The T family travels

New York City: Day 4

2011-08-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

Whew. What a walk! We were up early today to catch a 9am ferry to the Statue of Liberty, which left from Liberty State Park in New Jersey. We knew that the light rail would get us close to the park, but we didn't know that the park was huge, and we took a VERY roundabout way to get out there and ended up having a mile plus trek to the boat. At least we made it on time, no thanks to the security that chose to scan change from J's pocket a second time. Seriously.

The kids and I had never been to Liberty Island before, so seeing Lady Liberty up close was a treat. I was amazed at how glossy the flame looked yet how dingy the statue itself seemed. The island had people everywhere... 13,000 visit each day, but only 2500 tickets are available to go into the statue. Hurrah for planning ahead! The view of NYC from below the island, atop the statue's pedastal was my favorite of the trip, even if it is a TIGHT squeeze to have people walking in both directions up there.

From there, we moved on to Ellis Island. I had no idea there was such a huge, detailed museum there. We spent some time seeing lists of boat passengers, the evolution of the island from a fort to intricately designed complex, and the cramped quarters of the dormitories. My biggest disappointment was that I couldn't look up all of my kids' ancestors that could have possibly come to America through NYC (none of mine, but all of J's fit the timeframe). **I need to look into this at home!**

We had been told to plan for the round trip to both islands to take about 5.5 hours, and I believe it did!

One thing that our trip was missing that we knew we wanted to do was have an authentic Italian dinner. The immediate area around our hotel had a Bertucci's, which I love but can always go to at home. We're only a PATH stop away from Hoboken, though, so we decided to head over to Luca Brasi's, and that place did not disappoint! The meatballs that the kids had on their spaghetti were the size of apples and by far the best I've ever had.

After reluctantly trashing the leftovers (hello... sauce all over our clothes on the way home!), we thought we had a bit of time before Carlo's Bake Shop closed for the night and decided to pay a visit then rather than coming back the next morning, as we had planned. The line to get in was about an hour, we were told, but we stuck it out, not wanting the opportunity to pass. When you join the line, you are given a number, but you are let into the store about 10 numbers ahead of time. Mind you, each party of people is only given one number (ours had six, and one had 10!), so 10 groups of people inside a small bakery makes for some cozy quarters, to say the least. Z and B were on top of each other a bit more than usual. But, we had time to pick out what we wanted before our number was called. We saw some full-size cakes when we walked in, and we were pretty much pinned into the cookie display, so I couldn't see the cupcakes and the like, but J and the kids picked out a cookie each, A and I planned to split a lobster tail (I had heard they were the bakery speciality), and Mom picked a mousse cake that we tried the day before at Discovery. I also chose an 8-inch cake to take home. I almost didn't, but it's almost my birthday, so I thought it could just be my early birthday cake. When else am I going to be able to say that my birthday cake was made by Buddy and his crew?

Love NY, but NJ has turned out to be pretty cool, too.

New York City: Day 3

2011-08-10T18:54:00.000-07:00

Today was the day B had waited for for a LONG time... we were finally going to American Girl. Unfortunately (for her), we were going to take in views of the city from the Top of the Rock first.

We went into the city and ate a quick breakfast at Cucina and Co. at the bottom of Rockefeller Center. Luckily, we were early enough in line for the Top that we didn't have to wade through the hundreds of people that we've encountered at the Empire State Building in previous trips. Hurrah! The kids were goofy at the top, experimenting with binoculars, making crazy faces, and enjoying a room where lights follow you around as you move (even A didn't want to leave that).

After coming back to earth, we went to the Plaza just on the off chance that Hoda and Kathy Lee were outside. They weren't. We went across to see the summer version of the skating rink area and finally gave B her due.

She and I went with A and my mom to the American Girl Store, where she immediately started looking for hers (long, straight blond hair with bangs and blue eyes). There wasn't one of the floor, so she had to wait to pick it up at checkout. Lucky for me, she was a good sport about that. We hunted down dolls for A and my nieces, and B picked out a dog (aptly named Coconut, for the only fruit she likes) for her doll.

While we were there, J took Z to FAO Schwartz, which I thought I remembered was in that area, past St. Patrick's Cathedral. Oops. It was further, but the boys were pretty fast. Z enjoyed the floor piano and scored a new Lego game.

After a quick lunch, we checked out the Pompeii exhibit at the Discovery Museum. The kids enjoyed the videos and the art mosaics the most, and YAY, there was a Cake Boss Cafe at the end, so we had a little taste (haha) of what to expect when we go to Carlo's on Friday.

We let the kids have an early swim back at the hotel, as we planned to see the Smurfs movie in the evening. Unfortunately, when we got there, the projector was on the fritz, so the showing wouldn't be until 9:20. I know it's vacation, but there's no way I was going to let them stay up that late. So, after promises of seeing it at home ASAP and an ice cream cone, it was pretty much a day.

I'm going to miss New York.

New York City: Day 2

2011-08-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

We didn't set an alarm, thinking that the kids got up so early yesterday, they should try to sleep in.

Sigh.

I should have known better.

They were up at 7am, just like always.

We had breakfast at a horrible place across the street. Okay, not horrible, but ridiculously disappointing. Wouldn't you think that a place with "coffee" in it's name and "frappes" on it's menu would actually be able to fix one? No. Maybe that employee didn't make it in to work today. Sigh...

The weather forecast for today called for scattered showers pretty much the whole day, but the sun was out early [side note: I looked out the hotel window this morning and saw the Freedom Tower, which I didn't see the day before because I didn't look to the right, I guess. It took my breath away because I was surprised.], so we started with walking across part of the Brooklyn Bridge, which J and I had never done before.

As we planned this trip, I knew that we would be using the World Trade Center PATH station at least once. I was NOT prepared for the raw emotion of actually arriving at that stop. Totally took me off guard. Exiting the station are MASSIVE esclators, with World Trade Center at the top. And, given that we got into the city when millions of people were going to work, the entire row of esclators was PACKED with people. I SO wanted a picture, but I probably would have been run over. Seriously. Anyway, stepping out of that station to walk to the subway station that we needed, the area where the towers were is RIGHT in front of you. I REALLY wasn't ready for the tears that came to my eyes then. I should have been prepared for that, but I wasn't. At all. I vividly remember visiting when they were still standing, when I had very fresh dreams of living and working in Lower Manhattan. I was devastated all over again.

BUT, I have three fabulous children that needed me to very quickly pull it together, even if they had no idea how close I was to falling apart.

So, we continued.

Okay. Next time you go to New York, walk across at least part of the Brooklyn Bridge. Even if you have a 6 year old that declares she hates being outside and that it is too hard to walk. Or an almost 2 year old that wants to do it all by herself. Or an 8 year old that you think really might end up alone in Brooklyn because he keeps walking ahead of everyone. Being right under the enormous towers and cables and being able to see a completely different view of Manhattan is amazing. J got both of the big kids Italian Ices at a little stand on the bridge, and it was so fun for them. At first. Then the bees came, and they apparently also love Italian Ice. Z declared that he was done and passed it off to me because I had been letting A have little bites of both of theirs. B kept eating hers but would periodically either scream or practically fling the Ice away (possibly almost onto other people) to shoo the bees away. Amazingly, as we started back to Manhattan, the bees left us alone, so the kids finished their treats in peace.

We went to lunch afterwards at South Steet Seaport. Unfortunately, I remembered from other times that even though you can see the seaport from the Brooklyn Bridge, it is a huge pain to get from one to the other. We actually took the subway TO Brooklyn before ending up where we needed to be (okay, so that part was J's error, but it might as well have been the best way to get there). We got Nathan's hotdogs for lunch (well, everyone else did... I hate hot dogs so I ended up with Bacon Ranch Fries that I barely touched). I think all of the kids must have been suffering from low blood sugar because they were hilarious at lunch, playing with the toys that came in their meals and just having FUN. B about flipped when she realized you could see the Statue of Liberty from where she was sitting.

After lunch, we went out onto the top deck to take in more views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, Brooklyn, and the statue. When we were trekking back to the subway, it started to rain. At this point, we were going back to the hotel and planned to take the ferry back across to Manhattan to go to the Intrepid museum. Mom decided that she wanted to stay at the hotel and let A take a nap, so J and I got Z and B (and the umbrellas) and headed for the ferry. We took the Hudson River Walk to get there and took some awesome pictures of the city, even though it was raining hard. Both kids were happy and laughing and smiling, and it was just a good time. The closer we got to the ferry stop, though, we could tell that there was NO ONE there. We found a security guard that told us this particular ferry was REALLY slow and apparently only runs once an hour. We just missed one, and with the museum closing at 5pm, we knew we would never make it. So, given the lack of coffee at breakfast, we went to Starbucks and treated the kids to cake pops, which I'm pretty sure are made with some addictive drug as excited as they get about them.

Even though we missed out on the Intrepid, the riverwalk and good time with the big kids was amazing. Sometimes I love when things don't go as planned.

Dinner was a local parlor's pizza that arrived an hour after we ordered it and was lukewarm but actually tasted okay. More pool time. Good bedtime for the kiddos.

I still love NY.

New York City: Day 1

2011-08-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

Wake up time: 3:30am (you should know that about us by now). We finally smartened up and took the Amtrak to NYC instead of driving. Not having all of those time-consuming stops and kids arguing in the backseat was awesome! Once we arrived at Newark, our hotel was a few stops away on the PATH in Jersey City. From our hotel, we have partially (largely) obscured views of Manhattan, but a clear view of the Freedom Tower's progress. More on that tomorrow.

After checking into our hotel and scoring an adjoining room with my mom (HUGE when traveling with three kids), we went across the street to Cosi for a quick lunch. I haven't been to Cosi since working in Arlington, and I've missed their salads, so that was a treat.

On to Times Square. I thought it would be the perfect way to start this trip for the kids. Who isn't awed by the lights and crowds and craziness? We transferred from the PATH in the city to the Metro. What is wrong with those machines that 90% of the time don't like take credit cards? We're just using cash... you should, too... trust me. LOVE seeing that Times Square/42nd Street subway sign! It just makes my heart happy.

We first went to Toys R Us, B's favorite part of the day, where J took the three kids for a ride on the ferris wheel (after a VERY short line). B really wanted the My Little Pony car. Luckily for Z, they ended up in the M&Ms car. I think he would have cried if B had her way. A even loved the ride. We wandered the store for a bit afterwards, awing over the gigantic moving dinosaur and the Lego Statue of Liberty.

Afterwards, we moved onto the Disney Store, where there was a huge video screen playing promos for Phineas and Ferb. The kids were over the moon seeing that. We bought nothing there (yay us!) and moved onto the fun red bleachers above the TKTS booth. I LOVE the way that more loitering is accommodated in Times Square now... shutting down Broadway for a couple blocks (driving there was always a nightmare anyway!) and adding these bleachers. It was my favorite part of the day, watching and taking it all in. Almost right after that, we planned on going to the Hershey store, anyway, but Z, who was a bit cranky at the moment, saw someone dressed as a set of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, just like we saw at Hershey Park a few years ago. It was like he found a long lost friend. It was his biggest smile of the day. We stopped briefly in the store where each Z and B picked out a bag of Jolly Ranchers that we could have bought at CVS. No chocolate? Are these really my kids?

It was 4:30 or so by the point, and we decided to have an early dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner before it got too crowded. The servers all take turns singing here, between all of their other duties. Z actually named this as his favorite part of the day. I loved it, too. We couldn't do a musical this time around (KILLS me, you know) because A is too little, so this was the closest I could come.

We made our way back to the subway afterwards, going back through the madness just for fun. We got the kids their (freezing cold!) pool time and a decent bedtime.

I love NY.

Merry Christmas 2010

2010-12-11T04:41:00.001-08:00

A change this year... an online Christmas letter from us! We have had a busy year, as everyone with kids does.

Z will be 8 at the end of the month. Eight?!? It's almost heartbreaking how quickly time flies. He is in 2nd grade, in the top study groups, and gets nearly all excellent marks (the exception being handwriting... that's probably my fault). He is also in his 4th year of piano and played soccer again this past spring. Z has also taken an interest in football this year, thanks to the Madden Wii game, and wants to play for the New England Patriots when he grows up (at other times, he has mentioned being a mechanic... we've told him, as long as he goes to college, he can do whatever he wants. :) ).

B just started kindergarten at Our Lady of Lourdes. Heather LOVES having the big kids in the same place this year... SO much less running around! B is already reading a year ahead of other kids her age and seems to love school. She is in Girl Scouts as a Daisy and would be more than happy to sell you cookies next month! She also played soccer this spring for this first time and was a scoring machine... she has no fear! On the opposite end of the spectrum, she is an artist and would draw/craft all day long given the opportunity.

A continues to be happiest in the afternoons when the big kids are back with us. At 1, she is finally learning to sleep in her own bed and just started really walking in the past couple of weeks. She loves music but is also content to play with a magazine that we are done with, flipping through it carefully and then tearing it up when she's finished (repurposing at its best!). We can't wait for her to really start talking!

The whole family celebrated Joey and Heather's 10th wedding anniversary with a weekend in Cape Hatteras.

Heather gets involved in everything possible because she can't say "no". She is the chair of the Pastoral Council, organizer of the Mom's Group, and a member of the baptism committee at church and room parent and volunteer at school. She is still keeping up with the kids' memories through scrapbooking and is even having four layouts published in a magazine that comes out tomorrow! Her mom is off work on Thursdays and Fridays, and she enjoys spending lots of time with her then.

Joey is still happily working at CSC - it's been 10 years now with the same employer! He coached BOTH Z and B in soccer this year, which meant two nights of practice a week and two games on Saturdays from the end of March to the beginning of June.

