San Diego

So I finally made it through all the photos from our jaunt to "the lower 48" as they're called up here. We first made a fabulous stop in SLC (see post below) to see family and then we were off to San Diego. We did have to take a detour through San Francisco but eventually made it to what has to be one of the best places on the entire planet. Warm...sunny...paradise!

We spent most of the trip sleeping in, going to the pool, going to the beach and eating lots of ice cream. The Hotel del Coronado is just down the road from where we stay and has become a favorite ice cream spot. They even have sorbet for little O. They also have a great Christmas tree over the holidays and an ice skating rink, but these were pretty much gone by the time we arrived.

The girls had started playing a little tennis up here over the summer, so we brought their rackets and played a little. The courts are close by and they had a great time. If anyone out there is doing the tennis thing with little tykes, get the superlight balls (basically foam balls). They make things so much easier. Regular balls are way too heavy for them to hit anywhere, but the light ones are relatively easy and keeps the frustration level low. Next time I'll have to get a few more. I only had six which made for lots of ball chasing (the aim part of the swing is still under development for the kids).

A couple of days into our stay, we decided to brave Disneyland. This was the first time Carol and I had gone solo (we usually come armed with very helpful grandparents) and we missed them dearly but still had an incredible time. I don't know what it is about Disneyland, but for kids, it really is magic. The kids walked around in a kind of Disney gaze all day and kept talking about it for weeks afterward (o.k. maybe days). We have been three times now and crowd wise this was by far the best. We first went during the week between Christmas and New Years. Do not do this. Our first ride was Dumbo which took 2 hours to get on (6 minute ride). There was a sea of people we had to wade through all day. They did have a great parade and fireworks show, but WAY too many people. Last year we went the week after New Years and it was MUCH better. Lines were long (30-60min) but manageable. We felt like we had a little space to breathe. They still had a great parade and shows. This year we went two weeks after New Years (yes, the kids missed 3 days of school). Lines were 2-15 minutes (we didn't do Space Mountain which was probably a little longer) and crowds were amazingly low. There wasn't a parade (I guess they only do these when crowds are high), but there was a small show at the end of the day and we got prime seats to a princess extravaganza during the day complete with interactive princess pole weaving (running around a pole with a streamer and Sleeping Beauty). The girls got their face painted and Owen got to go on the space ship ride (like Dumbo but in Tomorrowland) 3 times. The park also closes a little earlier (8PM), but overall it was a great time to go.

My favorite thing about Disneyland is the churros. They sell them at most amusement parks and I'm completely addicted. I told Carol I was going to eat 20 of them and I may have come close (well, maybe 10). I'd learn how to make them at home, but I'm afraid I'd make nothing but churros everyday and I don't see myself being around past age 50 if all I eat everyday is fried flour rolled in sugar, although I'm sure it would be a blissful 50 years.

Post Disneyland we mostly did the beach/swim thing again including a daily hunt for shells at sunset. It was great to see the sun after being in Fairbanks with 4 hours of daylight for the past 6 weeks. I would just sit and stare at those sunsets everyday and try to make them last for another 6 weeks.

Oh, Isabel also lost her first tooth and we found out that the Tooth Fairy does know when you're on vacation!

The kids have now fully adopted one of the longstanding rituals of San Diego which is the fight to push the elevator button. This is not a hard ritual to adopt and they had begun to catch on in previous visits, but the button pushing was in full force this time. The other ritual that I remember is jumping up and down in the elevator as it accelerates. You can do an unusually high jump if you time it just right and it's quite a thrill for a 10 year old. The kids haven't done much of this yet and they may not ever get to as apparently I was not the only kid to jump on the elevator. I guess so many kids (maybe a few adults?) did it that the elevator was damaged! A sign now hangs in the elevator at one of the buildings in the complex we stay in (La Playa) forbidding jumping in the elevator. Bummer!

