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We are back from our trip and had a great time. The plane rides all seemed to work out well. The hotel stay was nice. The rental car worked out. We did have a few hiccups, but overall, it had to be considered a great success.


Our view of the shuttle launch was brief like I said in the previous post, but the night launch was truly spectacular. You can see our view in the video below:



After the launch, we did quite a few things. We swam at the hotel pool and made a brief trip to the beach.


We also went to a interactive science museum called "Wonder Works". Probably the coolest part about the place is that the building is built as if it is an upside down house that crashed into another building:


We also went to a dinner magic show there that we all really enjoyed.

The trip also included a few games of putt-putt, a father son go-cart race, plenty of time in the car, fun in the hotel room, and ice-cream.


These few pictures don't really do the trip much justice though. You should really check them all out here.

Labels: space shuttle, travels, vacation

On Friday we left for Bastrop State Park. Earlier in the week, I was able to book the last remaining cabin there for Friday night and Saturday night (Spring break just started so most places are full).

We left Friday afternoon and managed to get there before the sun went down. Thanks to my handy dandy Texas State Parks Pass that my brother got me for Christmas (great gift bub), we didn't have to pay to get in (which probably saved us close to $70 bucks for 3 days at 2 state parks). After checking in, we got to our cabin and unloaded. The cabin was very cool: it was one of the older cabins that was built in the park in the 1930's. It is a stone and log cabin made entirely of native woods. Right outside the cabin is a picnic area and fire ring which was nice. Reading some of the brochures, it looks like building the first 5 cabins like this proved to be way too time intensive and expensive than was planned, so the remaining cabins were wood framed.

Neo and I took off into the woods with his metal detector and searched around for about 45 minutes. At first we were only able to find pennies (we found 4), but then we found a ring (Christian said it was marked as 14K) and a musket ball/bullet. Not bad for 45 minutes. Neo was very excited. I was too... it's like treasure hunting :)

We built a fire and roasted some hot dogs for supper. Afterwards, we all fell asleep at different times... it was obvious we were all very tired.

The next morning, after some breakfast, Neo and I kicked the soccer ball for a bit, and then we walked around in the woods for a while. After we got back to the cabin, we loaded up the truck and took the scenic drive over to Buesher State Park. It is a beautiful drive down some very hilly and winding roads. Beautiful as it was, it was making Christian car sick, so we didn't do that again. At Buescher, we played at one of the playgrounds and had lunch. On the way back, we picked up some bait for fishing in the afternoon.

We went to the cabin and rested before heading back to Buescher to go fishing. Even though there is a nice lake right outside our cabin, we couldn't fish in the lake at Bastrop because it was closed to protect the breeding of the Houston toad.

Fishing at Buescher was great. As usual, Neo caught more fish than I did.

Then we went and ate at a little country restaurant called Maxine's. The food was pretty good, including some really good crawfish soup. It was made even better by the live blues music.

Our last day in Bastrop was the best one. After we checked out of our cabin, we got ready for a hike on one of the great trails. Right before we got on the trail, a gentleman hiking with his family (a large family) asked if he was going in the right direction to get back to the front gate. Now I knew that he was roughly at the midpoint of the circle, and he had a long, long way to walk back to the front gate. Not to mention, I had just drove it in the truck, and there were some really steep hills in there. I grabbed the map and showed him, and it looked like his heart fell into his shoes. I could see his wife and the rest of the kids approaching in the background, and I could tell that he REALLY didn't want to deliver this information. So I said, "can we give you guys a" and before I could say "ride", one of his daughters yelled "Yes!!". They all hopped in the back of the truck and we helped them get back to their camper.

After that, we went on our hike. The hike was really nice and a good workout. After we got back to the truck, we headed back to Buescher for some last minute fishing. This was awesome. We whipped out the coleman stove and Christian cooked some incredible hamburgers and bacon, and we had the best bacon cheeseburgers under an oak tree. Fishing with Neo was great. This time, he was casting and catching fish without any assistance at all. And of course, he caught more fish than me.

After that, we headed back to Houston. We had an almost perfect drive until we got to our exit in Houston. Right there, we sat in near standstill traffic for about 2 hours before finally continuing home.

It was a truly great and relaxing trip. It was so good, that I hardly remember that I was sick the entire time. That's how good it was.

The part I think I will remember most was while Neo and I were quietly fishing for the second time.

"Neo, you have to tell me how you catch those fish so good."