You can see the posts prior to this for all of the details on our vacation. We went to the West Coast and drove from San Francisco to Seattle over a 9 day span in June. This was the first year that we've had sickness accompany our travels. I guess we should be grateful? :)

We hope that 2011 is a blessed year for you and your family. Merry Christmas!

J's Road Sign Mania - Washington

2010-06-19T20:04:00.001-07:00

J's Road Sign Mania - Oregon

2010-06-19T19:57:00.001-07:00

J's Road Sign Mania - California

2010-06-19T19:46:00.001-07:00

The Joys of Airline Travel - June 17, 2010

2010-06-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

Nothing like getting up at 3AM Pacific to get to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, return the rental minivan, check in at the ticket counter, and go through security with 3 kids to catch a 6AM flight to Dallas. We had it all set up so nicely - leave early from Seattle, have a roughly a 2 hour layover in Dallas, and arrive in Richmond just in time for dinner at 6PM Eastern time. We boarded the plane in Seattle at 5:30AM. 6AM rolled around and the plane sat. At about 6:15, the pilot announced on the intercom that there was a maintenance issue with the plane involving the co-pilot's instruments and that was a "no go". Nothing like hearing the words "maintenance issue" on an airplane. Regardless, the pilot said that maintenance was working on the problem and that they would get us in the air as soon as possible. Another 15 minutes passed and still no resolution to the problem. The pilot than said that they would shut down all the power on the plane and it would be dark for 30 seconds and once they turned it on, hopefully the instruments would reset. Fixing a plane is apparently like fixing a computer or DirecTv - just shut it down and restart and everything will be okay. Well, that didn't work and the pilot said that the part that they needed to fix the instruments wasn't local (kind of ironic considering that this was a Boeing plane and the Boeing factory was a couple miles up the road in Seattle from the airport) - it would have to be flown in from Los Angeles and that the new takeoff time would be 12:30PM Pacific. As for now, the plane would be taken out of commission, we would have to pick up our luggage at the baggage carousel, and they recommended that we all try to find new flights at the ticket counter we started at earlier in the morning. H and A went to the ticket counter while J, Z, and B went to get the luggage. We're happy to report that our luggage was not lost on the flight from Seattle to Seattle. J, Z, and B then rode the escalator with all of the luggage back up towards the ticket counter and were greeted by a Hawaiian Airlines employee who asked us "Are you going to Hawaii?" J replied "I wish" - quite a kick in the backside to an already suspect morning. We all then met up in the ticket counter line which naturally was very long and wrapped around the corner. We had no idea if we would actually be able to get out of Seattle that day. We were thinking of possibly trying to land in DC or even Baltimore just to get closer to home. Well, we really lucked out - kudos to the extremely helpful American representative who got us on an 11:45 AM flight to Chicago landing at 5:30PM Central and a connection to Richmond leaving at 6:45 PM Central and landing at 9:55PM Eastern. On both flights, we still obtained seats together, which was amazing considering we were getting tickets the day of the flight. After our 2nd go-round through security with 3 kids, we sat at the gate and waited for the new flight. The highlight of those 3 hours waiting was watching Z and B ride the moving walkways parallel to where we were all sitting. It was extremely entertaining watching them walk in the opposite direction of the moving walkway. Sure, they almost ran over some people, but no one actually fell.

As we were waiting in line to board plane #2, we heard a lady next in line behind us tell a friend of hers, "I'm not going to shake your hand because I'm sick and I don't want to infect everyone." Fantastic! Because there's no way we could get infected (1) in a confined space such as an airplane or (2) standing right in front of her in line with her breathing around us. Once the new plane took off from Seattle headed for Chicago, we all breathed a little easier. We landed in Chicago about a hour before the flight left for Richmond - not a ton of time for a huge airport like O'Hare. We made it to our gate 15 minutes before the scheduled takeoff. Then they changed the gate and pushed back the takeoff time 10 minutes. Then they pushed it back another 10 minutes to 7:05PM Central. Airports just don't respect mid-major cities like Richmond. Fortunately, that was the last takeoff time change and we boarded around 6:40PM Central. This was a very interesting plane. It was small and probably was flown in World War I. Items that we stowed under the seats or put in the overhead bins on earlier flights (booster seats for Z and B, backpack) wouldn't fit in either the overhead bins or under the seats so they had to be "valeted" with the rest of the luggage. There were 2 seats on one side and one on the other. H, A, and B sat in row 3 on one side, Z sat in row 3 on the other side, and J sat in row 2 on the only side - the other side was the flight attendant's closet. We were glad that we ended up switching planes in Chicago instead of Dallas because it was awesome seeing the Chicago skyline again (Sears Tower, John Hancock Tower, etc) as the plane started out from O'Hare. We loved going to Chicago in 2007. The highlight of this flight was during the safety presentation as we were taking off. The flight attendant started reading from his card and the intercom stopped working. Unfazed, he kept reading although no one could hear him including J in row 2, a few feet away from him. It was a good flight home and had the added bonus of landing over Richmond just as fireworks were going off at the Diamond at the end of the Squirrels game. It was really cool seeing fireworks from a plane - it was a neat finish to a very, very long day.

Seattle: June 14-16, 2010

2010-06-19T18:28:00.000-07:00

- Started the first day in Washington by driving out to Mt. St. Helens. It was very cloudy and when we got within 15 miles of the closest view of the volcano (3000 feet up), it got so foggy that you couldn’t see the road much less the volcano so we turned around. We stopped at the Forest Learning Center were you could see lava flows in the valley below so it wasn’t a total loss.
- Lunch with H’s friend, Jamie, in Lacey (near Olympia) at a pizza place that had a much better buffet than Cici’s.
- Once we arrived in Seattle, we went up to the quintessential Seattle landmark, the Space Needle (B referred to it numerous times as the Space Shuttle). 5PM in the afternoon is a great time to go up to the top. Lines were short and it wasn’t crowded at the top. The views of Seattle from the top were outstanding.
- J enjoyed a smoked salmon chowder for dinner at the Southcenter mall food court near our hotel.
- J & H started the coffee tour of Seattle with a vanilla latte from Seattle’s Best Coffee at the mall after dinner. More coffee stops to come.
- Also after dinner at the mall, J purchased 2 hats (Seattle Mariners and Seattle Sounders FC) at Lids. J encountered a very determined clerk who was desperate to get him to have something embroidered on his hats. She suggested an embroidered Space Needle on the Mariners hat. Ah yes, just like the players have on their hats. J passed.
- J swam with Z and B in the indoor pool at the hotel. First indoor pool of the trip. Believe it or not, the SF hotel pool was outdoors. J can’t imagine that anyone would ever want to use it considering the temperature stays around 60-65 most of the time.
- J and H finished the first night watching local Seattle news where they had video of a Seattle policeman punching a jaywalker in the face after she initially pushed him during an arrest. We have no problem with the policeman's reaction ... people need to respect authority. The best part of this story was that it occurred on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd - isn't it ironic. This story blew up nationally the next day.
- More fun Seattle local news stuff - they had temperatures and conditions for areas around Seattle on a crawl on the side of the TV screen. Most of them said temperatures in the 50s and cloudy. The best one though was for Snoqualmie Pass where it said 35 degrees and mixed precipation (in June!)
- Day 2 in Seattle started with B saying her stomach hurt. Maybe Z did have a virus? H stayed with B and A in the hotel room where B tried to sleep off the pain. H suggested that J take Z to the Museum of Flight for the morning which was nearby.
- J and Z really enjoyed the Museum of Flight. Lots of planes to see, interactive kid exhibits which Z loved such as flying a Blue Angels plane and a flight simulator where you tried to land a Space Shuttle (Z crashed his)
- Coolest part of the museum was walking through a Concorde and an old Air Force One plane used in the 1970s. There was a typewriter in Air Force One. J asked Z what it was. He had never seen one of those and guessed that it was a copier.
- We got back to the hotel around 12PM and B met us in the lobby jumping up and down and smiling. H, B, and A were in the café when they saw us arrive. H was drinking Tully’s coffee (2nd stop on the coffee tour). We were very glad to see B feeling better.
- We all then went to Pike Place Market – home of the 1st Starbucks coffee house and place where guys in overalls throw fish. J really wanted to see guys throw fish and he was not disappointed. At one market stand, fishmen threw a number of fish long distance to customers who routinely dropped them. One of the fish throwers also liked to use colorful language as he cursed walking past us as we were eating lunch. Fortunately, Z and B didn’t hear it.
- After lunch, J paid an exorbitant $2 for a 5 piece bubble gum pack to put our used gum on the “gum wall” at the market. Kind of gross and unsanitary but our used gum is now immortalized on the wall.
- We got doughnuts afterwards (erasing the Voodoo Doughnut experience) from a stand where the vendor put on a show for us throwing 1 of our dozen doughnuts high into the air and catching it in the bag where the remaining donuts were. Very impressive.
- Next stop was the original Starbucks. H got a caramel frappucino and a 1st Starbucks commemorative mug and J got a caramel macchiato. The barista took our order, wrote the kind of drink we ordered on the cups, and threw the cups across to the barista making the drinks. J was impressed and tipped the barista for his performance. Memo to local baristas, if you want a tip, you must throw the cups to another barista.
- The overall theme of Pike Place Market was “if you throw it, they will come.”
- We then went back to the Space Needle area (called Seattle Center) to let Z and B go on a couple of rides at the Fun Forest Amusement Park next to the Space Needle. The rides were “state fairish” in nature which scared H. Z and B picked a roller coaster and a boat ride that spun. We told them 2 rides was all because we had other things to do. B, of course, wanted to ride more and begged and pleaded with us to get what she wanted. We said no so she fussed through both the Seattle Monorail and the Experience Music Project.
- B’s best outburst came in an interactive area where you could jam on various instruments in different rooms. When you went into a room, you had 10 minutes to play the featured instrument. We went in a drum room. B got mad because we were all in the room. She wanted to be the only one in the room which was clearly not going to happen. She screamed for the 1st 3 minutes while not letting anyone play the drums. Finally, we were able to wrestle a drumstick away from her and J, H, and Z played while B melted down. The long trip had finally taken its toll on poor B.
- Overnight, H had horrible stomach issues and threw up most of the night. J felt so bad for her. Z had to have a virus that went to B briefly and crushed H. Either that or food poisoning.
- H stayed in the room all day to rest and hopefully feel better. Early on in the day, it was questionable that we would able to come home the next day.
- J took Z, B, and A to the nearby Southcenter Mall for their 1st Webkinz each of the trip. Z got a baby penguin, B got a spotted seal, and A got a rooster.
- To close out the sightseeing portion of the trip, J took Z and B on a Washington State Ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and back to get great views of the Seattle skyline. We sat inside for the trip to Bainbridge Island. We were right in the front so we could still see the skyline through the windows. B wanted to go outside, Z didn’t want to, of course. J decided to compromise (not a win-win-win) and told Z that we would go outside on the return trip. He was reluctant at first but after we enjoyed a snack of Sun Chips in the ferry snack café area, he agreed to go outside. It turned out to be a win-win-win as we all loved being outside on the way back to Seattle.
- When J, Z, and B arrived back at the hotel around 7PM, the 2-day Ashley Furniture job fair in a hotel ballroom was winding down with the sweet sounds of that "Everybody Clap Your Hands" song blaring. That's one wild job fair.
- As the day progressed, H started to feel slightly better and we packed our things for the extremely early 6AM flight the next morning to start the return trip home.

Portland: June 12-13, 2010

2010-06-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

- US 199 from Crescent City to the Oregon border was very pretty but very curvy
- Z’s stomach started to bother him again, we stopped for him to throw up outside of the car but he couldn’t.
- In Cave Junction, Oregon, J found Caves Pharmacy and went inside looking for a remedy for Z. These were the nicest, most helpful employees and pharmacists ever. They were convinced after J's explanation of how Z was feeling that it was motion sickness caused by US 101 & US 199. They recommended this motion sickness medicine for kids and also advised that we needed to go to Multnomah Falls, we were planning on another waterfall on the way up to Portland.
- We decided to drive straight to Portland instead based on the pharmacy’s ringing endorsement and check out Multnomah Falls the next day on the way to the Mt. Hood Railroad in Hood River
- The medicine worked, Z’s stomach returned to normal on the drive up to Portland (Hooray!)
- Oregon is like New Jersey in that you can’t pump your own gas (that is probably the only similar thing between Oregon and New Jersey)
- Took in a Portland Beavers AAA baseball game Saturday night at PGE Park, this minor league stadium was awesome compared to the Diamond, there was hardly anyone at the game though which J thought was weird for a Saturday night. All three kids were given Beavers gloves at the gate.
- J got us lost driving back from the stadium to the hotel, one way streets and various bridges over the Willamette River (stadium was on the west side of the river and our hotel was on the east side of the river) got him majorly confused
- 0% sales tax (yea!)
- Caves Pharmacy employees were correct – Multnomah Falls was breathtaking, highlight of the trip thus far. It’s the second tallest year-round waterfall in the U.S. at 620 feet in height. We wanted to go the full mile up but thought that would be difficult with A and with slippery walkways, so we only went to the bridge 0.2 miles up. Z and B still got wet, though, which thrilled them.
- The fish in the river that the falls dump into were trying to swim upstream, so we watched them go nowhere for a few minutes.
- Mt. Hood Railroad – probably the biggest disappointment thus far. It’s too bad. That was the one activity that J was looking forward to the most. You couldn’t see Mt. Hood that well from inside the train. The 30 minute stop in Odell was worthless. It was a 1 street town of hopelessness. The tour guide trumped a Mexican restaurant and a “cookie lady” who sat under a tree. Oh by the way, you could only see the top of Mt. Hood from Odell. The most amusing thing on the train ride was some guy’s fashion sense. He had a blue T-shirt tucked in to his green colored shorts. T-shirts tucked into shorts look weird enough but mixing in green shorts was something to see.
- Town of Hood River where the train originated though was very cute
- Tried to get donuts at the critically acclaimed Voodoo Doughnut but the line was very long and the names of the donuts were not kid appropriate.