Carol and I both experienced something very familiar to me as we were leaving. Some of my best memories growing up were at San Diego. I'd usually go down with my family around Christmas and come back a couple of weeks later. While these memories are great, I also have memories of some very sad days. That feeling you get when you realize you have to leave this paradise is not good. I'd been through it many times before and it still came (usually 24-36 hours prior to the flight/drive). Carol got it a little too. It's just a really hard place to leave. We're already looking forward to the next time we can make it down there.

More photos here.

It's cold!!!

Can someone point their turbocharged high capacity industrial strength hairdryer this way. It is seriously cold up here!!! Click here for details.

Utah!

I know it's a little backwards with regards to posting order, but I'm still trying to make it through all my photos (there were a lot). I finally made it through the pics from Utah and wanted to get them up. Still to come will be San Diego (including Disneyland!).

So, we left Fairbanks Dec 28 on an evening flight to Anchorage which was fine. We've done this many times and it is slightly less painful now that the kids are a little older, but it is still quite an adventure. The adventure is always a little more painful as almost all flights going to Utah necessitate an overnight flight. Making it worse is the fact that flights from Anchorage to Utah are only through Delta which flies out of the international terminal at the Ted Stevens International Airport (Anchorage - ANC). This means going out of security, waiting for a bus outside (not a heated shelter) in the Alaskan winter that comes every 20 MINUTES, riding it through all the long term parking lots only to be dropped off at a dingy, small terminal which is standing room only. Oh, and you also have to go through security again. Oh, and our flight was delayed (left at 2AM instead of 1AM).

Fortunately, our good times in Utah more than made up for our travel difficulties.

We arrived on the 29th to both Gram and Gramps Cook and went up to their house for Mickey Mouse Waffles. We played with their train, oogled their new media toys, and made a mess of their house. It was a little chilly when we arrived for Utah standards (5-10F), but warmed up during the week. It was great to get to spend some time with family and especially the cousins. The cousins came over relatively frequently including a semi-spontaneous birthday party for Beth (self requested) which was great. We love a lot of things about Alaska, but being so far from family is definitely not one of them. We also got to see Drew's new piano skills and Christopher's new rolling over skills. It's amazing to see how quickly everyone grows up. I was reminded of two things especially when seeing Abbie and Lydia.

1 - How strange it is seeing such mature beautiful young women that only a brief time ago were sleeping in a tent on my living room floor in my apartment (1996).

2 - Remembering adults telling me when I was 16 over and over how they remember me when I was just a baby and wondering why they kept telling me that. I really didn't care.

Anyway, it was great to see everyone and we are so blessed to have such a wonderful extended family.

We also got to spend some time with Maama and Popop. They were back and forth from San Diego, so our time was brief but sweet. Maama made a delicious non-wheat (Owen and allergies) apple pie and pear tart (Gram also made some fabulous non-wheat waffles). There were at some point Cummings candies in their house when we arrived and I'm sure they now regret showing us where they were because they disappeared in a matter of days (3 I think).

It did snow quite a bit while we were there and I think Gram and Gramps have to be about the quickest folks I know on the draw for getting the sidewalks/driveways cleaned. The only way I got to take a turn was to sneak out and do it in the middle of the night. Gram even ran over to the neighbors to do a little snowblowing service.

We also got to see some long lost friends from Ohio and high school which was great. We wish we could somehow transport them to Alaska as well!

Anyway, we had a fabulous time with everyone and we can't wait to get back. The girls are still talking about all the fun they had with everyone.

More photos here.

Seattle

Carol and the girls shipped off to Seattle a couple of weekends ago. I spent some male bonding time with Owen which was great and the girls really had a good time down south. They especially enjoyed hanging out with their cousins and look forward to another visit sometime soon.

While I don't know all the details, I know a trip around Green Lake, a performance of "Singing in the Rain", a trip to the aquarium and dining at Tutta Bellas played a part. I'll leave the filling of blanks to Carol and the girls. The cousins did post some details on their blog (which we read daily...it's great!) here.

