Tag: travel (Page 7 of 12)

Vacation Wrap Up

March 25, 2013 / DB

Happy spring! We are home, safe and sound, and the girls are back in school again. Wait. They’re not. We have seven inches of snow and, I believe for the first time since we started at St. P’s, school has been cancelled. It’s the endless spring break! Whoo hoo!¹

What a weird thing, to go from the beach/pool on Friday to putting the snow clothes on and throwing snow balls on Monday. It’s March 25, for crying out loud!

Our final two days in Florida were good. We had an excellent dinner at a nice little Mexican place on Wednesday night. We hung out with our friends for ice cream later after dinner and snuck them into our resort for some pool time on Friday. The girls gathered more shells. They each claimed a tennis ball that had bounced into the bushes near the tennis courts.

Wednesday, on the resort trolley, I talked to an attorney from Kansas City who just happens to be a co-worker of a loyal reader of the site. Thursday another attorney from Kansas City, who was wearing a Mizzou shirt, offered us his family’s chairs at the pool. Friday I saw the same guy wearing a KU shirt. He clearly has issues.

Thursday I got waylaid by the cold that L. and M. had been fighting. If you saw me at the pool that day, you would have guessed dad was nursing a serious hangover. I just sat at the edge of the pool with my head hanging down, doing my best not to talk to anyone. Sadly it was just a lack of sleep and completely clogged sinuses and bad cough that knocked me out. I gave up after two hours and went home, alone, to lay down. Pathetic.

Obviously things cost a little more on Captiva, between it being on an island, there not being many stores to compete with each other, and the vacation tax you have to pay. But I really noticed the difference when I went to the one grocery store on the island to get some cold medicine. I spent $30 on Nyquil, some pretend Sudafed, and cough drops. The same combination would have run me $15 or so at your average Midwestern Walgreen’s. Oh well.

Our plans on when to return home were always kind of up in the air. I had been lobbying for us to go to bed early Friday, sleep until 2:00 or so Saturday morning, then get up and go to avoid traffic. S. advocated leaving at midnight, if not earlier. When we got back from the pool Friday and began organizing our things, I could see that look in S.’s eyes that said she was ready to move.

“It kind of seems like you want to leave sooner rather than later,” I said.

I’ve picked up a thing or two in 10 years of marriage.

She said she didn’t think anyone would be able to sleep, and it was going to be hard to keep the girls entertained for four hours before bedtime. I agreed and soon we were loading the van and preparing to get out of town before dinner.

So we left the resort at 6:00 Friday evening² with me barely having slept the previous two nights. I knew it was going to be an interesting trip.

Long story short, we all survived. Thanks to the flood of caffeine and “non-drowsy” cold medicines, I could barely nap when S. was driving. I think we both got a couple short naps but for the most part were awake the entire time. The pre-dawn hours near Knoxville, when we drove through rain, and the last stretch in Kentucky were kind of a blur. But, again we made it.

The girls were absolutely fantastic. They slept for over 10 hours without complaints or problems. They were well-behaved in the morning when S. and I were thoroughly fried. It was some of their best behavior ever, to be honest.

The drive was not without its exciting moments.

In Tampa we drove through a huge, classic Florida thunderstorm. Much like our trip to Hilton Head two years ago, we found ourselves crawling along at less than 30 MPH through torrential rains. Some of it through narrow lanes because of construction. That was not fun at all.

We drove through more rain around the Georgia-Tennessee border that was nearly as heavy, and then steady rain through most of eastern Tennessee.

Finally, at 3:30 AM in downtown Atlanta, we were passed by an honest-to-goodness high speed chase. I was resting and heard S. say, “What an idiot.” I opened my eyes to see a car streak by us on our left with a policeman in hot pursuit. Then, to our right, another police car raced down an on-ramp with its siren and lights blazing. They quickly disappeared over a hill and by the time we crested the high point, they had either streaked farther out of view, or exited somewhere. There was more traffic than typical for that time of night, so thank goodness whoever was driving the lead car kept it in one lane.

We pulled into the driveway at 12:30 Saturday afternoon, 18.5 hours after leaving Captiva Island. Which is pretty damn good considering we had three kids with us, drove through two rain storms, and were down a DVD player after the girls somehow ruined the power cord on our way down last week.