Sonoma Valley/Redwoods/Crescent City: June 11-12, 2010

2010-06-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

- Drove through Sonoma County (Wine Country), stopped at Kunde Family Estate to get CA wine and take a tour of their wine cave, old guy from MA kept asking ridiculous questions to our guide such as “where’s the Smothers Brothers winery?”
- Cave had thousands of barrels and cave had a wonderful wine aroma, cave also would have been a great place to play hide and seek. On the back wall, you could also see the layers of rock that had formed over many thousands of years, which fascinated Z.
- Drove on Avenue of the Giants to see CA redwood trees, so tall and so thick at the bottom, it was a sunny day but it fairly dark in the woods because of all the trees. It was fun to watch Z and B climbing in, around, and through the trees. Even A sat on a redwood!
- Nature called for J on the drive and with no available bathrooms close by, J “watered” a redwood which was hilarious for Z and B
- US 101 in No Cal is very curvy, this will become a big problem later
- Dinner at McDonald’s in Fortuna was lame, punk middle schoolers loitering, Z’s stomach started to bother him
- About 40 miles from Crescent City, Z threw up in the car, not fun for anyone. H gladly left the bag by the side of the road. She hated littering, but there was no chance that was going back in the car.
- Arrived in Crescent City around 10PM (11 hours after we left SF) and promptly went to bed
- We went to the coastline the next morning, very rocky coast, Pacific Ocean was pretty (much different from the Atlantic)
- We also took a few minutes to take A's 8 month pictures by the ocean.
- In addition to being rocky, there was a lot of broken wood around and Z got a splinter which H removed after considerable whining from Z. H deemed this part of the trip “Mommy cleans up Z’s messes”.

San Francisco June 9-10, 2010

2010-06-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

- A’s 1st big vacation (yeah!)
- Our first stop was the Crookedest Street. H drove this time because J did 6 years ago
- Next: Golden Gate Bridge (fun fact - the color of the bridge is International Orange)
- Dinner at a California institution – In & Out Burger which B referred to the next day as Out-N-Burger
- Then we went to Pier 39 to celebrate the return of the sea lions and to ride the carousel
- We started next morning going to the Aquarium of the Bay – kids got Burger King crown-like shark hats. There was a cool walk-through tube exhibit showing life in the SF bay (included lots of starfish and even sharks).
- Next, we went on a Bay Cruise. Every SF tour tries to get you to buy additional tours once you leave the tour you are on. We were taken under the GG bridge and around Alcatraz Island (who knew it wasn’t just one building, as it looks from shore?).
- We enjoyed lunch at a place called Wipeout Bar & Grill - "Good night and big balls."
- Kids got free sourdough bread shaped like turtles at Boudin Bread Factory just for telling the breadmaker that they liked the turtle shapes best (they had many other animal shapes as well)
- Coit Tower – scariest, oldest elevator ever (but not smallest), place to buy tickets was a gift shop that could have been on the show Hoarders, great views from top of the tower
- Ghirardelli Soda Fountain offered incredibly overpriced sundaes but you could see how they made chocolate, which was incredibly cool to H and the kids. J could have cared less.
- B spent much of the first 2 days wanting to go home, then some random guy in a store on a street in Fisherman’s Wharf gave her a flower balloon which made her happy
- Then it popped and she screamed all through the cable car line and ride that she wanted another balloon. J wanted to scream at the banjo player serenading everyone in line singing such classics as Pop Goes the Weasel while begging for money
- 9.5% sales tax, ouch!

Epilogue

2009-06-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

EDITOR’S NOTE – To get maximum enjoyment from reading the 2009 trip portion of the blog, please click on the 2009 link on the right-hand side of the page. Then read from the bottom starting with Savannah, GA up concluding with the epilogue.

Well, it was another excellent trip. It was nice to not bounce around from city to city and hotel to hotel like we did last year on the Montreal/New England journey. But we still logged over 1650 miles driving over the course of the vacation.

The purpose of the epilogue is to kind of sum up the vacation talking about the things that we really enjoyed and the moments that stuck in our memory banks for one reason or another.

Let’s start with the things that we really enjoyed about Disney World that have not been previously mentioned in the blog. The first one was the Disney Quick Service Dining Plan that we purchased as part of our vacation package. We purchased the hotel, park tickets, and dining plan as a bundle and it was an incredible deal. We got a total of 32 lunches or dinners (2 a day for the 4 of us) which included an entrée, dessert, and drink or an entrée and 2 drinks. Plus we also got 32 snacks which we could use on food items such as ice cream and bottled water. Not every restaurant was included on the plan but there were plenty to choose from and the portions were plentiful. We don’t exactly know how much we paid for the dining plan but we are sure that we more than covered the cost because every meal was over $40. Plus the best meal we had, at Wolfgang Puck Express, was over $60 and it was on the plan. You are a fool if you don’t use the dining plan. The next thing that we really enjoyed was how every time a Disney employee saw B, they would say to her “Hi, princess.” It’s just something little but it made B feel so special. One more highlight of Disney World had to be their extensive network of squished penny machines. Every time we travel, Z and B see the penny machines that turn a penny into a souvenir from wherever you are at that particular point in time. The kids have pennies from up and down the East Coast and as far west as Minnesota. Disney World had penny machines everywhere – in the theme parks, in shops at Downtown Disney, even in our hotel. Z and B added 12 new pennies and also a squished quarter.

What rides and attractions did we really like best? Here’s the rundown.
Z – Mission Space, Expedition Everest
B – Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
H – The Seas with Nemo and Friends, Toy Story Midway Mania
J – Expedition Everest, Toy Story Midway Mania

Now it is time to conclude this post with some fun facts and awards.

Fun Fact Savannah – On our trolley tour, our tour guide pointed out the bench that Tom Hanks sat on in the movie “Forrest Gump” where he would incessantly talk about Jenny. Doesn’t that make you want to eat a box of chocolates?

Fun Fact St. Augustine – One of the major streets in the town is Avenida Menendez which is named for Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles who founded the town – not for the infamous Menendez brothers, Lyle and Erik.

Fun Fact Charleston – Charleston probably leads the nation in art galleries per capita. While walking around the downtown area, it seemed like every other building was an art gallery.

The Most Entertaining Moment on the Road Award – This goes to the gentleman at the gas station in South Newport, GA who was at the gas pump in front of us. We watched him open the hatch of his car and see everything in the back of the car fall out onto the pavement. J really had to restrain himself from laughing out loud while pumping gas.

The Disney Character Who Most Needs an Attitude Adjustment Award – This goes to Alice of Alice in Wonderland fame at the Magic Kingdom. B was melting down while walking with H to the restroom when H spotted Alice out of the corner of her eye. Hoping B would stop screaming, H said, “Look, its Cinderella.” Alice shot back “Oh, no, I’m Alice” in a tone that implied that H was an intellectual lightweight. You try to recognize similar looking Disney characters at a glance while dealing with a screaming child sometime, Alice!

The Best Game in the Hotel Arcade Award – This goes to the huge spinning wheel (a la the Price is Right) that gave out tickets based on where the wheel stopped. Both Z and B won 80 tickets on 1 spin. It was quite impressive seeing the game just shoot out ticket after ticket. You would think that winning 80 tickets would earn quality prizes but in the end, the kids just ended up with candy. The conversion rate of tickets to prizes is comparable to the conversion rate of the Japanese yen with the dollar, Euro, or British pound.

The No Soup for You Award – This goes to the strict employee at the Fastpass area of Kilimanjaro Safaris at the Animal Kingdom. We arrived 2 minutes before our scheduled Fastpass reservation time and she turned us away. Without rules, there’s chaos.

The Welcome to Our Town Award – This goes to Charleston, SC. Interstate 26 ends inside of the city limits and deposits you onto the mean streets of town before you get to the historic picturesque downtown area. There was a Church’s Fried Chicken in the blighted area which prompted H to say “You know that you are in a bad area if there’s a Church’s Fried Chicken around” (Just like Richmond International Raceway).

The Most Ridiculous Catch Phrase Award – This goes to “Have a Magical Day.” This award is a no-brainer. Disney World is obsessed with magic and their employees, it appears, are forced to conclude every conversation with the tourists saying this phrase. It is fine, we guess, for the cashier to tell you “Have a Magical Day” after you fork over cash for food or souvenirs or as you are exiting a ride. It loses its impact though after midnight during a phone conversation when you are calling to complain about raucous hotel neighbors as mentioned earlier in the Day 1 post.

That’s it for this vacation. We hope you enjoyed reading the blog as much as we enjoyed going on the Disney vacation. Have a magical day!

Charleston, SC

2009-06-25T16:45:00.001-07:00

We woke up to a thunderstorm, thinking that we might have to scrap the city completely, even after driving out of the way to get there. Luckily, it stopped raining by the time we were ready to checkout. We drove down to the Battery area of the city with picturesque views of the water and beautiful, huge plantation-style houses. After parking in the French Quarter, we stopped and walked for awhile, seeing the Old Custom House building (from the outside… didn’t think the kids would handle even a short tour at that point) among other historic homes (some of the neatest with lanterns burning out front), buildings, and churches and stopping to read some of the historical markers along the way. H found the old gravestones fascinating… J thought that was morbid. We also passed a lot of art galleries… guess we didn’t go far enough for the shopping district, although it was so early when we first got there that most wouldn’t have been open. By 11:30am, we were all ready to head for home. On the way out, we had our first Starbucks of the trip (why is it that when you go north, they are all over the interstates, and when you travel south, you rarely see them?).

(written by H)

Disney World - Day 5

2009-06-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

This was our last day in the Disney complex (actually supposed to be half a day) as we had hotel reservations in Charleston, SC for the evening. Mapquest advised that it would take 6 ½ hours to get from Disney to Charleston so we figured we would leave town no later than 2 PM. That would be plenty of time to check out the few rides that we had scheduled for Disney’s Hollywood Studios. J and H pretty much concluded that we would not be able to get the mini-golf in that was washed out by thunderstorms the previous night. Maybe the kids would have so much fun at the park that they would forget about the mini-golf. The rides that we scheduled as must for the Studios were the Tower of Terror and Star Tours. We also had the Great Movie Ride (yawn) and the Backlot Studio Tour as possible options. Our first stop was the Tower of Terror. J was hopeful of a good Fastpass time. If the available return times were after 2PM, we would just have to suck it up and wait 60 minutes or more to ride. J was not really pumped for that option. Luckily, the return time was 11:50 AM-12:50 PM so we snagged our final Fastpasses of the trip. Next up was Star Tours, a Star Wars based flight simulator ride. Add Star Tours to the list of rides that B did not enjoy. After that we just walked around the park for a little bit. The Hollywood Studios doesn’t really have a lot of rides and shows but it does have character. It is set up to look like a bunch of movie sets, some current and some old-timey, and it gives you a flavor of Hollywood (minus the tattoo shops and Scientology buildings that the real Hollywood has – we know, we’ve been to the real Hollywood). After our stroll through the movie sets, we decided to check out an attraction called Toy Story Midway Mania. It had a 50 minute wait and Fastpass returns were after 5 PM so we ventured into the line. We didn’t know what this attraction was. The Hollywood Studios map mentioned that it was a 3D adventure but we couldn’t tell if it was an actual ride. We did know that B would not wear her 3D glasses. The line took forever and J was very concerned that we would miss our Fastpass reservation for Tower of Terror which would pretty much ruin the day. We made it onto the ride around 12PM and it was probably one of the most imaginative, entertaining rides in all of the Disney parks. It was a ride that spun you from one computerized shooting gallery to another and another. It was great fun earning points for hitting targets and at the end of the game, the ride gave you a virtual prize based on your score. J and H “won” rabbits, Z “won” a beaver, and B “won” an armadillo. J is also happy to report that we made it to the Tower of Terror ride in plenty of time. J loved the multiple ups-and-downs of the ride. B was not a fan of this one as well – she really had a tough day with the rides. Surprisingly, Z also disapproved and told J that he would not ride it again unless he was J’s age. This concluded the park portion of our trip. It was about 2 PM when we left but not without a little drama. B saw another stuffed animal that she had to have, a Sorcerer Mickey. H told her that she had a Sorcerer Mickey beanie baby at home so B could have that one then. B didn’t like that answer and screamed “Mickey, Mickey” as we departed. We drove off to get gas and start the journey towards Charleston. Z then asked if we were still going to play mini-golf. We said that we didn’t have time and he started to get sad. J didn’t want 2 sad kids leaving Disney (B was still screaming about Mickey) so he said that we didn’t have any plans for the night in Charleston so let’s play golf. It was a fun and challenging course based on the movie Fantasia. The course also sold Sorcerer Mickey stuffed toys as an added bonus in the area were you picked up your clubs and balls. To promote a scream-free playing atmosphere, J let B get the Sorcerer Mickey. She happily carried it around the course and even now, it is probably the favorite of all of the animals she got on the trip. J, H, and Z shot pretty well in spirit-crushing heat and humidity. Z, in fact, had his best round ever. B got tired of playing about 2/3rd’s of the way through but she still had the most memorable moment of the round. There was a water hazard on the 15th hole. Midway down the hole, water would occasionally shoot up from holes in the ground like at our hotel. B stood right over the holes and up came the water. It soaked her but even worse, it soaked Mickey. She was inconsolable about Mickey getting wet. We finished up the round by 3:30 PM, got onto Interstate 4, the major artery in Orlando that connects to Interstate 95, and eventually left the city over an hour later because of 2 separate accidents. Ugh. We finally made it to Charleston at 11PM and immediately went to bed.

