For Christmas this year we surprised the kids with a trip to Disney. We went at the beginning of January which was a really perfect time since the weather was great and the crowds were really not bad at all. If you follow me on Facebook I posted a couple of updates and pictures while we were there and I’ve just now finally got around to putting all the better pictures on the web site.
Tag Archives: vacation
Picture Update
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to get caught up on all the pictures from 2012 that I have been meaning to get to. I think today I’m finally caught up and ready to start on 2013. There are a lot of updates so here it goes.
- Vacation to Florida – As it has been our tradition for the past couple of years we spend the first week of summer vacation in Florida. This year my my sisters family joined us and the cousins all got to hang out and have a great time.
- Summer Swim Team – Pictures from a couple of the swim meets the boys did this summer.
- Alex Triathlon – Alex had been asking to do another triathlon and this year we finally managed to sign him up for the same Dallas kids tri that he did a couple of years back.
- Trip to New Orleans – Before the kids started back after the summer break we took a trip to New Orleans to see the Grandparents. On this trip we also did some things that we haven’t ever done before like visit the Old Mint, the Pontalba buildings, and the Mardi Gras Museum.
- Caroline at the Gym – Caroline did an introduction to Gymnastics class.
- Caroline Ballet – She also took an introduction to ballet class.
- Halloween – Halloween pictures from this year.
- Christmas – To finish out the year some pictures from Christmas.
Now I have a couple hundred pictures of the recent Disney trip to sift through 🙂
Website Updates
I haven’t completely abandoned updating the website, it just seems like I have less and less time to do this stuff. If you have been following the home page there have been a couple of updates but I haven’t posted about them her so here’s the summary from the last time.
- Caroline’s Birthday – Back in February we had a Mary Poppins themed birthday party for Caroline. It started off with her listening to the movie soundtrack, then she saw the movie, and then it was the party.
- Alex and Andrew’s Birthday Party – The boys decided that they both wanted to have a bowling/laser tag party so we did a combined party.
- Andrew Spring Soccer – Couple of pictures from Andrew’s spring soccer season.
- Alex Spring Lacrosse – Couple of pictures from Alex’s spring lacrosse season.
- Caroline’s First Haircut – I think we actually held out a really time before we took her for her first haircut but it was starting to get out of control.
- Yearly Pictures – We did take our traditional yearly pictures again this year and we did do it right around their birthdays which was a small miracle. Here are Caroline, Alex, Andrew, and the Group pictures.
- Mammoth Caves and Ryan’s Graduation – In May Ryan graduation from Law school at IU and as part of the trip up there we also visited Mammoth Caves, a bit of Louisville, and the Indianapolis Children’s Museum.
Website Update
Once again I’ve been pretty lax in keeping the website updated. There has been all kinds of stuff going on but I’ve just been falling behind.
We kept our tradition of taking yearly pictures of the kids but with all the bad weather we had around Caroline’s birthday we ended up taking her pictures a little late. In fact we didn’t get around to it until May so we just did everyone’s pictures on the same day. This worked out really well since we were able to take a bunch of group pictures that we’ve never done before.I think the group shots turned our really nice and we’ll probably try and do those every year.
Here are the links to the individual picture pages.
Right after the kids got out of school Jen drove with them to Watercolor Florida like we did last year to vacation with her family. Unfortunately I had a conference I needed to attend for work during that same week so I was only able to join them on the last day. Even though it was only for the day it was still fun and on the way back we stopped in to visit the USS Alabama battleship in Mobile Bay.
Then last weekend we surprised the kids with a trip to Sea World San Antonio. Over the summer Jen has been doing a “theme of the week” activity with the kids. The week they started piano lessons they had a music themed activity they did each day. The week before Sea World they were doing water animal themed activities. On Thursday I came home from work early and we surprised them with the trip. I wish I had a picture of Andrew’s face when he made the connection that we were going to be leaving right now, not in a couple of days, he looked like he was going to explode with excitement. Unfortunately we’ve now set the bar really high on surprises and I’m not sure we can top it.
Florida Vacation Pictures
At the beginning on June we took a family vacation to Watercolor Florida which is located in the pan handle kind of mid way between Destin and Panama City. Kelly was the vacation planner and booked a house that the whole family stayed in. It was a really relaxing vacation with swimming in the gulf, hanging out around the pool, afternoon naps, and other really strenuous vacation activities.
We took a bunch of pictures which you can see here.
And before anyone asks, we managed to make it there just ahead of BP oil spill tar balls washing up on the beach. While we where there they started showing up in Pensacola and by the looks of the Google Map of the oil spill it won’t be long before they start showing up there as well.
Sandy Feet
Greetings from Watercolor
We arrived safely in Florida and are having a good time. Today we biked from the house down the beach and spent a couple of hours at the beach. Alex and Andrew loved swimming in the gulf since the waves were pretty high after the thunder storms yesterday. Caroline also had a fun but made a really sour face after getting her first mouthful of salt water.
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Thanksgiving in New Orleans
For the first time in a couple years we travelled to New Orelans for the Thanksgiving holiday. We started the Thanksgiving festivities by running in the 101st Annual Turkey Run put on by the New Orelans Track Club. Alex and I ran the 1 mile fun run while Amanda and Ben ran in the full on 5 mile event. I’m sure I wouldn’t have run in it at all but Alex really wanted to run and he wasn’t going to do it by himself so I ran with him. We ran a 10:07 which I think is a pretty respectable time for a six year old. It was also the first time I’ve run in the past year and I have to say my legs were a bit sore the next day, especially going up and down stairs. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the couch watching football and eating a fantasic turkey meal.
The following day we took part in a New Orleans tradition and went to the Fair Grounds to do a little wagering on the horses. We didn’t end up winning any money but let me tell you, we were this close. That night we finished up by going to the opening night of Celebration in the Oaks at City Park. We rode on some rides, we walked through the light displays, and took a night time train ride around the park.
The following day we took part in a New Orleans tradition and went to the Fair Grounds to do a little wagering on the horses. We didn’t end up winning any money but let me tell you, we were this close. That night we finished up by going to the opening night of Celebration in the Oaks at City Park. We rode on some rides, we walked through the light displays, and took a night time train ride around the park.
I’ve posted a couple pages of pictures from the weekend which you can find here.
And, since I haven’t had time to sit down and sift through the post card collection I figured I would add this one of the St. Charles street car which we picked up last year to send but never got around to it. I think my collection of “purchased with the intent to send” postcards is as large as the ones that I’ve received. This one even has the stamp on the back so this one got reasonably far in the process.
What’s happened in the past couple of years is that we let Alex and Andrew pick out a couple cards with the intent that we’ll sit down and write them to grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, and uncles, and we usually get one out the door and consider it a success. The rest end up in the lonely pile of forgotten postcards.
Back from Disney
We are back from our Great Disney World Extravaganza vacation. This was my very first trip to Disney World and I’m not sure if it was the kids or I that had a better time. In total we visited four parks, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. Of course I took about a zillion pictures so it’s going to take me a while to sift through them and get them together so until then you’ll have to be satisfied with the Walt Disney postcard that Alex picked out.