It was a really great week. We loved Hilton Head two years ago, and may well go back there again some day. But we really liked Captiva and the resort we stayed at and think it will likely be a place we visit again. Although next time we’ll do it in a year we don’t have two other trips planned so we can fly into Ft. Myers rather than brave the roads for 19 hours.

Two trips to Florida in eight weeks. We are very lucky. And now I guess we start the countdown to trip #3 of 2013: my brother-in-law’s Boston wedding in September.

I guess I need to go start the snow blower now.

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I heard this morning that the Indianapolis Public School district has a two-week spring break. What?!?! ↩
The resort even credited us back a night. Good people! ↩

Beach Update 2

March 20, 2013 / DB

Well, it’s raining again. But it’s only 9:00 and today it looks like the storms are going to blow through in the next couple hours.

But, man, yesterday was about perfect. Right around 80, overcast until noon when everything blew away, and we then had perfect Florida skies all afternoon. We did a shell walk in the morning. We watched the sun set from Sunset Beach in the evening.¹ And in-between we spent most of the day in the pools. Where a funny thing happened.

I took C. and L. over to the pool with the water slides, where L. and I splashed around while C. slid. While she was in line, a girl said to C., “Are you M.’s sister?” Yep, it was a girl from M.’s grade and Brownie Troop at St. P’s. C. ran over to get M. and they played together for awhile. M. and her friend have never been in the same class, so I didn’t know who her parents were. But a few minutes later a woman came over to M. and said, “This might be a weird question, but are you in the second grade at St. P’s in Indianapolis?”

We introduced ourselves and talked for a few minutes. It is their first time in Florida for spring break, too, and while they didn’t plan to come down with other St. P’s families, they knew one or two others that were also down. And later in the day the girls saw a teacher from St. P’s sitting by the pool, too.

Almost 1200 miles from home and you can’t walk five feet without running into someone from Indiana or Kansas.

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How original! ↩

Beach Update 1

March 19, 2013 / DB

A lazy morning here on the island, so I’ll share a few details of our trip so far to keep me from having to write 5000 words about it when we get home. Of course, I may end up writing more than that this way, but that’s your gain!

Ok, the drives down were uneventful. Sure, everyone was cranky by the end of each day, but there were no major issues. Not having been through this before, I didn’t realize that all the Catholic schools in Indianapolis have spring break at the same time. So, until we hit the Florida border Saturday morning, we saw more Indiana license plates than any other state. When we ate breakfast at our hotel in Valdosta that morning, the dining nook of our hotel was dominated by families with Indy Catholic school gear. We even saw people from St. P’s, although we didn’t know them.

Same thing once we got to the resort we’re staying at. We saw St. P’s people and folks S. knows from growing up. And, coincidentally, we have good friend staying a five-minute walk from us. I had heard that everyone from our home school district comes to the same spot a little further down the coast on their spring break. It’s weird to see so many people who we can run into twice a day and drop off and pickup 19 hours from home.

I keep running into people who are KU fans or from Kansas City, too. In our first hours here, just as the Big 12 championship game was about to start, I saw a kid, maybe 10 or 11, wearing a full, alternate red, Jeff Withey uniform. We’ve run into KU fans while walking the streets, had a guy who grew up in a small Kansas town come say hello during dinner last night, and heard our waitress, who had an Eastern European accent, tell some other patrons, who were apparently from Kansas City, that she had lived there for several years.

Like I said, this is probably nothing unusual to those of you who have come to Flordia or Texas for spring breaks in the past. But it’s weird to me.

Yesterday had the ingredients for disaster but turned out to be a great day. We met our friends on the beach and, after about five minutes of sun, the clouds began blowing in. Soon the skies got dark, the wind picked up, and it began to spit rain. We decided to wait it out, because that’s what you do in Florida, right? While we were waiting, and as thunder got closer and closer, we saw some dolphins maybe 150 feet out from the shore. The girls screamed and jumped up and down and pointed. A few minutes later we saw some more. Eventually we saw a solitary dolphin maybe 30 feet out, slowly cruising down the shoreline. More screaming and pointing. We started walking with it, and it came a little closer. We walked farther and he came closer still. Soon it was 10-12 feet away and we could see its belly as it flipped on its side. I’d never seen a wild dolphin before, so I thought this was incredibly cool. You can imagine how amped up the girls were.