Disney World - Day 4

2009-06-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

This was probably the best day we had in Disney World. It was jam-packed with entertainment. First up was the character breakfast at Chef Mickey’s in the Contemporary Resort. The character breakfast is the easiest way to see all of the Disney characters. H was actually originally unsuccessful getting reservations about 2 months ago for Chef Mickey’s. A friend of hers suggested she try again closer to our trip and a couple weeks ago, H did manage to secure reservations for a 7:05 AM seating. It was by far the most expensive breakfast we ever ate (in excess of $100 with tip) but seeing the joy on the kids’ faces when Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, and Pluto came out of the kitchen one by one to say hi was well worth it. After a hearty breakfast, we then got on the monorail for a quick trip from the Contemporary Resort to the nearby Magic Kingdom … or so we thought. The monorail made an unscheduled maintenance stop at the next station, the ever exciting Transportation and Ticket Center. After what seemed like an eternity (actually 10-15 minutes) we were on the move again. Then at the third station, the Grand Floridian resort, the conductor told us that the monorail would be taken out of commission at the Magic Kingdom. We were ecstatic to finally make it to the Magic Kingdom but J wondered why they didn’t test the monorail before starting it out on its morning run. The monorail looks so sleek and cool when it zooms into the hole in the Contemporary Resort but riding on it was a bit of a disappointment. Once inside the Magic Kingdom, we bought the kids Mickey (for Z) and Minnie (for B) ears hats with their names embroidered on them. While H waited for the embroidering on the hats to finish, J raced with Z and B back to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride. H noticed the other day that there were some 3 person cars on the coaster which made life much easier this time around. J, Z, and B got the front car of the coaster this time and it was fabulous. Other rides and attractions that we all went on this day at Magic Kingdom were Splash Mountain (only a 30 minute wait at 9 AM … woohoo), It’s a Small World (again, it never gets old), Dumbo the Flying Elephant (always the slowest line in the park), Mad Tea Party (Z and B loved sending our tea cup spinning), the Barnstormer in Mickey’s Toontown Fair (B said that the ride was too short), visits to Minnie Mouse’s house and Mickey Mouse’s house in Mickey’s Toontown Fair (for some reason, the line to walk around Minnie’s house was much longer than Mickey’s house), and Peter Pan’s Flight. We got a Fastpass for Peter Pan’s Flight because that line is always long. It doesn’t make much sense why this is the case. You are just in a boat flying through the story of Peter Pan but it is wildly popular. We took our stroller to the Magic Kingdom because B would frequently say that she couldn’t walk and it gets tiring carrying her all over the park. Why is this information important? Let us explain. We had to park the stroller in a large stroller parking area around the carousel and then we got in the Fastpass line for Peter Pan. The line and ride took about 10 minutes yet when we retrieved the stroller, H noticed something was missing from the back pocket of the stroller. Someone had stolen the embroidered Mickey and Minnie ears that we purchased earlier in the day. We went back to the stroller area and a very nice employee named Lena helped us resolve the situation. She helped us get new embroidered ears hats at a nearby store free of charge and she also gave us a cut-to-the-front-of-the-line pass for any ride in the park and a voucher for free ice cream. Lena certainly won the Employee of the Trip award for her actions. H asked the kids what ride they wanted to go in with this pass and of course, they said Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We started the Magic Kingdom day with Big Thunder Mountain and we finished it off in style the same way. The next activity for the day was going to Fort Wilderness to let the kids ride ponies for the first time in their lives. B loves horses so we knew she was excited. Z also was pumped to ride a horse. The pony rides closed at 5PM and we arrived at the entrance to Fort Wilderness at 4:20 PM. Fort Wilderness is huge so we were a bit concerned that we wouldn’t make it in time to the pony farm or that the line to ride ponies would be so long that the kids wouldn’t get a chance to ride. Fortunately, Disney buses run constantly at the fort and we quickly got on a bus and made it to the farm with 20 minutes to spare. B got to ride a white horse named Jester and Z got to ride a brown horse named Levi. J and H were responsible for holding onto the pony’s leash guiding the horse around a marked path. The kids absolutely loved it. And we didn’t step in horse poop around the path which was excellent. Nothing ruins a day like stepping in horse poop. The next stop on this tremendous day was a trip back to Downtown Disney to eat dinner at a dinosaur themed restaurant called T-Rex. It was like eating back in the Mesozoic era. We actually ran into one of B’s preschool classmates at the restaurant… so weird to see someone you know hundreds of miles from home. We wanted to play mini golf after dinner but a huge thunderstorm rolled in so we called it a night.

Interlude 2 - Pictures of our hotel - Disney's Pop Century Resort

2009-06-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

Here are some pictures from the hotel. One word describes the decor - CHEESY!

Interlude 1 continues - The 3rd Annual J's Road Sign Mania

2009-06-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

Here are some more signs. The blogging website wouldn't allow me to include them all in one post. The first 2 signs are more South Carolina signs. The state has not even come close to changing all of their signs from the old boring square/rectangle to the new rectangle saying South Carolina along with the state outline and the Palmetto tree. The other 2 signs are from Florida. First is a county road sign in St. Augustine and second is a sign in the Disney complex. They use totally different purple signs than the standard green ones you see on the interstates. Notice on the Disney sign as well that the top of the state of Florida is not geographically accurate as the top of the state is shown as just a straight line.

Interlude 1 - The 3rd Annual J's Road Sign Mania

2009-06-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

We couldn't have a travel blog without the road signs. This year's crop was outstanding. From top to bottom, it is Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Previous mania winners were Minnesota and New Hampshire. This year's winner is ... Florida. The state shape is not conducive to put route numbers inside it. Yet Florida thought outside of the box and found a way to incorporate the state shape. Congratulations, Florida!

Disney World - Day 3

2009-06-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

We were very excited about the potential for day 3. We were headed to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the newest of the Disney theme parks. For some reason in our minds, Animal Kingdom has a buzz that the other parks maybe don’t have. Perhaps, it is because it is newer (only 11 years old) or because of the scenery such as the exquisitely constructed Tree of Life or the unique combination of wildlife and amusement (i.e. Kilimanjaro Safaris). Here was the reality of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It seemed 30 degrees hotter and 1000 percent more humid than at any other spot in the Disney complex and it was incredibly crowded. It was a challenging day for us to say the least. Once we saw that we were going to share the park with about a billion of our closest friends, we started strategically planning what rides we were going to get Fastpasses to ride. J figured that the three legitimate candidates for Fastpass were the previously mentioned Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest (a roller coaster based on Mount Everest), and Dinosaur (a high-speed turbulent thrill ride that takes you back to the time of Dinosaurs which Z was very excited about). We headed out towards Dinosaur first because all of the crowds were heading towards Kilimanjaro Safaris. Dinosaur had the best wait of the day, only 5 minutes. J took Z and B on it. B asked J in the line why H couldn't ride Dinosaur. J said that it was because of the baby inside of H. Then B asked, "Why is the baby afraid of dinosaurs?" It was very funny. The kids love dinosaurs and they also love roaring like dinosaurs so they would love the ride, right? Z seemed to like it. B did not – darkness and big dinosaurs coming at you roaring was not a good combination for her. She gave it a thumbs down saying that it was too scary. After that, we headed toward Expedition Everest which had about a 20 minute wait. H said that we should just ride it and not worry about the Fastpass. But after seeing how we missed out on Test Track and Soarin because we didn’t get Fastpasses in a timely fashion, J wanted to experience the thrill of Fastpass where you get on rides with minimal wait instead of waiting a minimum of 20 minutes and possibly much longer. It was about 10AM at this time and J popped in the park tickets into a machine to get a Fastpass to return to Expedition Everest between 10:50 AM and 11:50 AM . With this exciting reservation in hand, it was off to Kilimanjaro Safaris to pick up another Fastpass. We arrived at the safari ride and this time, Z wanted to pop in the park tickets to get the Fastpass. The available times that we could get at that time were between roughly 12 PM and 1 PM which would work out great. Z put his ticket in and out came another Fastpass reservation. This one was slightly different though. It said “this is not a valid Fastpass ticket. Come back at 10:50 AM to pick up your next Fastpass.” J was not pleased with this scenario. J, of course, didn’t ride the fine print of the rules which plainly said to check your Fastpass ticket for the time when you can get another ticket. Clearly, H was right when she said that we should just get in the regular line and ride Expedition Everest. We were concerned that once 10:50 arrived, the tickets would either say to come back between 5 and 6PM or that there were no more Fastpasses available for the day. The wait at 10:15 AM was already 80 minutes and that is way too long to wait in any line for any ride. We killed the remaining 45 minutes until we could pick up the next Fastpass by waiting in line (most of the 45 minutes) for and then eventually riding a train J and Z then raced over to Expedition Everest to make our scheduled time while H and B got the safari Fastpasses. Expedition Everest was an outstanding roller coaster. It was a classic coaster with a twist. It made its way up a fake Mount Everest until you reached the top. Then it stopped and went quickly down the hill backwards. Good stuff. When J and Z reunited with H & B after the ride, Z couldn’t stop talking about how much he loved the ride. J was hesitant to ask H if she was able to get the Fastpasses for the safari but he did anyway. Fortunately, she got them at a still favorable time, between 2 and 3PM . Then all four of us rode Triceratops Spin (like Dumbo but with triceratops instead of elephants) and saw It’s Tough to Be a Bug (another 3D movie) inside the Tree of Life. Because it was 3D, B again refused to wear the 3D glasses. Next we baked in the sun eating lunch and after that bought more Webkinz animals for the kids because B was screaming “ANIMAL” and “CHEETAH” as we got closer to our scheduled safari time. To avoid a screaming safari ride where animals might possible freak out and charge our jeep, we decided to cut our losses and buy them more Webkinz. This haul was a cheetah for B (which is actually a leopard but she is convinced that it is a cheetah and thus named it Cheetah) and a key lime dinosaur for Z. Then finally, it was safari time. We saw lots of African wildlife including giraffes, elephants, antelopes, and a sleeping lion. That concluded our Animal Kingdom adventure as the temperature by mid-afternoon there approached about 500 degrees. Later that night, we went to Downtown Disney for quality dining at Wolfgang Puck Express and quality shopping. Z got the Legos that he had been talking about for weeks (a police helicopter and police car) and B added a stuffed “Lady” from “Lady in the Tramp” to her exponentially growing stuffed animal collection.

Disney World – Day 2

2009-06-22T04:34:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

We spent Day 2 in the Disney complex at Epcot Center. Epcot is a fascinating park with 2 distinctive and totally different parts – Future World and World Showcase. Our first ride was The Seas with Nemo and Friends. This was a cute ride based on the movie Finding Nemo which the kids enjoyed watching multiple times on DVD in the car on the way down to Florida. At the end of the ride was an aquarium where you could see real fish that looked like the Finding Nemo characters plus other sea creatures. The kids were especially fascinated by the manatees. Then on our way out of the ride, of course, we had to go through a gift shop. It is amazing how many Disney rides exit into gift shops. The kids immediately saw their intended targets to plead us to get for them … Webkinz animals. J & H were kind of stunned that the Disney parks would feature Webkinz. We thought they would only have Disney character stuffed toys. The kids begged and because we had just gotten them Webkinz animals in St. Augustine yesterday, we told them to wait and see if they saw other souvenirs in the park that they would like better. Z and B weren’t terribly thrilled with this verdict but they accepted it. We checked out one more ride in Future World, Journey into Imagination, and then we set off for the marathon that is the World Showcase. It is fascinating to traverse the World Showcase pavilion and see all of the different countries. We kind of did a drive-by on most of the countries. The only ones that we actually stopped in were Mexico to eat lunch and go on their boat ride, China and Canada to watch their Circlevision 360, and England because J & H love England after going to London in 2001. J wanted to check out the shops in the England pavilion and once inside, we were thrilled to see that they sold real English candy in there. Our favorite from the London trip was the Nestle Mint Aero chocolate bar and low and behold, it was in the shop. We bought a couple and ate them quickly outside before they melted in the 90 degree heat and humidity. By the end of the World Showcase, B was tired and angry. She wanted the Webkinz that she saw earlier. Z sympathized with her plight and begged for one as well. We relented and headed back to The Seas with Nemo to ride it again so they could get the animals. There was no wait to ride it this time (all of Epcot was either in the line for Test Track or Soarin, the new hang gliding adventure, both of which had waits of an hour or longer with no more Fastpasses available for the day) and soon enough, Z and B were the proud owners of a manatee and pelican respectively. Incidentally, B named her pelican “Goose.” We concluded our Epcot day with Mission Space and Spaceship Earth, the big globe that is the famous Epcot landmark. J and Z rode Mission Space because B wasn’t tall enough. This ride simulates a rocket launch into space and you could choose either the more intense or less intense launch. Like heroes, J and Z chose the more intense launch. Inside, the video that comes on before the launch says to keep facing forward, keep your head back, and don’t close your eyes or you will become disoriented. J thought “Uh-oh, what are we getting ourselves into.” In the end, Z loved it and J was a tad nauseous for a little while. Z is one tough 6 year old. We finished off the evening with water activities at the hotel. First was going in the “Hippy Dippy” pool , a huge 60’s themed flower shaped pool. Then there was a little area with Goofy by our room where water randomly shot up from holes in the concrete to get kids wet. Z and B loved every minute of this area. They were running, giggling, smiling, and splashing. It was fun to see them having so much fun.