More photos from Carol and company can be seen here. Thank you Durhams for such a great time and thanks to Maama for helping with the planning!

Lucky Number 7

It's really hard to believe it's been 7 years. 7 years and a day ago, Carol and I had no kids. I really can't remember what it's like now that these years have passed. Our kids now consume us as I'm sure everyone with kids (or needy nieces and nephews) knows. The time has at times flown by although there are a few airplane rides and church meetings where time really seemed to stand still. All things considered, however, Carol and I could not feel more blessed to have the wonderful kids we do.

Beth has had an amazing year. She started piano, learned to ride a bike, learned (kind of) to play tennis, learned (kind of) to ski and has continued her academic/dance/swimming skills. She is a delight (mostly) and an amazing individual. We look forward to another great year.

She has had two birthday parties so far this year. One was while we were traveling in SLC and the other was here today. She is lobbying for a third with friends although the verdict is still in question. Today began with Beth discovering her wrapped presents and pulling mom and dad out of bed to go open them. She loved all her gifts from parents and grandparents. We feel so grateful to have such a loving and involved extended family. She got to talk to all of them at some point during the day which was great.

After presents, we ate crepes and played. Lunch turned into cake which was preceded by the decorating ritual complete with Owen dumping half of the sprinkles on to one corner. We all ingested our weeks allotment of sugar and were off to church.

Post church we played with presents which included a couple of sleeping bags for some Alaskan camp outs this summer. The girls are sleeping in them now on their floor. I still remember my first sleeping bag. My parents may still have it. I remember it was green and incredibly hard to restuff it in the sack but I loved it. My brother had one just like it. I took it on most/all of my scouting campouts and it somehow made it through in one piece. We'll see how these hold up.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETH!!! We love you to the moon and back!

More photos here.

Christmas!

This was the first year in many we've had Christmas athome. Living in Ohio and now Alaska, we have often spent Christmas away. It was a bit of a logistical nightmare trying to get everything to and from various destinations, and so we decided to stay put this year.

We spent Christmas Eve with some good friends. Our kids are great together which makes for a kind of pseudo-babysitter effect I'm sure all parents are familiar with. This was great as the adults got a little talking time. We finished the night early and got the kids to bed. The kids got pretty excited and it was the first night I can remember when they were the ones pushing to get themselves into bed (Chrismtas every day?). We read the birth story from Luke 2 and locked the house down for preparations.

Christmas was great. There is a clock in the kid's room and I don't know how we pulled it off, but we got the kids to wait until the clock said 8AM before going downstairs. I remember letting my parents sleep until 7 at the latest (I think one year was 6). 8 was great, but I'm not counitng on being able to pull that one off again. We ran downstairs, set up the videocamera and released the kids. We did the "take turns" thing with the kids to make the present opening a little longer followed by another reading of the Luke 2 account and breakfast.

Owen's list was dominated by Thomas the Tank Engine stuff and the girls got books and a bunch of craft things (weaving, painting, sewing, etc.) They also got some Lego stuff (dad is a big fan of Legos) and a karaoke machine (microphone and speakers).

I have two memories of most Christmas mornings. The first is the presents, but the second is eating crepes with apple filling that my mom would always make. My kids love crepes so I made them the same. They didn't last long (the butter and powdered sugar on top didn't hurt).

The rest of the day was spent talking to family and cleaning up. Carol had to wrestle with a couple of the packages to get the toys out. The marketers have come up with some great packaging for displaying the contents of boxes, but it can be somewhat daunting to release all the molded plastic from their twelve tie downs.

Overall the kids had a great time and so did mom and dad. We did miss family, but not the 12 suitcases we have to haul when we do the traveling Christmas. I think we may be here again next year. Merry Christmas!

More photos here.

Owen enters year number 4

Owen turned 3 on Dec 15th. It's the same birthday as his mother who aged in number only. We had a little party at the house complete with a gluten free cake (we're experimenting with a few dietary things) and lots of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. We were grateful for grandparent participation as well with artwork, vegan chocolate (no milk...again part of the great diet experiment), and more Thomas stuff. We all had a great time and lots of sugar.