The dads headed back to our spot and while there, watched as a dolphin cruise boat went by and a pod of 7-8 dolphins took turns leaping through its wake. It’s like the dolphins are on the tourism board’s payroll. While we were watching the show, the girls and moms were still walking with the first dolphin, who eventually got within five feet of the beach. Between that and all the shells they were finding, the girls were beside themselves in happiness.

Soon the skies opened and we had to scurry over to our friends’ place. They have a large home for their entire family, which includes a screened-in pool. These are pretty common down here, but us hayseeds from Indiana had never seen them before. Once the lightning passed we threw the girls in and swam in a heated pool as the rain poured in from above. It was a strange, but delightful, experience.

Those are the highlights so far. It is still cloudy this morning, but is supposed to stay dry. We’re going to sneak our friends into our resort’s pool later. The girls want to go shelling again, but low tide hits in the middle of the night so we can’t hit the ideal times for the best shells. But I’m sure they’ll add to their already impressive collections.

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On The Road Again

March 15, 2013 / DB

We are off. To Florida. Again.

I know.

We are spoiled rotten, and our daughters are going to grow up to be contemptuous brats that complain because they’ve been pamered their entire lives.

I mean, who goes to Florida twice in two months?

It was an unexpected combination of factors that has us well on the way to Captiva Island by the time you are reading this. We felt a little silly going south for spring break when we were just at Disney. But the combination of factors seemed like a sign that we should take advantage of this opportunity. You never know when the things you always thought you could do later are no longer options.

So wish us luck. We’ll be in the van 12-13 hours today and spend the night in Valdosta, Georgia before continuing on to Captiva on Saturday. We will then spend a week in the pool, walking the beach, and enjoying the sun (we hope). And next Friday night/Saturday we’re busting out that 18-19 hour return trip in one epic drive. If you go to church, please pray that we don’t kill each other or lose our minds that day.

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Down With Disney

January 28, 2013 / DB

We haven’t taken a ton of family vacations over the years. But when we have we’ve always been fortunate to have safe travels and good times at our destination. Our luck held up once again and we had a fantastic time last week on our first (and still expected to be last) trip to Disney World. I’ll do my best to sum up the week without forcing you to read for half an hour.

We flew down Tuesday, leaving Indianapolis when it was a brisk 9°. We made it safely to Orlando¹ and headed to our hotel, the Buena Vista Palace, right across from Downtown Disney. The hotel was a little older, giving off a bit of a 70s-80s vibe, but was in good shape and was sparsely occupied. We were a quick 15-minute bus ride from the Magic Kingdom and only had to cross the street for shopping and dining.

Wednesday we got up bright and early and arrived at the Magic Kingdom shortly after the gates opened at 9:00 am. The girls got First Visit buttons at the ticket window, which they loved, and then we took the monorail across to the park, which they also loved. OK, they pretty much loved everything about the next 72 hours.

We strolled down Main Street, USA, taking in all the images we had seen on TV for years. There was Cinderella’s Castle in front of us, so of course we snapped a few pictures. The girls had their heads on swivels looking for any characters that might be buzzing around that they could grab for autographs. We worked our way back to the new Fantasyland section of the park and hopped on our first ride, Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid. Ooohing and aaahing commenced.

We did a lot of research and picked last week knowing it was A) already a short week for M. and C. at school and B) would not be a busy week at the parks. We were right on with that second assumption. We didn’t have to wait more than 10 minutes for any ride or show over our three days at Disney. Our longest delay was for our shuttle bus Wednesday afternoon after one skipped our stop and we had to wait for 45 minutes rather than 15. It was sunny and in the low 70s, so if we had to wait it was the day to do it.

We spent about four hours at the park Wednesday. That night we went over to Downtown Disney for shopping and dinner, where the girls got their obligatory mouse ears.² A very solid first day.