Disney World - Day 1

2009-06-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

We arrived inside the Disney World complex around 3PM and checked in to our hotel, Disney’s Pop Century. The hotel is a salute to U.S. Pop Culture from the 1950s through the 1990s. It was a huge hotel and it was very popular considering that it appeared that 30 million people were staying there while we were there. We will post pictures of the hotel in a later blog entry. After unloading the car, we headed off to the Magic Kingdom. The kids were extremely excited as we rode the bus from the hotel to the Magic Kingdom. Once we arrived at the park, we didn’t even make it inside before B wanted to see Pluto who was standing outside of the entrance. B and Z hugged Pluto while H took pictures and then we were inside. We found coin books for smashed pennies inside the Emporium for the kids and then we were off to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the ride Z had wanted to go on for months. It seemed pretty crowded so we were delighted that the wait time for the ride said only 10 minutes. J and Z rode it (Z loved it!) and then J took B (H can’t ride roller coasters because she is pregnant) hoping that she would be tall enough to ride it. The ride minimum height was 40 inches and B was 41 inches (yea!!!! – there would have been quite a meltdown if she was not tall enough). Then J and B rode it and B loved it as well! Incidentally after J and B got off of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the wait time for the ride said 80 minutes. We got really lucky with that ride. We all rode the Haunted Mansion next which B did not like at all. She said that “it was a little bit scary.” Next was a much more kid-friendly ride, It’s a Small World, which was a big hit. Other attractions that we went on included Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, Cinderella’s Golden Carousel, the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and Mickey’s PhilharMagic (a 3-D musical adventure where B refused to wear her special 3-D glasses). We debated whether to see fireworks but it was a long couple of days and the kids were ready for bed so we left around 9PM catching a little bit of the Spectromagic parade as we walked out of the park. Incidentally, that is the best way to see a parade. Why get to a perfect spot an hour early sitting in the heat and then have people plow in front of you minutes before the parade starts?

Once we got back to the hotel, it was bedtime (or so we thought). The kids fell asleep pretty quickly around 10 but J and H were awakened by the people in the hotel room next to us. They got back to their room after 11PM and they were incredibly loud – laughing and shouting probably after a night of adult beverages. Once they belted into a chorus of Reo Speedwagon’s Keep on Loving You, J was at his breaking point. J called the front desk to complain about the noise and the lady who answered the phone said that she would ask security to check out the situation. At the end of the call, the Disney employee told J to “have a magical day.” J was dumbfounded by this response and groggily hung up the phone. Fortunately, the commotion stopped and we got to sleep.

St. Augustine, FL

2009-06-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

We started Day 2 by driving into the town of St. Augustine, the oldest town in the United States. It is a very pretty town with many old buildings inspired by Spanish architecture. The first building we visited was the Oldest One Room Schoolhouse in the United States. We had to buy tickets in the gift shop where the kids spotted Webkinz, those adorable stuffed animals that have virtual lives on the Internet, with their eagle eyes. Z and B already have 4 Webkinz but they wanted more. We told them that if they were good seeing the schoolhouse, they could each buy one. Z was very good and enjoyed the school (probably because he could relate it by just finishing Kindergarten). B did not enjoy it as much and kept whining “Springer Spaniel” for the Webkinz dog she wanted. Highlights of the school included the animatronic boy who was wearing a dunce cap and the special dungeon area for kids who misbehaved. Z even rung the schoolhouse bell before we left. After the schoolhouse, Z got a Webkinz turtle and B got the springer spaniel that she so desired. We then took a very brief look inside the Oldest Drug Store which just seemed to want to sell you new things. The next stop on our visit was the Fountain of Youth. J thought that we would just walk up to the fountain, take a picture, and depart. Instead it was a 45 minute presentation which started inside a tiny planetarium to see how the stars looked the night before Ponce de Leon arrived ashore at St. Augustine (Z was mesmerized by the show… B didn’t like the dark) and ended with our tour guide, a bald man with a large tattoo on his arm, advising us that we could buy beer at the concession stand. We all got to drink water from the fountain which was cool. The fountain itself was very plain, it was just a well. But hey, the fountain is from the 1500s so you wouldn’t expect it to be ornate. Next stop – Disney World!

Savannah, GA

2009-06-12T17:29:00.000-07:00

We left home at almost 4am this morning. J drove a whopping almost 4 hours before we stopped (incredible since H is pregnant and there are two relatively small kids in the car... luckily, they went back to sleep once we got on the road!). We only stopped one other time before arriving in Savannah... so that the kids could get out of the car and run for a few minutes because Z's leg was hurting him from so much sitting (these are NOT kids that are used to sitting still!). Once in Savannah (about 11am, people... that's why we always leave so early!), we ate lunch at an awesome old pirate haunt, The Pirate's House. The building was preserved incredibly well, the artifacts were interesting, and the food was good. The kids received pirate hats to wear and said a lot of "argh"s while we waited for our food. After lunch, we took a trolley tour of Savannah. We had no idea it was such a small town. The city was one of few that was not burned by the Union in the Civil War, so there were many old houses still standing (build a brick house if you don't already have one... it should hold up at least 150 years). Although I couldn't really see spending more than a weekend here, there were a lot of shops by the river, and walks through the neighborhoods and many museums would be a relaxing time. Not fabulously, the heat index was about 105, so we roasted. Z proclaimed the tour boring and slept through a lot of it (totally zonked because of getting up so early), while B kept standing up on the seat (luckily we were in the back of the trolley) and seemingly tried to fall out of the window (she didn't). So much for encouraging them to learn the histories of the places we visit. We arrived in St. Augustine, FL around 5pm and will be visiting the Nation's Oldest City for a couple of hours in the morning before heading to the only place the kids want to go on our trip.

H signing off for now (that's right... my first blog post since Chicago two years ago, I think!).

Christmas letter 2008

2008-12-01T05:01:00.000-08:00

2008 Topich family recap

Zachary…
1. Played spring soccer and can’t wait for Joey to be his coach next year.
2. Had his first piano recital.
3. Started school at Our Lady of Lourdes (our church), and will be moving on to first grade work after Christmas since he is “so far ahead of the other kids” (his teacher’s quote!).

Bella…
4. Performed in her first dance recital.
5. Got her ears pierced and didn’t cry.
6. Started preschool 3 days a week at Church of the Creator (same school where Z went).

We all…
7. Went to Montreal and the New England states for our vacation this year.
8. Spent a lot of time at Kings Dominion over the summer.
9. Wish you a Merry Christmas and many blessings in 2009!

Epilogue - 2008 Vacation

2008-06-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

2200 miles, 2 countries, 11 states, what a journey it was.

The Grand Return of J's Road Sign Mania

2008-06-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

The wait is over! Back by popular demand, here are the road signs. Enjoy!

Circles and Ovals

Delaware on top. New Jersey on bottom. New Jersey adds a nice black background to their circle sign.

Squares and Rectangles

Clearly, the most popular shape of state route sign on the trip. From the top, they go Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts (2 times including the first one which is in the long "Big Dig' tunnel), and Rhode Island. Connecticut is also a square (rectangle for 3 digit routes) but we were in Connecticut after the camera broke.

Creative State Route Signs

On top is New York state with a fun shape that I really don't know how to describe. It's abstract like Wisconsin. Also, notice how wide the numbers are on the New York sign. On bottom is New Hampshire. Clearly, this is the best of the bunch with the silhouette of the "Old Man of the Mountain" that I discussed in a previous post. Perhaps now NH should change their sign to a pile of rocks to show what the Old Man looks like now.

Vermont

Vermont gets its own category because they couldn't seem to decide what their sign should be. Some signs had an oval, some signs had a circle, and a few had the unique white and green sign that said Vermont on it.

Quebec

We finish the road sign mania with the Canadian province of Quebec. The first sign contains both the blue autoroute (like a US interstate) sign and the green provincial (like a state route) road sign. The second sign is a close up of the blue autoroute sign. I photographed the third sign because the sign was blue for no apparent reason. The fourth sign is a classic. And the fifth sign shows how fast you can drive in Quebec.

Day 8 - Connecticut to Atlantic City

2008-06-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

This is the last day of the vacation and we have closed it out in style. After our Griswold moment yesterday with Dinosaur State Park closing as we arrived, we decided to try again getting there minutes before the park was to open. We were the first ones in the parking lot just like the Griswolds at Walley World. I had to quote from National Lampoon’s Vacation “First ones here. First ones here. First ones here!” There was no dinosaur today to tell us that the park was closed. The park was open and it was more like a museum with various nature trails. We could now understand why it closed before sundown. All of the dinosaur tracks were inside an exhibit center. Construction crews found the tracks while they were preparing to build an office building in 1968. Once the tracks were found, construction stopped and the Connecticut government quickly got the wheels in motion to turn this into a state park. An exhibit center was built over top of the tracks to preserve them so we could enjoy them today. The kids had a blast there. B loved watching this 2 minute movie showing the dinosaur timeline in Connecticut. She didn’t care about the timeline. She was fascinated by this one cartoon dinosaur that walked during the movie. She watched it repeatedly. Z’s favorite part was looking at the tracks and pressing 3 buttons that would light up the tracks made by 3 different dinosaurs. It was well worth making the second trip there to see how happy the kids were. They really enjoyed playing with their toy dinosaurs on the trip down to Atlantic City. It was a 5 hour trip (4 of which seemed to take place driving through New York City). Traffic was so bad on I-95 that we bailed onto I-278 where we could see all 5 NYC boroughs and cross the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

We arrived at our hotel in Atlantic City, the Tropicana, around 4 PM. It’s a fun hotel with shopping, dining, and a casino all inside. We went to The Palm (also in our hotel) for dinner to celebrate our last night of vacation. It’s always a little bit scary taking the kids to a fancy restaurant because we never know when they will erupt. But the kids handled it well. They did much better than the table behind us where a lady felt it necessary to speak loudly while taking 2 different phone calls.

After dinner, we put the kids to bed and H went down to the casino with H’s mom. They came back an hour later and H smiled as she counted out her winnings to me. I was very impressed. She won $63.55 which was much better than my $8 haul in Montreal. I said that there was no need for me to go down now but H said that we should go down while H’s mom watched the kids. We went down and H pointed out the Wheel of Fortune game where she won. We put another $30 into the game and won nothing. We then walked around the casino just to see all of the games available. I saw one other Wheel of Fortune game and decided to try my luck one more time. I set a $10 limit and lost it all. It was disappointing to blow most of H’s winnings but she took it well. All in all, we won about $3.

And now onto the final installment of what did we learn today.

1. The average age of people staying and playing at the Tropicana is about 67 years old.

2. Apparently I look some someone who frequents the Tropicana. I’ve had 2 different people at 2 different times ask me where the bus to pick up the old people tour groups are.

3. The Starbucks inside the Tropicana sold venti frappucinos for $6.05. That is an outrage.

4. Sounds travels through the walls of the hotel rooms in the Tropicana like at the apartment complex where Peter lived in the movie "Office Space." These ladies were so loud in the rooms all around us. I heard their voices at 2 AM. Of course, turnabout is fair play as our kids were quite loud and active early the next morning.

Day 7 - Rhode Island to Connecticut

2008-06-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

This was a day that started off with so much promise. We took a trolley tour of Newport, RI in the morning which included a stop at the Vanderbilt family mansion, The Breakers. Newport is a beautiful town right on the water. There are huge mansions all along the coastline and thanks to our bus tour guide, we now know every last detail about every house. He was thorough and he knew his facts, I will give him that. He was also incredibly boring and he kept stopping the trolley so we wouldn’t slow down cars and trucks and bicycles and possibly even cats and dogs. Also on the trolley, H was taking great pictures until all of the sudden our digital camera gave us the dreaded error “lens error, restart camera.” The last time this happened, H plugged the camera’s USB cable into the computer and the lens magically shut. Because the computer was in the car, we had to wait until we left Newport to fix the camera. More on that later.

As mentioned above, the trolley tour included a stop at the Vanderbilt family mansion, The Breakers. Outside the mansion standing in line waiting to get in, Z had the best comment. There was a sign outside the mansion that said “Please wait here for next tour.” Z said that we needed one of those signs for outside of our house. We all agreed that would add a nice touch to our home. Once we were inside the mansion, it was truly remarkable. In fact in one room, our guide told us that the entire room was built in France and then shipped to America. That seems a bit extreme. Also there was both a morning room and a breakfast room. Apparently the Vanderbilts didn’t think mornings and breakfast went together. At the end of the tour, our guide told H and J that Z and B were “the best behaved kids ever on the tour.” That made us very proud. It was also stunning considering the kids were acting crazy in the hotel before we left in the morning. We also learned that Anderson Cooper is Gloria Vanderbilt's son... who knew?

After the tour and lunch, we departed for Connecticut. H tried the computer trick to fix the camera and guess what, it didn’t work this time. That was very disappointing, very aggravating, and in J’s case, infuriating. We tried different things to try and get the lens unstuck but nothing was working. Digital cameras stink.

Once in Connecticut, H and J thought that we should fit in Dinosaur State Park south of Hartford before we checked into the hotel which was a little bit east of Hartford. It was only 3:30 PM when we made that decision and we figured that we could get there by 4 for sure. Plus parks stay open in summer usually until sundown. We had plenty of time. Well, the route to get there included some one-lane roads and naturally we got stuck behind a slow truck. It took a little bit longer than we would have liked but we got to Dinosaur state park at 4:20 PM. What is so special about this park is that there are actual dinosaur track fossils for everyone to see. The kids were so excited. One small problem though. The park closed at 4:30 PM. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! First the camera and now this. The day was slowly turning into a disaster.

After an ice cream dinner (our new once-a-vacation tradition) at Friendly’s for H, Z, and B (J and H’s mom chose regular food) and putting the kids to bed, H and J went to a local Best Buy to try and get some answers on why our camera is a piece of junk. Nothing quite like going to the Manchester, CT Best Buy on vacation. That should be on everyone’s itinerary. The Geek Squad there said that they sent out all of their cameras to be fixed. That wasn’t going to work so H bought the last remaining disposable camera to finish off our vacation pictures.

