Posts Tagged ‘Amber’
Merry Christmas
We have been busy this Christmas!
We have had a wonderful morning of opening gifs and playing with the kids. Pictures and videos will come later today…
We hope everyone has a great Christmas!
We’re Back From Our Vacation in California
We made it. We survived our trip to Ventura. Originally planned as just a quick visit to see Amber’s sister Ashley get married we decided to extend the trip and try to squeeze a bit more out of those pricey plane tickets.
The trip started out great. The kids were fabulous on the flight into LAX which was thankfully nonstop. When we got to the rental car place things took a turn for the worse. I quickly realized that I didn’t have my wallet. Which was in my backpack with my laptop and cell phone. I didn’t leave them on the shuttle bus, I left them in the overhead compartment. With all the hustle of getting us off the plane, not losing any kids, and dragging a car seat I clean forgot it. I called Southwest who had already turned the plane around. After several hours on the phone I got them to hold my backpack in Oakland. I dropped Amber and the kids off at the hotel and drove nonstop from Ventura to Oakland. I am here to tell you that you can drive 85 mph the entire 371 miles of this trip and not get pulled over. I drove so quickly because the baggage place closed at 10p. When I left the GPS was telling me I would arrive at 10:03pm. I arrived at 9:34p, got my stuff, turned around and headed back to Ventura much more slowly. I slept for a couple hours someplace in the middle and made it back to the hotel by 6:30a.
Later that day we had the wedding rehearsal. I always kind of wondered why they do a rehearsal, but now I know. Many plans were changed (or made for the first time) during the rehearsal. By the end they pretty much had it worked out. The location was nice and the weather was fabulous. 70F for a high temperature. That is cooler than our usual night time lows. The wedding went off without a hitch. People did what they were supposed to do. Wesley carried the rings and only got a little lost on his walk down the isle. Congratulations to Ashley and Greg!
The rest of the trip was ours. We had a few plans, but left lots of downtime too. The kids had plans of their own. Mostly not sleeping for more than 60 minutes at a time all night long. We were wiped out and wishing we could go home by the second or third night. But, being too cheap to pay the $300 fee to change our flight we persevered. We spent time visiting the places Amber remembered as a kid. We played at a couple of parks she used to play at, ate at a few restaurants she used to eat at and visited with a few friends and family. It was really nice getting to see everything that she remembered from when she lived there as a kid.
Our two big planned trips were to the Santa Barbara Zoo and the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Both were fabulous. The zoo trip was great. The average time at the zoo is about 2.5 hours. We spent about five. We fed giraffes, rode the train, slid down the “ant hill” a couple hundred times, and visited the penguins and snakes on at least three occasions. It was a great trip and the kids had a blast.
The aquarium was also excellent. It is only ten years old and the exhibits are really nice. We spent a lot of time at the touch tanks where we touched a couple of different kinds of sharks and rays. Wesley was in love with the touch tanks. We spent most of our visit there. Jillian liked any of the tanks that went floor to ceiling. She was enthralled with the fish swimming right up to her. Of course we saw a few hundred “Nemos” which made Wesley happy. We also visited their Lorikeet exhibit and fed the little birds some nectar. The kids were a little apprehensive, but Wesley did eventually touch one of them.
All in all a great trip. The flight home was a nightmare and we left our umbrella stroller on the shuttle bus (I guess we were destined to lose something), but we made it all in one piece. We spent the whole day (and most of the weekend) recuperating and uploading pictures. Almost 800 in all. There is lots more to tell and of course if it were up to me I’d make you look at every last picture of my kids, but I’ll stop now before I bore you too much.
Pictures from our trip:
Note: You’ll see more pictures if you are logged into Flickr and marked as a “Friend” or “Family” contact of ours in Flickr. You’ll see many fewer photos if you aren’t, which may be a good thing depending on how many pictures you can handle.
The Grass Is Always Greener - Part Two
Our new lawn is in. It looks great. It was a lot of work, but it looks so much better.
After I wrote about the lawn last we really didn’t have much time to work on it. We did decide to go with Palmetto St. Augustine. It is one of the newer varieties and popular in the South. Compared to the Raleigh (the basic kind) it is a little more expensive (we payed $135 per pallet), but also a little less course and a little more green. We had it delivered this morning. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
All day yesterday we all worked at prepping the yard. I mean all day and all of us. Amber, Wesley, Jillian and I were out more or less nonstop from 7:30a until after dark. We turned the soil more, graded it properly, added fertilizer high in phosphorous (for root development) and then did the final clean up. We rented a water drum roller from Home Depot. You fill the drum with water (half full in our case) and roll it across the soil to pack is slightly. It really helps show any uneven surfaces so you can fix them before laying the sod.
It wasn’t all hard work though.
The sod showed up this morning at about 8:00a. Wesley liked the forklift they used to take the pallets off the truck. It only took the guy about 2 minutes to park the truck and drop off the two pallets we needed.
Laying the grass took a few hours. About half the day actually. It was rather rewarding though. We sorted through the sod (much of it was sort of falling apart or didn’t have an even level of dirt attached) and then layed in a brick pattern (you don’t want he edges to line up in straight lines). After the grass was in we rolled it again with the drum roller to ensure good contact with the soil. Then we watered the heck out of it. And then watered it some more.
Our 5th Wedding Anniversary
Five years ago on a beach in Anacortes Amber and I were married. It was a simple wedding, and fast (I liked that). We had some pretty good barbecue for dinner and it was all close friends and family. Since then life has changed at an exponential rate. Kids, jobs, school, cross-country moves all much different than they were 5 short years ago.
We were together for a little over 6 years before we finally got married. And I must admit that we both feel a little bit short changed when people ask how long we were married. When really we’ve been together for 11 great years. To celebrate our wedding anniversary (not to be confused with to us a more important date anniversary) we went out on a date last night. Many thanks to Becca and Mat for watching the kids.
We started our date at Mann’s Smokehouse BBQ in North Austin. This is the kind of place that people either love or despise. Its kind of a dump and was clearly at one point a KFC restaurant. I really liked it. They had a whole range of sodas (this is important to me). We each had one we’d never tried before. Amber had a Cott Cola and I had a Frostie’s Rootbeer. The food was pretty cheap (we dined for less than $20). We got the specials, mine was pulled pork and Amber went with beef brisket. We each got two sides, plus cornbread and homemade ice cream. The meat was delicious, the fried onion rings were great. The potato salad was like mashed potatoes with mustard and relish added. Stick with the rings.
Maybe the best part about this place are the employees. The food is good, sure, but the employees were so nice. They put a real emphasis on regulars. Once you’ve been there a few times they are likely to slip you a bit more BBQ or give you a free brownie. They were very nice to us even though it was obviously our first time.
After dinner (I was stuffed) we headed to Austin’s Park. This place has go-karts, put-put golf, lazer tag, video games, a rock climbing wall and a few other activities. Most of the stuff is included with the price of admission, but a few things are extra (batting cages, pool tables). We only did a few things because of time constraints, but still had a good time. We started with put-put, but stopped after 9 holes. The courses weren’t very interesting, no windmills or moving traps to avoid.
Then we raced in the go-karts. This was fun, but really loud. I think it was worth the wait, but I’m glad the line wasn’t any longer.
After the race we each climbed the outdoor rockwall (there is an indoor one as well). Then played a few video games and headed home exhausted.