Thursday was set to be our busiest day. The girls had brunch with the princesses at Epcot. S. and her step-mother took them to that while my father-in-law and I waited at the hotel. We met the ladies at the Animal Kingdom in the early afternoon. As we approached each other from opposite bus stops, M. and C. ran full speed towards us, screaming about how great every single minute of the brunch was. The princesses were awesome! They had the best eggs ever! The got autographs and pictures with all the princesses! There was a Mexican Donald Duck! You get the point.

We spent a few hours in Animal Kingdom, which was super cool as well. We took the Dinosaur ride, which was a little rough, very loud, and was apparently a little scary to one of the girls. When we exited the ride and walked by the screens with the images snapped of us during the ride, six of us were looking around at the dinos while M. sat with her arms gripping the safety rail and her head ducked beneath them. Apparently she sat like that the entire time. She got some courage later, though.

We went home for a few hours then headed back to the Magic Kingdom for the night time events. We barely made it in time for the Electrical Parade. After that we hung around for the nightly fireworks show, which was spectacular, of course. After that we ran into our only crowd issues of the week. Apparently everyone who goes to any of the parks during the day crams into the Magic Kingdom at night for the shows, and then tries to get out at the same time. It was like the entire crowd from a Colts game trying to get out of one exit gate at once. It was amazingly crowded and everyone was right on the verge of getting frustrated. But after a couple tense moments everyone started moving and we got out of the park surprisingly quickly.

We spent Friday in the Magic Kingdom again, knocking out Adventureland and Frontierland and finally riding the Tomorrowland Speedway cars. In Frontierland we took M. and C. on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster. We weren’t sure how they would do, but, keeping with the theme of the week, they loved it. It’s not a crazy coaster with loops and huge drops, but it’s a lot bigger than the dinky kids coasters they’ve gone on at the church festival around the corner each summer. As soon as we got off M. said she wanted to ride it again and again, and if she ever came back to Disney that would be the first thing she rode. So I guess it worked out ok. L. drove me on the Speedway and spent the entire time giving a running commentary on our status in the race, how we had to catch C. and S. in front of us, and how we were going to win the championship. She’s a funny kid.

We said goodbye to the parks and returned to the hotel to spend a little time in the pool before the sun set. There were three pools, but only one was heated. As nice as it was, it was not warm enough to be in an unheated pool. Fortunately there were mostly adults sitting in the sun and the warm pool had only a few kids in it, so the girls were able to splash around for a while. There was a small lake around the hotel, and the banks were full of all kinds of cool birds looking for fish and other critters to eat. The girls laughed and laughed when they saw a couple ducks sitting at the end of one of the pools.

The weather was perfect the entire time. It was a little chilly Wednesday morning, but each afternoon the temperature pushed well into the 70s. As I said, the crowds were completely tolerable. We were constantly thankful that our schedules allowed for us to go at a time when the parks weren’t overrun with families and the lines were crazy.

A friend asked if I had become a Disney convert. I wouldn’t go that far. I had a good time, and love that the girls loved it. They said that Thursday, with the princesses and safari and fireworks, was the best day of their lives. I was fascinated by the logistical miracle that is Disney. From the clever disguising of the lines to the easy access to everything that is important, it’s an amazing place just to look around and observe how it works. But we have no plans to go back. This trip was crazy fun, but S. and I agree that it’s a one-time thing and we have other places we want to visit as a family while the girls are still little.

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Well we did. We had a very tight connection in Atlanta and our bags did not make the second flight. It’s the first time I’ve ever arrived without my luggage. Fortunately they were on the next flight and delivered that evening. Which led to a strangely exciting five minutes, as KU beat K-State and moments later the phone rang announcing our bags were downstairs. Good times! ↩
M. and L. got ears, that is. C. had some picked out then changed her mind and decided on a Minnie Mouse diary/notebook thing. We made sure she was sure she didn’t want ears, and she convinced us. The next night we found some ears that had been misplaced during the Electrical Parade and she got her ears after all. The best part was L. quickly pointing out that since C. got two things, she and M. got two things, too. She doesn’t miss a thing. ↩

When Long Held Beliefs Are Cast Aside

January 21, 2013 / DB

There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to let it rip: we’re going to Disney World tomorrow.