And a final touch to the day was that H and J got stuck in a traffic jam because Connecticut highway workers closed both lanes of the I-384 ramp that we were using to get back to the hotel.

Now onto the nightly feature of what did we learn today.

1. According to our Newport trolley tour guide, one of the socialites that lived in one of the many mansions threw a dinner party for 16 guests, 8 male and 8 female and they were all dogs.

2. The Panera Bread in Newport where we ate lunch was the most popular spot in town. As we were eating, the line was about 20 deep and going out the door.

3. We believe that the Mapquest directions showing how to get from Newport to Hartford had us going in circles. We were on 3 different roads (RI 102, I-95, and RI 138) driving in 3 different directions (north, south, and west respectively). On each road, we were welcomed into the town of Exeter.

4. Cuffy’s of Newport has a great selection of quality Newport T-shirts, hats, and polos but the staff is lacking. For example, there were 2 registers at the front of the store. The one register had a customer so I took my T-shirt to the other register. The clown at the register told me “She’ll take you right over there.” Superior customer service, no doubt.

Day 6 - Maine to Rhode Island

2008-06-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

The weather continues to be a bit fresh outside (that was the quote from the British Airways pilot when H and J arrived in London in 2001). It was in the high 50's in Maine and off-and-on rain showers. Fortunately, the showers were off when we started our day with a walk along Wells Beach in Maine. All of us decided to test the water with our feet and it was really cold. H, B, & H's mom walked down the beach looking for seashells. J and Z stayed in one spot for because Z kept throwing the rocks he found on the sand back into the ocean. B found a few seashells but she put them down at some point on the walk back to the car so we ended up only taking back 2 seashells.

After the beach, we went to Kennebunkport which was a very cute, little town. Kennebunkport is not to be confused with Kennebunk, which was a very lame little town.

Then we started the drive down to Rhode Island. The beauty of New England is that you can travel 3 hours and pass through 4 states. The trip down to Rhode Island took us right through the Big Dig in Boston where Interstate 93 is underground with exits underground for about 5 miles. It was fascinating. I took pictures but oh yes, we are still having camera issues.

We arrived in the Middletown/Newport, RI area around 6 PM and just chilled for the rest of the night. This was the day that I, for one, really hit the wall.

Now onto the nightly feature of what did we learn today.

1. Don't be afraid of restaurants with weird names. We ate lunch at the Wells House of Pizza and Roast Beef (pizza and roast beef go together like all Canadian food and gravy) and it was some of the best pizza we had ever eaten.

2. Dunkin Donuts coffee is much, much stronger than Starbucks Coffee. The coffee kind of overpowered the caramel flavor in H's drink and the coconut flavor in my drink.

3. The Wendy's clerk in Middletown, Rhode Island where we are staying did not know the difference between a lobster and a crab. Z showed her his Maine lobster (remember the saga with that yesterday) and she said, "What a cute crab." Z quickly corrected her.

4. The beaches in Maine were much smaller than say Virginia Beach or the Outer Banks. There was very little sand and in some spots, just rocks.

Day 5 - New Hampshire to Maine

2008-06-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

Today's weather was quite different from yesterday's. Yesterday it was 85 degrees F in Littleton and in our travels today in New Hampshire and Maine, the temperature never got out of the fifties. It was gray all day with occasional light rain but the weather didn't wipe out our day.

We started the day driving about 30 minutes to Lancaster, NH to visit H's uncle. He gave the grand tour of his town which was very enjoyable. Then we started the journey towards our next destination, the beaches of Southern Maine. On the way down, we stopped at the site of the Old Man of the Mountain collapse. There used to be a rock formation that looked like the profile of an old man. Unfortunately, it collapsed and now it's just another hillside.

We stopped to eat dinner at a seafood restaurant in Kittery, Maine where the day took a great turn for one child and became a bitter disappointment for the other child. Dinner was uneventful. It was as we were leaving that the excitement began. Z spotted a claw machine, you know, the one with all of the prizes that no one ever gets. The restaurant hostess asked Z and B if they wanted to try the claw. They were giddy and said that they wanted to play. She gave each of them tokens to use for the claw. I tried to win a prize for Z first. No surprise, I was unsuccessful. Then I tried for B. H was desperately hoping I would fail for her as well to ensure family harmony. My competitve juices kicked in and low and behold, I caught a stingray. That was the first time that I ever won on the claw. B was thrilled. Z was despondent. To quote Charles Dickens, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." And on Father's Day as well. I tried 3 more times to win Z something and I failed all 3 times. I felt so bad for him and B didn't make it any better by taunting him the remaining 20 minutes of the drive to our hotel giving a play-by-play of how I got the stingray for her. There is a happy ending to the story as Z found a stuffed animal Maine lobster at our hotel which he is sleeping with now.

Now onto the nightly feature of what did we learn today.

1. Interstate 93 in New Hampshire becomes a one-lane road through the Franconia Notch state park with a speed limit of 45 MPH. Very unusual.

2. Z has overcome his fear of hand dryers in public bathrooms and now says that he will only use them and not use paper towels anymore.

3. June in Maine is really cold. At least we got to use those jackets and sweatshirts that we didn't use the day before on Mt. Washington.

4. I may be the best mini-golfer that the Wells Beach, Maine Mini Golf course has ever seen. I was "en fuego." Par on this course was 42 and I shot a remarkable 34 (8 under par) with 4 holes-in-one. I asked the guy running the course what the record was and he said that he thought it was like 2 or 3 under par. They should put my picture on the wall there.

Day 4 - New Hampshire

2008-06-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today was another excellent day. We started it off by taking a cog railway up to the top of Mt. Washington, the highest point in New Hampshire. Mt. Washington is 6288 feet above sea level and it is said to have the worst weather in the world. For instance the average June temperature at the summit is 44.4 degrees F with average wind speed of 28 mph. We came prepared for the cold with jackets and sweatshirts. Instead, we may have experienced the best weather day ever on the top of the mountain. It was clear and warm and the views were spectacular. The website said that the high was 61 degrees but we really thought it was warmer.

We lucked out with the weather and we also lucked out with the type of train that we rode up and down the mountain. We ended up on a biodiesel engine train as opposed to the normal steam and coal engine that belched black smoke all over the place including on the train passengers. Being on a green train certainly beat the alternative of emphysema.

After the train ride, we met H's uncle (H's mom's brother) for an afternoon buying quality maple products in nearby Vermont and then walking around the quaint little town of Littleton. The kids were thrilled with both stops because they got candy. First, maple pops in Vermont and than a candy store in downtown Littleton which had an entire wall filled with jars of candy. There should have been a dentist right next door to the candy store.

We finished the evening by going to the hotel game room where each of us played an arcade game. B chose Pac-Man and quickly lost interest. Z played a racing game where he laughed hysterically as he ran the car into walls, buildings and other cars. I chose Ms. Pac-Man and H chose a pinball game where she had a very impressive score of roughly 30 million. Why is it that pinball game scores are so much higher than regular arcade game scores?

Now onto the nightly feature of what did we learn today.

1. Apparently H's mom looks like a motorcycle enthusiast. There is a bike week in New Hampshire this week so there have been a number of bikers in our hotel. At breakfast today, someone asked H's mom if she was here for bike week.

2. Mt. Washington is the only mountain in eastern North America which has a treeline. That is trees don't grow above a certain height. After that it was mostly rocks.

3. The summit of Mt. Washington is a great conversation spot. Our train guide told us that we could climb to the summit while on the peak observation level. There was a little rock formation that you could climb to reach the highest point of the mountain. It was kind of like a beginner's course in rock climbing. I wanted to say that I climbed to the summit. It was a challenging little climb and I was about there when I had to wait for a group of 4 people to stop chatting about the weather. Eventually, one Einstein said "Oh, I think other people want to get to the top too." Brilliant.

4. Old men wearing train conductor hats look silly. (H's note: I thought they were adorable.)

Day 3 - Montreal to New Hampshire

2008-06-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

Day 3 was an excellent day. We started the day with breakfast at Tim Horton's. Yes, we are gluttons for punishment. The guy behind the counter spoke English and processed our order well. I ordered a breakfast sandwich with bacon and no cheese. He keyed it in that way and naturally the lady who prepared the sandwich gave it to me with cheese on it. Mon dieu!

We decided to visit the Parc Olympique to close out the Montreal portion of our trip. Two of the attractions there are the Biodome de Montreal and the Olympic Tower. The Biodome was an indoor nature museum featuring habitats from different parts of the Americas. There was the tropical rain forest, the Laurentian (Quebec mountain range) forest, the St. Lawrence marine ecosystem, and the piece de resistance, the polar world. Z and B loved the polar world because it had a ton of penguins in it. The highlight for me was when we gave our tickets to the attendant to enter the Biodome. As she was reviewing our tickets, she proceeded to explain to me in rapid French, the rules of the Biodome. At the end of her statement, she looked at me waiting for a response. I had success earlier in the trip ordering Metro tickets (deux billets, s'il vous plait) but there was no way in the world that I could figure out what she was saying. I meekly said "Parlez vous anglais?" which is "Do you speak English?" and she told me that there was no flash photography inside. So many French words to say that there was no flash photography.

After the Biodome, we went across the parc to the Olympic tower which is a funiculaire (cable car) that ran up the side of Olympic Stadium to an observation deck that gave us breathtaking views of the city. I love looking at cities from high above. It was truly fascinating that Montreal could have such a neat exhibit on top of such a dump of a stadium. Perhaps, Richmond should try to put a cable car ride up the Diamond so people could see breathtaking views of our fine city.

Then, we drove across eastern Quebec down through Vermont to our next stop, Littleton in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was a beautiful 3 hour drive. I am happy to report that our room in the Hampton Inn here in Littleton has a nice TV. It feels like HD compared to the Montreal hotel piece of garbage.

Now onto to the what did we learn today portion of the blog.

1. Arctic penguins and Antarctic penguins are totally different. The Antarctic penguins were much bigger.

2. Best response to my "Parlez vous anglais?" was the girl at Dunkin Donuts who replied "Oui" which is yes in French. She also said "see you soon" after she gave us our donuts. A nice comment for sure, but it probably will never happen.

3. If you are in Quebec and you order fries "avec poutine" like I did at a Burger King east of Montreal as we were driving to New Hampshire, not only does it come with gravy but also with mozzarella cheese.

4. We drove past a point in Northern Vermont that said that it was the midpoint between the North Pole and the equator. That was fascinating.

5. Oddest purchase of the trip thus far - H went to a scrapbooking store in Montreal and the first thing she saw was scrapbooking paper of a city map. Which city you ask? Richmond, Virginia, of course.

One final note. I know that everyone is on pins and needles waiting for my road sign mania. Believe me, this year's crop of signs thus far is tremendous and I will be ecstatic to share them with everyone if we can ever figure out how to get these pictures off of the camera and onto the computer. Please be patient. It will be worth the wait.

Day 2 - Montreal

2008-06-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

We haven't figured out the technical difficulties yet with the pictures so think of this post as listening to the radio. Sometimes listening to the radio is better than watching TV.

Speaking of TV's, our Montreal hotel room had 2 TV's and they both were terrible. The picture was incredibly fuzzy on the one TV and that was the good TV. The other TV was fuzzy as well but had the added bonus of turning itself off while we were trying to watch it. Sacre bleu!

Because that diatribe is out of the way, on with the highlights of the day. We went on a 3 hour bus tour of Montreal in the morning. There is no better way to see Montreal than letting someone else do the driving. I believe Montreal is French for "land of double parking on the streets." The kids handled the tour very well for about 2 1/2 hours. Then they battled it out to see who could scream the loudest. I think it was a tie.

Later, H and H's mom went to the Casino de Montreal to lose more money.

That evening, we went to Tim Horton's for cappucino glace (French for iced cappucino) and after that to Underground Montreal for shopping and dinner. H and J love Tim Horton's from our Niagara Falls experience. The Tim Horton's Montreal experience was a tad bit different. I have tried the little bit of French I know and the results were mixed. Buying Metro tickets was successful. Ordering cappucino glace, not so much. H tried to order and the girl behind the counter gave us a strange look and pointed to another employee to help us. The other employee was nice and eventually we had to order in English. We ordered 2 iced cappucinos totalling 7.65$. I gave the girl 10$ and she gave me 7.65$ in change. Being the honest guy that I am, I gave her back all the money except the change I was owed (2.35$). She thanked me and then forgot to make me my drink.

The Underground Montreal experience was much better. The shopping went well and the dining was c'est magnifique. H and J sampled some of the finest Quebecois fare. H had a crepe and J had a hot chicken sandwich and fries with gravy. I have not had a hot chicken sandwich since our honeymoon in Quebec. Then, I had no idea that a hot chicken sandwich was pulled chicken pieces on bread covered in gravy and peas. I was skeptical then but I enjoyed it and I was ecstatic to eat it again. In other news, Z had Subway and B and H's mom had Quizno's. How cosmopolitan.

Now onto the nightly feature of "what did we learn today."

1. Some folks are still bitter that the Expos left Montreal for DC. I overheard an employee at Champs Sports in the Underground Montreal express great disappointment that the Expos left.

2. The Global Network in Canada is nothing but a hodgepodge of the best in American TV. Thursday night we watched Last Comic Standing (NBC) and saw commercials for Wipeout (ABC) and House (FOX).

3. Montreal is an island. Who knew? The tour bus driver kept referring to Montreal as an island. After consulting a map, I agree.

Day 2 & 3 - Montreal and NH

2008-06-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

I would like to apologize as we are having technical difficulties with the picture portion of the blog. H spent over an hour tonight troubleshooting trying to get the pictures downloaded but to no avail. We may need a new computer or we are hoping that maybe there are connection issues with this hotel.