"Well, dad, you have to be patient." (I had been telling him this over and over when he would get bored or distracted.) "... you have to be patient, and watch your cork. And then... sometimes... sometimes you gotta kinda look at that cork... and you look at it... and you have to get mad at it a little bit."

"I need to get mad at it?"

"Yeah... you gotta get mad at it a little bit."

You can see the pictures here and you can see Neo's pictures in his March folder.

Labels: Neo, spring break, travels, vacation

Vacation pictures are up. You can find them here. Neo's pictures are on his page in his January folder.

Also, I started a personal blog for me. Many times I want to blog about technical stuff or personal things that don't really fit on the family blog, so I decided to make one for me, similar to Christian's blog. Today is also the first day of my diet and I want to blog about my successes and failures, so that was also motivation to start it. You can find it here.

Labels: technical, travels, vacation, website

I am sitting in the Orlando airport right now waiting for our flight back to Houston. Since we have quite a while to sit here, I figured I would check some email and also fill you guys in on our trip.

Overall, I am very pleased with our first big family vacation. I am anxious to go home and book our vacation for next year, although we have one last piece of information we have to settle before we can set it up. Not sure where we are going to go yet, but I do know we are going somewhere.

Neo had a great time traveling for the first time. He liked the plane ride and really enjoyed Disney World. He has taken a liking to roller-coasters and he and I rode all of 'em. He rode Goofy's Barnstormer, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, and even Expedition Everest (Disney's new big coaster). It was so fun to ride those with him.

The cruise was also nice, although we dealt with a lot of health issues. Thankfully, no one got motion sickness although the boat was rocking like a horse sometimes. I started out with some sort of nasal infection. Neo picked it up as well, and eventually progressed to a full fever and he didn't want to get out of bed. Our last couple of days were spent in our stateroom trying to nurse him back to health.

It was almost funny how many things started to hit us during the cruise. The ship was bucking like a rodeo horse. Neo was sick. Then the paint and varnish fumes filled our room which made us nauseated. Then while we slept in the 8 foot waves, our closet doors would slide back and forth and slam up against the closet walls. Christian and I got up about 5 times to engineer different solutions using towels, shoes, luggage, life vests, etc. Neo woke up this morning and started walking like a zombie to the bathroom and made a very angry comment about the bathroom door rattling in the night... Christian and I were laughing pretty hard.

So, even though the cruise was not ideal, I understand that travelling with children will never be ideal. We made the most of it and made lots of good memories. Funny stories to ask us about... the banana in the bag, "take a left at the pineapple", and "if you want a cake, ask for one". haha... I'm laughing just writing them down.

I don't have pictures up on the website yet, but I will soon. We took pictures both with Neo's camera and with ours so we have quite a few. I will let you know when I have them up on the websites.

We had a good first trip, and I am looking forward to many more family vacations.

oh yeah... How bout dem Saints!!! Who Dat!! ... that made the vacation just a little bit sweeter :)

Labels: travels, vacation

Sorry about not keeping up with the posts.

A lot has been going on. John and I had a great trip into Louisiana for career day at UL. Also, Christian had a good birthday weekend. She hasn't posted yet, but I'm sure she will have a few words about it on her blog soon :)

There are lots of birthdays going on... there was Christian's this weekend... Neo's next weekend... Kam's this weekend... Dad's last week... Mom's this week... Mrs. Pam's this week...Paw Paw's coming up... geez. I don't know why I am surprised... it is this way every year :)

There are also a few pics of Neo at baseball in his folder for this month.

Speaking of Neo... if you plan on coming in from out of town for Neo's birthday next week, please be sure to let Christian and I know that you are definitely coming so that we can organize sleeping arrangements. Thanks! As far as gifts for him... clothes are good... XBOX games (regular XBOX, not 360) and Nintendo DS games are good... he doesn't play with typical toys and action figures much. Money is also good - he has a bank and knows what it is like to save money, so he will appreciate it.

Labels: baseball, birthday, Neo, travels

I had a wonderful birthday weekend. It started with sleeping late. Then we had a big breakfast. Then we watched the shuttle launch. Then we played baseball in the front yard. Then we played XBOX. Then we took naps. Then we went to a Japanese Hibachi restaurant for my birthday dinner (it was wonderful). Then we played some more XBOX. Then we slept late again. Then we ate an even bigger breakfast. Then we took naps. Then we played some XBOX. You get the idea...