I didn’t go when I was a kid. My parents were never in position to afford it when I was little. And I wasn’t ever into anything Disney. In fact, the contrarian streak in my personality could probably be traced back to my early loathing of Mickey and the rest of the Disney gang. And thus I figured there was no real reason to take my kids.

My stance has softened, though. We’ve been talking about taking this trip for about two years and the timing finally worked out right to do it now.¹ As I mentioned two months ago, we let the girls know about the trip the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. They were excited, but the anticipation of Christmas kept it in the backs of their minds. Once we got past the holidays, though, and we started putting stickers on the calendar to countdown the days until departure, things changed.

They’ve been in rare form the last 48 hours or so. If there’s a wall within their sight, odds are they’re bouncing off of it. Our patience has been tried many times, but it’s not like we can say, “If you don’t calm down, we’re not going to Disney on Tuesday.” I think even L. would see right through that. So we’re hoping they can chill just a bit and get through the next 28 hours or so until we arrive at our hotel without making us lose our minds.

We don’t have too many concrete plans. We have three days in the parks. We’ll probably spend most of that time in the Magic and Animal Kingdoms. The girls have a breakfast date with some princesses on Friday. My in-laws are joining us so we’ll have more adults than kids.

All our friends who have been keeping telling us what a great job everyone at Disney does making sure the kids have a great time. And even parents who were anti-Disney like me said they ended up having a great time. So I’m doing my best to approach with an open mind and make it a fun, memorable trip for all.

I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to update the blog or not while we’re away. If not, you know I’ll post a complete summary upon our return.

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In the process violating another soft parenting rule I’ve had: we’d never be the parents who take their kids out of school to travel for something fun. Yet here we are doing it. We’re reasonably sure this is a one-time thing, but don’t hold us to that. ↩

67 Hours

August 7, 2012 / DB

From the time I left my house Friday morning until I returned very late Sunday night, I spent approximately 67 hours in, or traveling to-and-from, Kansas City. The obligatory run down of the weekend’s events.

I landed at 7:30 Friday morning. Having been up since 4:45 Eastern, I drove straight to The Roasterie to grab some coffee and enjoy the easy-going ambiance of Brookside. I followed that up with a few laps of the Plaza.

Thanks to my early arrival, I was able to break my three-year Oklahoma Joe’s drought. Even getting there right at 11, there was a healthy line. But we got our food pretty quickly and Mike A, Chris N, and I enjoyed Kansas City’s finest barbecue and some good conversation. My meal of the day was the Carolina Style with fries, my old standby.

Next, I was off to Lee’s Summit where my hosts, the N’s, live. While they took their kids to the water park I took a nap to get ready for the evening.

That night Mr & Mrs N, Chris N (no relation), and I enjoyed game one of the Royals-Rangers series in Mrs. Ns’ father’s seats. A loss, but a competitive loss and pleasant company. Some fair ballpark barbecue for dinner with a surprise batting helmet sundae from Chris for dessert.

Saturday, after an early breakfast with some former co-workers, I traveled to Leawood to meet Billy and Stacey B at the newest Oklahoma Joe’s location. I really liked the set-up of the Leawood store, as it kept the tradition of the long, in-store line going, but with lots and lots of room to actually eat. This time I went back to my original OK Joe’s favorite, the Z-Man.

Late in the afternoon, John N, Erick R, Steve B, and I returned to the K for game two of the Rangers-Royals series. Steve had obtained some pretty sweet seats from a client, so we were lucky enough to sit in the Crown Seats directly behind home plate. Not only do you get great seats, but you get access to the private club under the stands. We dined on some fine prime rib, had some terrific shrimp, and finished with some delightful desserts. Just the way baseball is supposed to be!

Once the game started, we took advantage of the waitress that served our section and enjoyed the texts from friends who were seeing us on TV at home. You could get spoiled sitting in those seats, but you are so close and low that once the ball is hit in the air, it’s hard to see exactly where it’s going. Free food and beer make up for it, though.