Regardless, we are having a great time. Montreal was lots of fun and driving through the Quebec countryside into the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire was beautiful. It's very late now and we are tired so good night.

Day 1 - Richmond to Montreal

2008-06-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

(this year's posts written by J)

We are back to blog about another exciting vacation. This year's trip takes us to Montreal and all of the New England states. Z & B will add a number of new states and a new Canadian province this time. Also, we are delighted to have H's mom join us for the travels this year. Now that the introduction is out of the way, let's take a look at day 1, shall we?

The title of the post is correct. We drove from Richmond to Montreal in one day. Pretty impressive, eh? 700 plus miles (2300 kilometres is the rough conversion) of driving excitement for J & H. We left at 3:30 AM and arrived in Montreal at 5 PM. A long day for sure, but everyone handled it well. B snapped as we were on the outskirts of Montreal but hey, we would have expected it on the outskirts of say Fredericksburg.

After checking in, we walked down to Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal) to eat dinner and sightsee. It was beautiful down there. Then we put the kids to bed and H's mom stayed in the room with them while J and H went to the Casino de Montreal. J won 8$ (the Quebecois put the dollar sign after the number so when in Montreal, do as the Montrealers do) so it was a big night.

This year, J would like to recap each night with a feature called "What did we learn today" so here is Day 1's report.

1. Delaware is still a lame state. That state is eternally under construction. It was the only state where we encountered any significant traffic congestion.

2. The closest Metro (that's what Montreal calls the subway) stop to our hotel involves walking through the Red Light district. Good thing we didn't have the kids with us at that point. Imagine the horror, "Daddy, what does that word mean?"

3. The Metro system changed it's name from STCUM (pronounce it with a silent T for fun) to STM.

4. Overnight paving seems like a good idea as long as it is not on the street right below your hotel room window. Nothing like construction trucks backing up all night beeping.

Christmas letter 2007

2007-12-01T05:04:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and happy (almost) 2008!

We have had a busy year. Joey is still working for CSC and excited that his sports teams have been doing so well! Heather is working a day or so a week at a scrapbooking store just for fun to finance her expensive habit. The cards that she sells are really starting to take off (already stocked in one boutique with hopefully more to come), which is exciting. She is still involved with her Moms groups, one of which she produces the monthly newsletter for. Never one to allow a dull moment, she taken on the responsibilities of secretary of the church pastoral council, organizing the children’s church program, and reviewing applications for a catechist certification program.

Our new reader and EX-thumb sucker, Zachary, now goes to preschool five mornings a week and takes Tae Kwon Do and piano lessons. He wants to play soccer in the spring, so he’ll have to temporarily stop TKD because Heather doesn’t aspire to be a chauffeur.

Bella is still at home with Heather, but she comes to the Moms group meetings to play with other kids and has a gymnastics class once a week.

Continuing our goal of the kids seeing all 50 states and 7 continents before they turn 18, we had a 10-day vacation in June where we drove out to St. Louis, up to Minneapolis, and through Chicago and Cleveland. Sadly, Heather’s grandfather passed away while we were gone, but she was very glad that she was able to spend time with him in March. We also took the kids to their first VT football game in September (very bittersweet since it was our first time there since the horrific April 16) and spent a long October weekend at Emerald Isle, NC with Heather’s extended family in October.

We can’t wait to hear your yearly updates. Be safe and well.

Wishing you peace,
Joey, Heather, Zachary, and Bella

Epilogue

2007-06-15T18:43:00.001-07:00

(written by J)

10 days, 13 states, 2900 miles, T family, you are the winners of the amazing Midwest vacation. We are back home now and while it was an incredible journey, it is great to be back in the Commonwealth. I would like to use this final post to recap the vacation. First off, I've always seemed to equate a song with a trip. Usually there's always one song you hear on the radio during your trip that whenever you hear it, it reminds you of that trip. As we've traveled, there have been 2 songs that we have heard relentlessly over these past 10 days. They are Daughtry's "Home" and Gwen Stefani's "Sweet Escape." We've heard these songs probably 1000 times over the past 10 days. In fact, I had never heard the radio version of "Home" until this trip - only the American Idol "you are getting kicked off and all the girls cry" version. But because I've heard "Home" so much recently, I found myself singing it in the shower the other day, and I believe it was unvoluntary. Now onto the rest of the recap.

Best city - Chicago

Best hotel - Hampton Inn, St. Louis - the view from the room was outstanding - you could see the Mississippi River and traffic snarl on Interstate 70 all at the same time.

Best attraction (tie) - Sears Tower, Chicago, skydeck and The Park at Mall of America, Minneapolis - the views of Chicago were spectacular and the rides at the Mall of America were enjoyable and the lines for them were not long

Worst gas prices - Chicago - $3.79 for regular unleaded

Most boring state - Iowa - nothing but corn

Best T-shirt worn by a local - a man at the Noodles and Company restaurant in Chicago was wearing a shirt which said "Ipood" in lieu of "Ipod" and it had a picture of a person sitting on a toilet. H and J are still laughing about that one.

Best observation by a T family member - B shouting out "bear" in St. Louis when she saw a crazy woman walking down the street holding a teddy bear for some reason

Worst parking lot - City Museum, St. Louis - J had to get out of the car and let H park because she is much better at fitting big cars into tight spaces.

Overkill award - Mall of America. J loves hats but seeing 6 Lids stores in the Mall of America with pretty much the same stuff ... that's a bit much.

Underrated attraction (tie) - St. Louis Walk of Fame and Great Lakes Science Center, Cleveland - St. Louis's walk of fame is kind of like Hollywood's walk of fame but in essence, if you have ever been in St. Louis, you are eligible for the Walk of Fame. Z and B should get their stars shortly. The Great Lakes Science Center was a very enjoyable hands-on place that the kids loved. It wipes the floor with the Richmond Science Museum.

Worst tour guide - Chicago bus tour guide Judy - she told a lot of stories some of which were not true including one about the design of the Sears Tower. How do we know this? We watched a movie about the Sears Tower at the Sears Tower the day before which contradicted what she said. I would have preferred to have Vince Vaughn be our guide like in "The Breakup."

Shameless promotion award - Louisville Slugger Museum - the very first thing we did upon entering the factory where they make the bats was watch a video on how to buy a bat with your own name on it.

Worst meal - Center Point, Iowa McDonald's - B found a bone in her Chicken McNugget. It was truly amazing that she didn't eat it.

Best Midwestern accent award - Yankee Candle employee, Mall of America, Minneapolis - He said "So are ya having a good day at the mall?" and it kind of made H laugh. It was just like an accent from the movie "Fargo."

J's state route sign mania returns

2007-06-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

(written by J)

I know I said that I would post more sign mania Saturday or Sunday, but I just didn't feel the creative juices flowing then. Also, we've been in many more states since the first post so this will be a thorough analysis in which I will declare one state the winner of the best state route sign. Now on with the show.

Missouri - Finally a state with creativity. I'm so sick of squares and circles so it was a thrill to see them actually use their state shape as their sign. And it's not an easy shape to draw so they get bonus points for that. Of course a few miles down the road, we saw a county route sign which was a square. But they use letters for county routes instead so that was slightly intriguing.

Iowa - A circle. Fantastic! Don't hold your breath, Iowa. You will not win the contest.

Minnesota - It is a square but I was truly fascinated by it. It says Minnesota, has the state outline and it is blue. Simple but yet so effective.

Wisconsin - I have no idea what shape their sign is. Let's just call it an abstract. On a side note, Wisconsin takes their cheese very seriously as you can see by the picture above which says "Cheese" in huge letters.

Michigan - They chose a diamond which is different and different is good. The "M" above the number is a nice touch as well.

Ohio - Like Missouri, they use the state outline. I really like the state outlines. I also really enjoy how on this sign, the 3 digit Ohio route number is fatter than the 2 digit Ohio route number.

And now the grand champion is ... Minnesota. The blue sign is just so original and I'm a big fan of it.

I hope you enjoyed this mania. If not, I apologize for the time of your life that you will never get back by reading this.

Day 8: Chicago to Cleveland

2007-06-13T18:49:00.001-07:00

[written by J]

H is very tired this evening so J has volunteered to document this day. Originally, the plan was to go to Indianapolis today but because we really didn't have anything big planned for Indy, so J convinced H to go to Cleveland instead to experience a city enjoying (at least for 1 more day) a quest for a championship. More on that later. Today, we left Chicago at about 7:30 Central time and experienced the Chicago rush-hour. It really brought back memories of the daily Northern Virginia commutes which I don't miss at all. Sitting in the traffic though gave us more time to look at the Chicago skyline which is very pretty. The opposite of pretty is Gary, Indiana. It was ugly and it smelled awful. Due to the fact that the Indiana toll road is very close to the Michigan border, J thought it would be a fun little side trip to drive across the border and say we've been in Michigan. We drove in Michigan for about 20 minutes parallel to the Indiana toll road and then headed back across to the toll road. Not much on that stretch of Michigan highway. Later H went to a scrapbooking store in Indiana at a Prime Outlets which was a lot smaller than the outlets at Williamsburg. It was on a road near both the Michigan and Ohio borders so J decided to take that road across to Michigan and down to Ohio. Total time to visit those 3 states - about 20 minutes. When we finally found a travel plaza on the Ohio Turnpike, it was one of the most pathetic plazas I have ever seen. I would compare it in quality to the Diamond. The decor was very 70's and the food selection was more like a concession stand.

Once we got to Cleveland, we drove past Jacobs Field and the "Q" to Tower City, a downtown shopping mall. The area was very festive with Cavs jerseys on top of one of the tallest buildings in Cleveland, the Terminal Tower and a huge NBA championship trophy right in front of the "Q." Also, there is a huge "We are all witnesses" LeBron mural on the side of one building. Inside Tower City, there were Cavs banners everywhere and J, Z and B signed a big "Go Cavs" poster in the mall. J then took a short walk to the Cavs team shop at the "Q" and it was loaded with Finals merchandise. It was hard for me to not buy one of everything in the store. Now if they could just win a game in the series, that would be great.

Tomorrow, we are going to take the kids to the Great Lakes Science Center right next door to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and then we are off to the last stop, Steubenville, to see J's grandparents. We are rounding third and heading for home.

Day 7: Chicago

2007-06-12T19:38:00.000-07:00

I still love Chicago. B has been saying "Chicago!" all day.

We took the El back down to the Sears Tower to jump on a guided city tour on a double-decker bus. I hate looking like a total tourist, but it's nice to relax and let someone tell you the important things while driving you around, too. We were able to see the Trump building in progress (that Bill Rancic from the Apprentice was project managing... we thought it was weird that the tour guide didn't even mention that!). The only place we jumped off to see more was Navy Pier, part museum and part amusement park with some small stores thrown in. We all rode the ferris wheel, and B later rode the carousel while Z wanted to play mini-golf. We also took them to the Children's Museum, which I think Z had a great time in... B was so exhausted that she slept through half of our time there. J mentioned that he was bored, and I said of course he is because it's a CHILDREN'S museum.

After the tour, we treated ourselves to Jamba Juice, which we last had in LA... if Jamba Juice was in Richmond, I think I would abandon Starbucks.

We ate at a great neighborhood noodle place tonight, and we have to pack up to move on (again!) tomorrow morning.

Day 6: Minneapolis to Chicago

2007-06-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

I think we only threatened to fly home once today... Today's was a 6+ hour drive, and the kids had pretty much had it by the time B threw her blanket into the very back of the van and had to wait 10 minutes until we pulled off to get it for her.

Chicago is AWESOME, though. Of course, I'm a city girl anyway. Buildings, trains, people, 3 Starbucks within a few blocks of us... woohoo! We arrived about 4pm (our hotel is a mile from Wrigley Field) and took the El to the Sears Tower, which we MOSTLY all enjoyed (ahem... B). Z was a big fan of looking out of the telescopes and hitting buttons on the computers that tell about what you are seeing. Luckily, because it was late afternoon, it wasn't at all crowded.

Oh- and thank GOODNESS the hotel has valet parking... once we were within 20 miles of the city (of course, we're used to that because of D.C.), it was gridlock, and the area around our hotel is packed with cars.

6 days down, 4 to go...

Day 5: Minneapolis

2007-06-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

So, the kids slept in until about 7:30... not too bad.

We went to Mass at 10am (apparently the key to them being great in church is having $7 sticker books for each of them!) and then went to the Mall of America- the largest mall in the U.S., complete with an amusement park, aquarium, and wedding chapel! It's 4 stories, and we saw 95% of it. We skipped the partial 4th floor because we were exhausted after being there for more than 6 hours. The amusement park is much smaller than Kings Dominion, but they have a lot packed in there... we were in that area for about 3 hours. Z's favorite ride was the Ferris Wheel (but by his reaction, I would have actually guessed it was the Log Flume), and B's favorite was the Carousel. The top of the Ferris Wheel was 4 stories up, which gave a great view of the rest of the park. The scariest few minutes of the day was when the kids were riding the planes, and we thought for sure B was going to get out of her seat belt and fall. We didn't buy much... a few melts at Yankee Candle since they were having a sale and a few souvenirs. I would have spent a lot in the scrapbooking store but decided I probably shouldn't.

My feet hurt... I'm off to take a shower and go to sleep soon!

Day 4: St. Louis to Minneapolis

2007-06-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

We left St. Louis around 7am this morning and arrived in Minneapolis around 4:30pm.

The roads that we took through Iowa were pretty much... you should have guessed it... corn fields. Minnesota was much more populated. I really slacked off on the driving today. J did about 400 miles compared to my 100 or so. I couldn't do it without my Starbucks, and there were none on our route between St. Louis and Minnesota. There are some here, though, thank goodness!

We walked around the downtown area here in Minneapolis. There is an outdoor mall and Skyways that connect many of the buildings on the second level, above the street but enclosed from any bad weather they might be having [not today, though... it's HOT here!].