Thanks to everyone for a wonderful birthday. I got lots of phone calls and birthday cards... I am loved by many people. Thanks to all of you. Neo told me before he went to bed that he loved me and he thought I had the best birthday party ever. I couldn't agree more.

Looking at the website, I'm realizing that I forgot to put a link to the pictures from San Francisco. You can see our pics from the trip here.

Labels: birthday, travels

San Francisco is a pretty awesome place. California, for that matter, is a pretty awesome place. Cool weather. Clean air. It was so nice to be able to enjoy the outdoors... that is probably what I enjoyed the most.

Of course, the real reason I was there was for a wedding for one of my college buddies, Mike. Mike and Mindy had a beautiful wedding in Sausalito, California in a church on the side of the mountain. The reception was amazing. It was on the water and they had some amazing food. Also, the rehearsal dinner the night before was amazing as well.

Christian, Neo, and I want to congratulate Mike and Mindy on their new life together. We will keep them in our prayers.

After the wedding, I got to tour a bit of the area with some of my college buddies. We went to a comedy club one night which was pretty fun and saw Patton Oswalt (the geeky guy "Spence" on King of Queens). We also visited Alcatraz, went to the Muir Woods (home of the tallest trees in the world), went to the top of Mt. Tamalpais (which was on top of the clouds) and took a wine tour at the Benziger Winery in Sonoma Valley (which is next to Napa Valley).

I didn't get many souveniers, but the one nice thing I got was two bottles of wine for Vince and Amy. I don't remember exactly what they were, but one was a Reserve Chardonnay, and the other was an estate wine (a blend). The estate wine (also known as "single vineyard") means it is made solely from grapes on the Benziger estate and none of the other grapes from other farms are used. There is very limited production of this obviously, so it is only available to people on the tour and to people in their wine club... it is not usually available in stores. The chardonnay is a reserve wine, which is also very low distribution and hard to get. You can see some previous reserve wines and estate wines on their website here. Overall, I was very impressed with the company, the family, and the wine. If you haven't tried it, look for it the next time you are at the store. Vince and Amy - the wine should arrive when they feel the weather is cool enough that the shipping process won't diminish the wine due to heat, so I would expect it in the next month or two. Enjoy it and let me know how you like it!

Congratulations again to Mike and Mindy for a beautiful wedding and their new family.

Labels: congratulations, travels

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am back from my trip to San Francisco. I went last weekend to see my good buddy Mike get married.

I don't have all of the pictures yet, so later I will post them and make a more detailed post about the trip.

Labels: travels

Thankfully, we didn't try to go on the camping trip this weekend - there was a rather large storm that blew in Friday night that certainly would have made tent camping pretty miserable.

On Saturday, we went to take pictures for Neo's baseball team. The game following it was cancelled because of the rain. Good thing. The pictures took so long that we would not have made it out in time to play anyway.

After the pictures, we went to the shoe store where Christian bought me an early anniversary gift: 1 pair of dress black shoes and 1 pair of tennis shoes. This was great because I have had black slacks with no shoes to wear them with for about a year. Also, I have been wearing the same old dilapidated tennis shoes for about 4 years and they hurt my back and feet something awful. Now, I'm all set shoe-wise.

Later in the afternoon, we went to a birthday party for one of Neo's friends at school. It was at a gymnastics place, so the kids had a great time bouncing around, jumping on trampolines, and swinging on ropes.

On Sunday I woke up early to cut the grass. Afterwards, we went to church and then went to a small festival that the church was having. We had fun eating hot dogs, getting balloon animals, playing the cake wheel and even playing blackjack.

All in all, it was a good, fairly relaxing weekend.

Since I received my anniversary gift a bit early, I decided to give Christian her combination anniversary/mother's day gift a bit early as well... this.

This will be our first REAL family vacation together and I can't tell you how excited we are. When you think about raising a family, one of the fun ideas you think about is family vacations. I have always wanted to do something like this... in fact, I wish we could go every year... but it always seems just out of reach.

I won't divulge the exact date here, but it is sometime in 2007. The really hard part about this is that we plan on giving this as a gift to Neo for Christmas, which means we (including all of you!) will have to keep this a complete secret for quite a while. I cannot wait to see his face light up to hear that he is going to Disney world and on a big boat. We have all sorts of cute ideas for the gift - maybe a letter from Mickey Mouse... maybe a countdown calendar till we leave... Christian and I are very, very excited.

Looks like they aren't free though... I'm sure we'll find some money... I haven't even checked the sofa cushions yet!

Labels: travels