After the game we moved to the Plaza and O’Dowd’s deck. It was busy, as it was a pleasant night, but since it was 8:30 when we arrived, most of the people were our age. We laughed thinking back 15 years when we would have just started thinking about our plans for the evening at 8:30 on a Saturday night. We were extra lame when we headed home at 9:30 or so.

Sunday I meet Lisa and Roger D along with Erick R for brunch at Michael Forbes’ Grille in Brookside. Knowing I was heading back to the K for the third game of the series, I ate a tremendous amount of sausage, bacon, and sausage gravy. Because that’s exactly how you should load up before you’re going to go sit in 90-degree heat for three hours.

This time Billy and Stacey B joined me for the game, and we sat waaaaaay out in the outfield, farther away than I’ve ever sat at the K. But they were still fine seats. All that red meat at brunch and the heat conspired to limit me to one beer for the day. But I did throw down some ice cream and a large Topsy’s cherry limeade.

Between the heat and the long weekend, the last thing I wanted to do was sit through a long game. So the Rangers and Royals conspired to play stupid baseball late and send the game to extra innings. We did not stay for the free baseball. Fortunately I made it back to the N’s house in time to see the Rangers literally throw the game away in the bottom of the 10th. I doubt that would have happened had we stayed.

Mrs. N volunteered to grab some Gates for dinner. Turned out there was a long, post-game line, and they were out of burnt ends, so we cancelled those plans. I figured after all the food I’d had over the previous 60 hours, I should go lite for my final meal. Maybe a sandwich or something healthy like that. Which is exactly what I did.

I may need to slow down for awhile. Over the last two weeks we’ve had M’s birthday, with many, many treats. Next, a weekend with visiting friends that involved lots of eating. A couple’s night out on the town had me shoveling in food last Monday. I’ve had to sample my new beer. And then a weekend in Kansas City. When I stepped on the scale Monday morning, I weighed 10 pounds more than I did 10 days ago. Yikes. I hope it comes off as quickly as it went on.

It was a big weekend in a lot of ways. I got to see many great friends. Eat lots of great food. Drink a few beers. And watch some baseball. It’s been a very busy six or seven weeks. We finally have a weekend coming up with nothing on the calendar, which comes at the perfect time since M. and C. begin school next week.

Thanks to everyone who helped make my weekend in Kansas City terrific.

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Rocky Mountain High

July 18, 2012 / DB

Four days in Denver. Sounds like a bad political thriller from the 1970s, no? Our weekend in the Mile High City was far from bad movie from my childhood.

The highlights:

The girls travelled very well on the way out. S. sat in a row with C. and L., while M. and I sat a row up. We were lucky enough to share our row with a pilot from another airline who was all-too-happy to share information about flying without being asked. He was just on the verge of being annoying, but fortunately didn’t volunteer flying tidbits for the entire flight.
Saturday we went out to the famous Red Rocks park and concert site. The place was full of people working out. There were people running the seats of the amphitheater, a group of over 50 people doing various exercises at the top of the seats, a large contingent of kids from the Air Force Academy, and then random folks like us who were walking around. Like most non-Coloradans my age, about all I know of Red Rocks is the classic 1983 U2 concert, during which the video for “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” was filmed. It’s a pretty cool place to walk around. I bet seeing a show there would be pretty amazing.
After that we headed higher into the hills to visit two KC friends who are now in the Denver area. We had a fine time with them, and our girls played with the two boys quite well. We headed to the neighborhood pool after lunch. It’s been a very hot summer in Denver, too. But we were just high enough, and enough clouds had rolled in, that the water wasn’t all that warm. Thus we didn’t spend a ton of time in the water. But it was great to see my two friends, Erin and Mandi, and their families for the first time in four years.
We descended about a thousand feet, to where it was a normal, hot, summer day and hopped into the pool in my brother & sister-in-laws’ neighborhood. The girls showed off their diving board skills some more.
Sunday my brother-in-law and I went to the Phillies-Rockies game at Coors Field. Coors was my eighth big league stadium, which is pretty lame when you consider how much baseball I’ve watched in my life. We had terrific seats, the only downside of which was we were directly in the sun. Each time we’d head up to grab another round, our seats would be blistering upon our return. We watched Cole Hamels shut down the Rockies, drank some beer, and enjoyed some time without the kids.
Monday morning we went to the restaurant my other Denver sister-in-law runs, Snooze. It’s a breakfast place that makes some amazing food. We sampled some of their pancakes, which are probably the best I’ve ever had, and I stuffed myself on a massive breakfast burrito.
What better way to recover from eating too much food than to go to the Denver Zoo and stroll around in the heat? That was our next stop. Things began to unravel a bit by now, with the girls being tired from three nights in strange beds, a different sleeping schedule, and the weather. I, of course, handled all their moods with absolute aplomb.
Monday night we ate dinner at a barbecue place not too far from my in-laws’ home. You can’t really go wrong with barbecue, but my pulled pork sandwich wasn’t quite Kansas City quality. We ordered some wings, too, which my brother-in-law raved about, and they were indeed some of the better wings I’ve had. I’m not sure how they were made, but they were fantastic: a little smoky, a little hot, but not dripping with sauce.
The girls had lots of fun with their cousins. Will is 2.5 and loved hanging out with the girls. Anytime he couldn’t find one, he’d start yelling, “Where M./C./L.?” Will’s little sister, Sara, is almost three months old and very cute. The girls loved watching her, trying to get her to smile and make noises back at them.
Tuesday we flew home, and we lucked out with a flight that wasn’t completely full. This time M. and I sat a row behind the rest, and as we sat waiting to leave the gate, a girl from across the aisle came over, sat in the empty seat next to me, looked at M., and asked, “How old is she?” Despite being 5.5, this girl was perfectly happy to hang with M. for two hours, so I moved over to the window and let them have fun. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t let any of my daughters go sit with strangers, even if just across the aisle from me, but this worked out ok.

