Sea World here we come!!! The kids were very excited to be headed out to their adventure “under the sea”. The drive was about one hour and they kept themselves busy doing what all twenty-first century kids do in the car – watch movies and play games.
After a day in the car the kiddos were revved up to get out and burn some energy. I think they would have been happy doing anything but we decided that a good dip in the ocean would do them all some good. It takes a while to get us all lathered up in sunblock and out to the sand but we eventually made it right around the time the sun was a massive ball of fire directly overhead.
Today we left for our family vacation at the beach. We had plans to be in bed early and on the road by four so that we could get the kids out of bed, still sleeping, drive most of the early morning and arrive around lunch with an afternoon of swimming to look forward to. But after finally getting into bed somewhere near three-thirty four didn’t sound so appealing. We did eventually get on the road but not until after nine. Not too far down the road, right before pulling onto the expressway, Carol was curious if I shut the garage door. Of course I did…right? We had to go back into the house several times for this or that prior to leaving and neither of us could remember if we shut the door the final time. We called in a favor and the thought paid off – sure enough I had left the door wide open to the world.
Well…this is certainly a case of better late than never. A post that should have happened months back never did. I started and stopped writing it several times but never finished. So in lieu of keeping it perpetually updated and eventually posted, here it is:
Labor Day weekend was fantastic. The family, all six of us, took a road trip to Indiana. Specifically the greater Indianapolis area. I wanted to introduce Carol, Isaac, Jacob and even Violet to my grandfather, aunts and uncles, cousins and the various kids they have all produced or acquired. I also wanted a chance to show Carol around the areas that I grew up. In all cases, and in contrast to the Bush definition of such, the trip was a “mission accomplished”.
The trip was indeed fantastic, regardless of how many months ago it might have been. We were able to visit most of not all of my family, the Indianapolis Zoo, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (the Atlanta version could learn a great deal from this place), eat ice cream from Mrs. Curls, and inhale a particular northern culinary delicacy – The White Castle.
Halloween has come and gone. The loot has been categorized into various zip lock bags and put into deep freeze for behavior based distribution. The kids had a month of various Halloween activities: Netflix provided movies, Carol provided the arts and crafts and I provided labor for scooping out pumpkin guts. Costume selection happened about a month ago and the kids are already planning what they want to be for next year. The costumes were fun. Jacob was Ninja, Isaac was a Special Ops Soldier, Piper was Silvermist and Violet was Ariel. The all looked great and the got to pick their own costumes – thank you Internet Gods for not making us drive all over creation looking for the perfect costume.
Our school system, Berkeley Lake Elementary, offers a program that lets the students earn a pass to Six Flags Over Georgia if they participate in a reading program that spans the school year. Since both boys did well last school year and read some or all of a book, about 20 minutes a night, each night of the week, they received a pass to the park. Before school started again for the 2009-2010 year we took them and had a blast. They rode nearly all of the rides in the kiddie park and went crazy when we headed to the water slides. Carol didn’t come into the water but the boys and I did. Isaac and I went straight to the top to take the longest and fastest slide down. The lines were short, the water was cool and the day was warm – a perfect combination for roller coasters and water slides. We convinced Jacob to ride “Thunder River” with promises that it was “slow” and you were “likely” to not get “very” wet. He was nervous but rode anyway and had a blast, despite he and Carol getting hit by every waterfall, tidal wave and water gun on the ride. Isaac surprised us both when he asked to ride one of the bigger swing rides that lift high off the ground and spin you in circles – he rode with his hands up most of the time.
The girls are just at that age range, and Violet is still pretty young, that they are still a bit like oil and water. It is becoming more frequent but still somewhat rare that they will play or relax together. After we came in from the snow on Sunday the girls both grabbed books and jumped into the recliner. After a few minutes of watching them battle for position they settled into reading their books. Violet would watch Piper like a hawk trying to figure out not only what she was doing but being sure to mimic each and everything. I was able to get a few pictures before they noticed me and started being hams.
Piper and Violet were delighted to see Mamma and Pappa for Christmas. We prepped Piper for about a week prior to get her worked up and anticipating them coming to town to celebrate Christmas with us. Each year since the we have had the girls they have been in town, insisting on spoiling them moreso than they already are.
Mom and Dad whisked the girls away for a few fun filled days either running around town or looking at the various creatures in the aquarium. Piper absolutely loves going to the aquarium and Violet is just at the right age where she is, for the most part, easy to manage with an extra pair of hands.
Christmas Eve we spent building a gingerbread house that we never did actually end up eating. Violet certainly got her fill of the candy though. Every two or three pieces that made it onto the house were eventually picked off and deposited into her mouth. (more…)
Missy mentioned a while back that it was possible to integrate our photos stored and managed at Flickr with a blog. She did so on Facebook as well with a particular badge but wasn’t pleased with the results. We have added a new plugin to Princess Hell to fully integrate the two. In particular there is now a widget on the sidebar that shows a few random pictures from our photo sets as well as a new page that shows all of our public photo sets on Flickr.