We then had Owen's "friend" birthday party a few days later. I always remember having a "family" and a "friend" birthday party. I have now learned that having multiple birthday parties is not all that common and I should be grateful for such energetic parents which I definitely am. They even had a sleepover party at my grandparents cabin (they did this for my siblings as well). I now realize the herculean effort that required. I can't say I love my kids that much yet, but I probably will.

Anyway, the "friend" party was at the local glow-putt (indoor miniature golf with glowing balls). Carol made some incredible snowmen cupcakes and fun was had by all. Owen did really like the putting and the kids actually lasted almost 90 minutes before attempting to beat each other with the putters (I actually thought this would happen at about 10 minutes in). No injuries to report thankfully and we're already looking forward to next year. The girls had fun playing with Owen's stuff as much or more than he did. Hits included a play dough kit and some type of foam stuff which dad had to sort after Beth accidentally mixed the colors (this is really not fun). Pictured is the "spaghetti and meatballs" from the play dough kit.

More photos here.

Happy birthday buddy!

Upcoming Posts

Yes, it's been a while since our last post. We've been gone for a while and I have a ton of stuff to get through before posting, but it will eventually get up. Hopefully we'll be caught up by the end of Jan.

Gettin' Ready

One of the best parts of Thanksgiving weekend is the day after. We actually went skiing that day (see previous post) but we did get to the traditional post-Thanksgiving rituals after the downhill marathon. We set up the boxes and unpacked the tree in record time.

We do the fake tree thing at Christmas and I wish I could say it was because we are so environmentally conscious, but it's mostly for convenience. Last year we had 2 light strands burn out on the tree (one each year for the previous two years). After one strand went out, I let it slide, but I couldn't do two. I decided to replace all the lights on the tree. I researched the different types and went out and bought a bunch of new lights, found some good ones and strung them on the tree. I should have known better when 2 out of the 12 "good strands" didn't work right out of the box, but the rest seemed fine so I put them up. Well, two of those new strands are out this year. They are also on opposite sides of the tree so I can't really hide the "out strand" in the back like I had in the past. Ugh. There really aren't many bad things I think about when pondering Christmas, but stringing lights and packing up the boxes (after New Years) are definitely two of them. I think fruitcake might be third although I warmed up to this a little in Argentina where they serve it all the time (it's called pan dulce...sweet bread). I haven't decided yet if I'm going to relight the tree again this year. Poor kids...what a slacker dad.

Beth, Isabel and Owen all mostly decorated the tree on their own which was a little bit of a surprise. They kind of did it while I was bringing boxes up from downstairs. We have one box of ornaments which I brought up first. Beth distributed them and the kids did a pretty good job of hanging...even Owen. There was of course a "kid line" kind of like the tree line on the mountains where the ornaments just stopped due to pediatric height restriction. Dad had to help out a little above this and Isabel put the top ornament on (it's not really a star, more of a pointy decoration). Besides a little stress when I saw glass ornaments on the ground with a barefoot three year old marching around, I was very happy with the experience.

Next was the nativity scene which comes all the way from Oberammergau courtesy of Maama and Popop. We love it and the kids really enjoy putting up each piece. My favorite is...the camel. Yes, you may think it would be a different piece, but I really love the camel. It's also a good favorite because the kids tend to lobby for the pieces a little more relevant to the the birth story. I also remember putting up the nativity scene when I was younger...great memories.

Finally we put on some upbeat Christmas songs and danced around the living room. We broke down and got semi-matching pjs this year which I highly recommend. You just can't all dress up alike like that and not have a good time. We've done the dress up thing many times since, and the energy is infectious.

The kids are doing the countdown and mom and dad are looking through catalogs. Owen also has a birthday coming up so we're getting that going as well. It's a busy but wonderful time of year (some would say the most wonderful time and I may have to agree).

More photos here.