ready to move to a new office in Laguna Beach. We all came back on Sunday and spent the day moving. We’re now in our new home and excited to get going again! Check out some of the shots!

From time to time our partners send us stories that are truly amazing. Here is one we received this morning:

Couple Together at Disney Long Before They Met

WALT DISNEY WORLD (CBS News, 6/17/10) – No one knows better than Alex and Donna Voutsinas that it’s a small world after all. A few days before their wedding they were astonished to find a 1980 family photo of little Donna (pink shirt) meeting Captain Smee at Walt Disney World – and incredibly little Alex in a stroller being pushed by his dad (black shirt) in the background. Alex said the couple found the photo at Donna’s parents’ house. “We were going through old family pictures looking for baby pictures of us for our wedding album and our video. And my wife pulled the picture out of her and her brothers at Disney World. Right away, the background caught my eye, it was my dad. Pushing me in a stroller. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.” Donna said learning of the photo a week before her wedding gave her chills. Alex was born in Canada. Donna is from Florida. The couple officially met 14 years later when Donna started working at Alex’s family-owned hotel. They started dating in 1994. Alex and Donna went to Disney World several times on dates. “We went a lot,” Alex said. “A lot when we first started dating, we used to come a couple times a year, never knowing that picture existed.” Alex says he and Donna look at photos differently now. He explained, “I’m a detail-oriented guy anyways, and I usually look at the whole thing, but now we make jokes when we take our kids to Disney, I say, ‘There’s our future kids’ wives’.” As for their Disney connection, Alex and Donna said it’s not out of the question that they could renew their vows on their 10-year anniversary at the theme park.

Now isn’t that AMAZING?

Mother’s day is coming up very soon, and if you are anything like me, you may have not purchased a gift for your mom yet. Of course, the first thing I would recommend to anyone in California would be to check out the Kijubi Gift Certificate. That is, plain and simple, the best gift you can give anyone.

What if you aren’t in California? Or, maybe you already got your mom a Kijubi gift cert. Well, then you should definitely check out the amazing discounts you can get at Restaurants.com. Basically, you purchase a gift coupon valid for much more than what you pay. For example, a $25 restaurant gift cards costs $15, $50 for $25, and for the $100 card you pay only $40.

When you are checking out, use promo code “MOM” to get an even bigger discount + an extra flower bonus! Want even more? Use PayPal to check out and you can buy a $25 gift card for only $3! Yes, THREE dollars for $25 worth of dining. How can you afford NOT to buy this for your mom? The offer is only good from May 3 – 9, specifically for Mother’s Day.

Check it out!

On another note, if you haven’t checked out our deal of the week, you definitely should. It makes for a fantastic Mother’s Day gift as well. It’s a pole fitness class at 40% off @ only $15!

We now have over 500 activities to choose from on Kijubi.com. One of the newest products we have added to our arsenal is the Kijubi Gift Certificate. It is available any $dollar amount and is redeemable for any activity on our website. Is that just the greatest gift?

Think about it… there is really something for everyone on Kijubi!

CalActive.com has consistently grown more than 50% in traffic month over month. We recently achieved 5,000 unique visitors to the CalActive.com website in the month of May!

Congratulations to the entire CalActive team for their dedication and enthusiasm with the project. Thank you to all our visitors for the great interest in Southern California activities. We strive to offer only the best and we couldn’t do it without you.

So we just added Canyoneering to our activity list and I’m dying to go. I love adventure so this will be the perfect outing for me. Canyoneering involves everything from climbing to hiking, jumping, scrambling, rapeling down waterfalls… you name it, you do it. Sounds fun, right?! I found a great story about a Canyoneering adventure. Hopefully I’ll get to view the video too (sounds like it was a great trip). What is Canyoneering? Come discover for yourself what this crazy activity is all about.

Last Friday we received a visit from our friends and makers of the fantastic Go San Diego Card (click the link to order your very own card). Actually, they make Go Cards for many different destinations, such as Los Angeles, Boston, Orlando, Miami, Chicago and many others. It’s such an amazing idea, really. You purchase a card that comes with a free guide. The guide has tons of ideas for things to do locally and will get you in at no additional cost to about 50 different attractions.

The representative that paid us a visit was nice enough to leave us a couple of Go San Diego Cards to try out. At some point in the next couple of weeks two of us will be going to San Diego to enjoy the benefits of the card. Looking at the guide, there are so many different things to do, it will be tough.

Here are my initial thoughts:

Breakfast at the Cheese Shop Restaurant and Delicatessen. I LOVE CHEESE AND BREAKFAST. We get 20% off our breakfast and a Free Frisby! We need one of those down in Laguna Beach – Orange County!

Tour PETCO Park. I am a big baseball fan, and going to take a tour of the San Diego Padres home park sounds like a perfect thing to do. How could I miss this?!

Wine Tasting! Why would we not go drink some free wine?

You will have to wait to find out what we actually end up doing

On Saturday, Heather and I went to our Military Flight Simulator activity in Southern California. First of all, when I left my house it was nearly 100 degrees. HOT AS CAN BE. So I was happy we were going to be inside in an air conditioned room.

When you first walk in to the location, there is a mural with a totally cool jet scene and three jet fighter seats. Take a look:

The mural:

The Jet Fighter Seats:

Heather sitting on the Jet Fighter Seat:

Our activity started at around 12:15pm. We walked to the back room and got into our flight suite. It was totally TOP GUN!

Heather and I in our suites:

After we were suited up, we were brought into a class room to learn everything we needed to know about flying a jet fighter plane. All I remember the teacher telling us is that we had a throttle, a button to load our missiles, a button to launch the missile, a button to shoot bullets (that are basically harmless unless you are 2 feet away, and ready to crash into, the other jet fighter), and a button to speak to our assistant back in the control center.

Learning how to fly:

Great, now that we know exactly how to fly a jet fighter (yeah, sure we do!), we are ready to jump into the cockpit of our Jet Fighters! It was so cool to jump in and really feel what it’s like to sit inside such a small area with complete control of this huge piece of machinery that can fly faster that the speed of sound. After I sit down, I hold on to the throttle on my left (which also has a button that works just like the Nextel/Sprint Push-to-Talk feature whenever you have something to say) and what looks exactly like an Atari joystick on the right. There is someone there to walk you through every step of the way as many times as needed to make sure you have a great time. While you are flying, back in the control deck, someone is on the headphones talking you through any problems or questions (they also give you more missiles when you run out, so don’t be shy, and ask for more!).

The Jet Fighters:

The Throttle:

The Joystick:

Getting more help:

Control Deck:

Check out the Missiles:

If there are guests that are not going to be flying, there is a great area right outside with 8 screens for the visitors to see all the action while it takes place (see below). There are also some simple rules, which are listed on the photo below, but no big deal.

Waiting Room:

The Rules:

This is really an amazingly fun activity that does not cost very much. You will not regret doing it! Oh yeah, and before I forget… Guess who won the dogfight?

Most Kills:

It’s nice when I leave my house in the morning to head to work and there is not a cloud in the sky and 65-70 degrees. A PERFECT DAY! So, a few days ago I am heading down to Laguna Beach (where our office is) and all of a sudden, as I drove down Newport Coast, it seemed as if I was driving straight down into the clouds. Seriously, it looked so weird. Take a look…

After about 2 hours, the clouds were gone and we were back to a perfect day. Weather Rules!

Anyway, this weekend we are going to try out the Authentic Military Flight Simulators in Anaheim… Will most definitely take some pictures and video and do a write-up on it.