HunterTrek.com

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 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:

• All pictures
• Wedding pictures
• Rehearsal pictures
• Zoo Pictures
• Aquarium Pictures

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.

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.

So here is a very late and abridged version of our camping experience…  This is the positive highlights.  I will keep the not so positive parts as distant memories that I don’t really want to relive.

We camped with a group of Joshua’s co-workers and friends June 21-22 at Emma Long Metropolitan Park, which runs along Lake Austin.  This is the view from our campsite looking down to the water.  (It is taken at about 10 at night.)

A friend got a boat for the morning and the group took turns going out on the boat.  Joshua, Wesley, Jillian, Elliott and I were all passengers for the following pictures:

Wesley was unsure of being on the raft.  He was on it total of maybe 3 minutes.

Joshua love it!!!  He was amazing.  He was even doing a couple of 360’s.

Then it was my turn with Jillian.  But all she wanted to do was go to sleep.  She almost fell asleep on her 3 minute raft ride.

Then I told Bill (who was driving the boat) that I wanted to crash into the water.  Big mistake.  It really hurts.  This is me right before I landed face first on the lake.  My black eye lasted less than a week. 

Then after lunch, Joshua took the kayaks out.  He took Wesley and Elliott for a ride and Mat was in the green boat.   After he took the kids out he went out on his own.  He paddled  down and into a channel and saw some amazing wildlife and a really cool zip line that connected two houses on either side of the channel.  How cool would that be?

While Joshua was out on his own, Jillian really wanted to be in the kayak.  She tried to climb into the seat and then climbed up on top of the kayak and back down the other side over and over.

The rest of the time was pretty much spent doing this…  They both loved the water.

Here is Joshua and Wesley at the end of the day.  He did not want to leave the water.

It was a fun experience.  I think the next time we go will be in the fall when it is much cooler and we can have a real camp fire.