We made it home safe and sound, to a hot and dry home that made sleeping Tuesday night difficult. But at least we were home. Most of our trips in recent years have been 2-3 nights, and I always feel like I could have used one more. This time, with four nights schedule, I could have easily come home a night earlier. But it was still a great trip. I haven’t spent a ton of time in Denver over the years, but I like it a lot. They welcome Indianapolis refugees warmly there, so if we do ever move, that’s a place I could go.

Now we get two whole days to do laundry and relax a bit before we welcome another visitor and spend another weekend in a lake.

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Good Times

March 27, 2012 / DB

If we had to put a letter grade on our trip to Kansas City over the weekend, we would give it an A-. We had a great time seeing and catching-up with old friends. We hit a couple of my favorite eateries, although again with the kids present, I can’t go quite as nuts as I used to. And, obviously, the big, unexpected thrill was being about to watch a couple basketball games with people I used to spend a lot of time watching hoops with. That worked out well.

The girls had a few personal highlights. On the drive over, we had maps for them to color in based on the license plates we saw. They collected 35 on the way to KC, including the very rare Alaska. M. was pretty pumped up about that.¹ They though the indoor pool at our hotel was great. And they loved playing with all their KC friends.

But without a doubt their favorite moment was our visit to the American Girl Doll store on Sunday. M. and C. got their dolls’ ears pierced and each girl got a new outfit. It was a little like Christmas morning, although there was no shrieking since strangers were present.

There were a few meltdowns, and the drive home Monday was a little more contentious that the first drive was. It was a fine trip, all things considered.

Thanks to all of you who hosted us or took time to come visit with us. It was great to see everyone. Hopefully it won’t be another two years before the entire family visits again.

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They were less diligent on the ride home, but filled in at least four of those missing states. ↩

Go West Old Man

March 23, 2012 / DB

Tomorrow morning, we’re packing up the family truckster and heading west. By mid-afternoon, we will be in the land of burnt ends, fountains, and boulevards.

It’s the first time we’ve taken the girls back to Kansas City in over two years, so it’s a special trip. Well, other than the eight hours in the van. But we have lots of movies and books, snacks, and a couple surprises to try to keep the girls occupied. They’re very excited to make the trip and see some old friends. But most of all, they’re excited about making a stop at the American Girl Doll store. Is it bad for me to hope KU is playing Sunday and they drop me off somewhere to watch the game while they head to the store without me?

Anyway, we’re looking forward to seeing many of our Kansas City friends.

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