We're hopefully sleeping in a bit tomorrow before church. Fingers crossed that the kids do...

Interlude - J's Road Sign Mania

2007-06-08T18:47:00.000-07:00

[written by J]

As promised in an earlier blog, it is time for a diversion that I call J's road sign mania. But before we get to the road signs, let me expound on the disappointment I felt when I didn't see a sign telling us that we entered the Central time zone. I checked the receipts for our lunch and gas in Indiana (at what seemed like the first exit with any services since Kentucky and it was halfway through the state), I noticed that the lunch receipt said 10:30 AM and the gas receipt said 12PM. We ate at a Wendy's so obviously we weren't in there for an hour and a half. The gas station was right next door to the Wendy's. Is it possible that the time-zone line was between the Wendy's and the gas station? We may never know.

Now onto the road sign mania. I have always been fascinated by road signs, especially state route signs which vary from state to state. For example, Virginia has a shield for primary state route signs and a circle for county roads and North Carolina has a diamond. Because we are visiting so many states, I thought it would be fun to observe and analyze the various state route signs along the way. Granted, I came up with the idea in Kentucky so West Virginia's analysis will have to wait until the return trip. Let me say, it's been an unimaginative bunch so far.

Kentucky - circle

Pretty blah. Due to the state's obsession with horses, perhaps a horsehead would have made a more imaginative design.

Indiana - square with Indiana on top

Wow. Creativity at its finest.

Illinois - square with Illinois on top

Did they cheat off of Indiana's test?

Missouri - we have yet to see one in our travels around St. Louis but we should see some on the way to Minneapolis. I do give Missouri bonus points for this fun interstate sign that is near our hotel. This is a perfect example of what H calls "condensing."

That's all for now. I will give another report probably tomorrow. In other news, GO CAVS (Cleveland not UVA)!!!!!!

Day 3: St. Louis

2007-06-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

Woohoo... the first day we've been in one place for the entire day! :)

After breakfast this morning, we went to the Arch because we heard that it could get pretty busy after 10am. B still took great joy in yelling "Arch!" when she spotted it on the way there. It was nice going at 9am... there were only maybe 10 people with us at the top. Z loved that he could see the train below, and B seemed to like looking out of the windows at first, but I think the whole experience was a little too claustrophobic for her. At the bottom of the Arch is the Museum of Westward Expansion. I was impressed that Z was really interested in the American Indian exhibits, remembering the Native American that came to speak to him at preschool. But THEN, we saw someone changing the light bulbs on one of the automated lifts, and that's the only thing the kids wanted to see. So much for education.

We then went across the street from the Arch to the courthouse where the Dred Scott case was heard. This was probably my favorite part of the day, reading about Dred (whom you tend to forget was an actual man, not just a court case), his family, and their lawsuit to become free from their owners. There is also an exhibit on the Underground Railroad, which we had to zip through because Z was being a pain.

On the way back from lunch, we walked past the Federal Reserve Bank, which I really wanted to go in and see, but it's not the kind of place that gives tours... I probably would have been arrested.

After the kids naps, we took them to the City Museum which is like the Children's Museum on crack. Half of the museum is outside, suspended above the ground with an intricate maze of walkways, stairs, and bizarre twisted tunnels, hung from which you can find a fire truck, a crane, two planes, crazy slides, a tightrope challenge, and a ball pit. At first, I thought this museum might be too advanced for the kids, but they had a good time. There is also an aquarium and more crack-induced fun on the inside. J and Z took turns going down a 3-story (yes, 3 stories!!!) high slide, and Z and B did another that was about 1-story. I was nervous for her, but she loved it. The museum is in an old bank building, so we were able to walk through the safe and see all of the safe deposit boxes... H probably had a lot more fun doing that then the kids.

We also walked halfway across the Eads Bridge, one of the bridges connecting Illinois and Missouri, so we had fun standing in different states than each other.

It was a bit of an early night since the kids needed baths, but that's probably for the best since we have a long drive tomorrow.

Day 2: Louisville to St. Louis

2007-06-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

MThat looks funny... I only just realized both cities are named for Louises.

Before we left Louisville this morning, we went on a tour of the Louisville Slugger factory and musuem. In the beginning, Z only wanted the free mini bat that came at the end of the tour, but once he saw the machines that carved the wood onto bats, I didn't think he was going to want to leave.

We left Louisville around 10:15am and arrived in St. Louis about 2:30pm Central time. J was VERY disappointed that there wasn't a road sign denoting the change in time (more on his road sign mania later). From what we saw of Indiana, it's a wonder that IT isn't the state most known for corn. OH, and the winds while we were driving today were crazy. We stopped at one of the very few exits that had signs of life and paid a ridiculous $3.29/gallon for gas (which actually DROPPED 10 cents while we were eating lunch next door).

The kids are obsessed with the Arch (and a crane that is visible from our hotel room window). Every time they have seen it so far, a loud "ARCH" comes from the back seat of the van. Our hotel is just down from the Arch, so this has happened several times. We're staying right beside of the dome where the St. Louis Rams play, and Busch Stadium is across the street from the Arch.

Way back when we decided that St. Louis would be a stop on this trip, I knew that I wanted to make time to go by the Mary Engelbreit store here because it's the only one left (there was one at Tysons Corner until 2000 or so). There were signs posted in the store today that it's closing on Sunday for good, so I'm glad that we made it here when we did!

After the mall, we went to the St. Louis Walk of Fame in an area of town near Washington University that reminds us a lot of Carytown. The Walk of Fame is similar to the Hollywood WOF, but it honors famous people of all kinds that were either born here or lived here at some point. Bob Costas, Harry Carey, Ulysses Grant, and Maya Angelou were some of the names that we saw.

We went to Union Station for dinner and ate at a Key West Cafe, where I was very excited to get a Cuban sandwich, which I've only ever had in Miami. J had barbecued tuna (all together now... ewwww. I'm probably the only one that thought that.).

The kids are already asleep... woohoo, but they got to bed an hour past their bedtime technically since they were still kind of on Eastern time.

That's all for tonight... pictures of the Arch tomorrow. Goodnight.

Day 1: Richmond to Louisville

2007-06-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

We left Richmond this morning about 5am and arrived at hotel in Louisville around 4:30pm... stopped 4 times, 5 times?

Our rental van, a brand-new (30 miles to it when we picked it up!) Grand Caravan is AWESOME. I swore never to be a mini-van mom, but I see why so many people love them. It drives great and is bigger than our Highlander, but it doesn't feel huge. BUT, we stopped to fill up the 1/4 full tank and paid $51 and change. Gotta love high gas rates. I miss vacationing in September...

The kids are LOVING that we bought a portable DVD player. They watched a Veggie Tales DVD today and have already requested Curious George for tomorrow. Z has discovered the hidden games that come on DVDs, so whenever we watch a DVD, it lasts forever because he wants to do all of the games. Usually we have to cut him off.

As always, the short time that we were on I-81 was one of the heaviest for traffic. The drive from Lexington (VA) through West Virginia was great, though (and, Charleston had WAY bigger houses than I thought existed in WV).

Kentucky was boring for the most part with little to see. Oh, and we heard an anti-Catholic "commercial" on the radio... somehow I wasn't surprised.

After checking in at the hotel (and manuvering around the crazy Louisville beltway in pre-rush hour traffic), we went to the Waterfront Park (along the Ohio river between KY and Indiana), where they have several playgrounds for kids. Z and B couldn't have loved it more after sitting in the car all day.

They are still awake singing and talking to each other and themselves because J and I won't talk to them anymore... hopefully they'll be asleep soon.

Prayers for Papa... even though we're here, our hearts are with him.

Possible plans to complete state-seeing

2007-06-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Cruise to Alaska trip!

Hawaii trip:
Hawaii
California

Cross-Country Road Trip:
Texas
Oklahoma
Kansas
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
Wyoming
Colorado
Arizona
New Mexico
Nevada
Idaho
Montana
Utah

South Central U.S. trip:
Arkansas
Louisana
Mississippi
Alabama
Tennessee

By continent

2007-06-05T06:15:00.001-07:00

North America- all, nat
South America
Europe- J and H
Asia
Africa
Australia
Antartica (if anyone has ideas on actually making this one happen, let's hear them! Maybe something from Argentina?)

By country

2007-06-05T06:12:00.000-07:00

U.S. - go figure
Canada- all, most recently in 2008
Mexico- J, H, and Z in 2004
Bahamas- all in 2005

Our most recent travels by state so far...

2007-06-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

Most recent trips:

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California- H in 2000; J, H, and Z in 2004; all in 2010
Colorado- J
Connecticut- J, H, Z, & B in 2008
Delaware- J, H, Z, & B in 2008
Florida- J, H, Z, & B in 2005 and 2009
Georgia- J a lot; H in 1986; J, H, Z, & B in 2009
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois- J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Indiana- J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Iowa - J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Kansas
Kentucky- J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Louisana- H in 1995
Maine- J, H, Z, & B in 2008
Maryland- J, H, Z, & B many times
Massachusetts- J, H, Z, & B in 2008
Michigan- J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Minnesota- J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Mississippi
Missouri- J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire- J, H, Z, & B in 2008
New Jersey- J, H, Z, & B in 2008
New Mexico
New York- J, H, Z, & B in 2006 and 2008
North Carolina- all most recently in 2010
North Dakota
Ohio- J, H, Z, & B several times
Oklahoma
Oregon- all in 2010
Pennsylvania- J, H, Z, & B many times
Rhode Island- J, H, Z, & B in 2008
South Carolina - J and H; J, H, Z, & B in 2009
South Dakota
Tennessee- H
Texas- H- 1988
Utah
Vermont- J, H, Z, & B in 2008
Virginia- All, of course
Washington- all in 2010
[Washington, D.C. - All, often]
West Virginia- J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Wisconsin- J, H, Z, & B in 2007
Wyoming

Current states-seen score, as of the end of this 2010 trip:
J: 30
H: 32
Z: 29
B: 29
A: 5

We really must be crazy

2007-06-05T06:01:00.000-07:00

So, H read somewhere a couple of years ago about Tim Russert's goal for his son to see all 50 states before he turned 18. I thought that was fabulous... imagine when you are at freshman college orientation and you are asked to tell something unique about yourself and THAT is your answer.

Recently, I thought it would be awesome to add on ... "and visited 6 of the 7 continents".

Really... commit me now.

Christmas letter 2006

2006-12-01T05:15:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! We hope that this finds you and your families happy and healthy and with all of your shopping finished. 

We are well. Zachary is almost four, and, though Bella is not quite two, she’s definitely in the throws of the terrible twos already. Zachary is in a 3-morning a week preschool program, and he loves it. It’s actually the same preschool that Heather’s sisters went to, and it’s accredited, which we didn’t even know was possible. Next year, he’ll go to the same preschool but 5 mornings a week. We thought about sending him to kindergarten but with having such a late birthday decided that we would never regret him being one of the oldest, tallest and smartest kids in his class!  Bella is the most hyper little girl I’ve ever met, but she still enjoys being cuddled, so for the time being, she’s still our baby. She is already very opinionated and will copy anything that Zachary does… she knows how to count to ten as well as almost all of the phonics and letters.

Joey is still working for CSC. He is also holding a vote for a new NFL team to root for because the Browns are hopeless. Heather is consulting part-time for Do-Re-Me & You!, a line of products for children, and she is also involved with two Moms groups. A maid service is on her Christmas wishlist. Heather is also sponsoring a new member at church this year, and Heather and Joey also have a once-a-month bible study with other young couples from church. It’s nice to have time away from the kids sometimes!

We went to Niagara Falls on vacation this year, and it turned out to be a great place for young kids. I think the kids’ favorite part, though, was stopping at Sesame Place in Philadelphia on the way back. We also vacationed in Nags Head with Heather’s family in October instead of Virginia Beach as we had done the past couple of years… the beach is great in the off season!

Please have a safe and joyous holiday season (and drop us a line soon!).

Love and God bless,
Joey, Heather, Zachary, and Bella

Christmas letter 2005

2005-12-01T05:18:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! We hope that this finds you and your families happy and healthy and excited about the holidays.

What a year! Zachary is almost three and finally out of the terrible twos, although we definitely still need to resolve sharing issues. Isabella Catherine was born on March 22, and we can’t believe she’ll be 9 months old at Christmas! She’s crawling and eating solid food now and loves to watch Zachary! Having two kids really isn’t that much harder than having one… that was a real surprise for us.

We moved into our new house in Mechanicsville on May 27, and, though we miss a lot of things about D.C., we love it! Joey is still with CSC, but his commute is now a much-nicer 15 minutes long. Heather became a full-time mom in late September, resigning from her job for a variety of reasons, but she is still keeping busy. She’s doing some direct-selling of musical-themed gifts for a division of Kindermusik as well as created a line of mostly kid-related decorations. Zachary would spend all day playing on the deck or in the yard if we let him, but he will usually settle for the playroom on days that going outside isn’t an option. Bella just makes us happy… we are so excited to have her as a part of our family.

We vacationed in Virginia Beach twice this year: once with friends (hi Andrea and Steve!) and once with Heather’s family (the second year of our new family fall tradition… thanks Mom). We also went on a cruise to the Western Caribbean that stopped in Key West and Nassau, Bahamas (though it was supposed to be Cozumel, Mexico) which was so nice that we didn’t want to come back to the real world. Joey was also able to go to one Browns game with Dad, and they WON! Unfortunately, the Hokies can’t give us what Heather really wanted for Christmas (a national championship!), but we can’t wait to root them on in whatever bowl they end up in.

Please have a safe and joyous holiday season (and come visit us soon!).

Love and God bless,
Joey, Heather, Zachary, and Bella