Another reason why teachers are the best

I went in to work today, just to check on the room and make sure nothing odd had happened over break. Took the twins along. And ran into a handful of teachers and administration.

Not one darn person gave me a "You've got your hands full!" or any other such platitude. Instead I got genuine questions of "Are they good babies?" and "How are they doing?" and (gasp) "How are YOU doing?"

Teachers rule.

Matt

Who are we kidding?

No way I'm ever going to go back through the whole vacation and recap, espcially with school starting back up in a week or so. Look. We drove through the Smokies, we walked to some waterfalls, the girls played in real mountain streams. We walked through Gatlinburg and admired the sheer audacity of American tackiness. We sweated a lot. We drove to Chattanooga, were again frustrated by Tennessee's closed rest stops. The second cabin was smaller and dirtier. We went to Lake Winnepesaukah and sweated some more. Tooks got on a flume. We went to the Creative Discovery Museum and found yet another children's museum that blows Cincinnati's away. (seriously, get it in gear, locals) We got a small sprinkling of Civil War history, we admired the Tennessee Aquarium, we ate at Bea's Restaurant. When the videos are made maybe we'll explain more, but for now, this will have to do.

All is well, but the elephant in the room is the start of school. I apologize again for the lack of posts, but as soon as the new power cord comes, it'll be a lot easier to get back on track.

Thanks to everyone for your attention...hope we have some interesting things to say in the near future.

Matt

Recapping Day 1

Thinking way back to the beginning of our Tennessee trip...

The drive down was uneventful. Babies were quiet enough to allow Steph to listen to her first Neal Morse album completely uninterrupted, which is a rare feat. I think she's on board with me now, as far as can be expected. Sometime in the future I hope to expand this blog to include music reviews and opinions...so we'll save details for another time.

Tennessee seems to have closed all their rest stops along I-75 for some reason - made for several annoyances along the way. Usual traffic coming into Pigeon Forge, but arrived at the KOA with no trouble, got checked in, unhooked, etc. Much to NOBODY'S surprise, dad backed off of his hard stance that we would grill out the first night there...instead we made our pilgrimage to Corky's for some great BBQ.

The whole vacation we alternated the girls sleeping with us in the cabin with them sleeping in the RV. Which meant that on the nights we had them, we had to entertain them until the babies went to sleep, in a single room cabin with barely room to stand. It wasn't horrible, but it made for a long couple of hours when it was 'our' night. Mari at least now will pretty consistently go to sleep when the lights go out. And luckily we only had to take Faith to the potty once during the night the whole trip.

First morning, breakfast in the RV, and then we had a little complication. Steph had an unavoidable phone commitment in the middle of the morning, so she stayed with mom and the babies while dad and I took the big girls to go tubing. We weren't sure how it was going to work out...this was the only tubing operation that said 2-yr olds could ride. We assumed that the big girls would float in the same tube with us...but they more or less insisted that they ride in their own tubes. They got special tubes with a bottom on them, and then tethered them to dad and me. I got Tooks, dad got Faith. And off we went.

It went pretty well...stressful at first, since Tooks is so wild...and I stressed her out for sure, because I had to use angry voice to make sure she understood not to climb out. But after a while, we got the hang of it. Got hung up on the rocks several times, and yes, I was glad Tooks was in her own tube...it allowed me to get up out of my tube, dislodge myself, and jump back in...which I could never have done if I had to hold Tooks the whole time. We ended up way seperated from Faith and Z, they didn't get stuck nearly as much. But at one point, a whole bunch of ducks came out and swam right alongside us...which Tooks loved.

I think they were more excited about riding on the 'school bus' back to the car after the river than the river ride itself. All in all, I think everyone had a good time. On the way back, we stopped to buy some produce at a roadside stand (always do this wherever you are - it's good stuff and supports the local growers) which is also where I snapped the "Fried Oreo" picture. Didn't try one, though...maybe next time. Obviiusly I didn't bring the big time digital cameras and camcorders along...but the pics from the disposable waterproof camera will be ready on Monday, so I'll post some then.

Didn't do much else the rest of the day...Steph and I ran over to the Visitor's Center to get maps for the following day's journey through the National Park (not that it helped much...more on that later). Well, gotta run, babies are waking up. BTW - put them in their Bumbos for the first time. Hannah's great in it...Robby still has a little head control problem.

More about the next day soon.

Matt

Back home

Hey all, we're back.

I feel really bad about not being able to post much recently, but with erratic internet access, a computer power cord that snapped in two, and a crazy schedule on vacation, it just wasn't practical. I hope to get on at least once a day for awhile and post about the trip, post pics, and post about the last two weeks of preparing for school to start. Lots of news is in the near future...stay tuned.

Matt

Bowl of Soup

Got a good connection, but not a lot of time - here are some quick pics and comments:

This has been our home for the last few days. This, and Z's RV...oh, and the big Suburban. Anyway, it's been working out pretty well, but I'm sure that Steph will have something to say in a future post about the mattress.


The inside:



It finally happened. Mari made this face so much it stuck. Oh well. No more tookie face.


Gotta love the south:


The much-anticipated picture. This is my favorite of the 3 we took. I am SO MAD that they changed the sign. I may have to photoshop in the old sign so it matches the 2005 picture.


All in all, it's been an interesting few days. Looking forward to Chattanooga starting tomorrow - of course the weather forecast is for more hot and humid. Hence the title of this post - as in, it feels like a Bowl of Soup out here.

Would love to post more but I don't trust the connection for long. Oh, and the power cord to the computer snapped right in two. Gotta love the Extended Service Plan at Best Buy.

More soon,
Matt

Greetings from Tennessee

We're here - not much to say - horrible internet connection - don't expect much the next couple of days - gotta run before we lose the connection again.

Matt

New video

This is a fun one.

Summer of Amusement Parks:

Preparations continue

Our Tennessee trip is only a few days away now. I wanted to announce that Steph took a big step out of her comfort zone and is actually starting the packing a few days ahead. Usually she's unable to stomach the thought of packing the clothes until the night before, but this time she's getting a great head start and I'm proud of her.

The RV is already at dad's, so we can start loading things up as we get them ready. Looking forward to a lot of things on this trip, but the one I'm most selfishly anticipating is that the big girls (at least on the way to Pigeon Forge) are riding in the RV with G and Z, while the babies ride with Steph and me in the Camry. Why is this such a treat? Steph and I will be in charge of the music the whole way down there. We won't be subjected to Strawberry Shortcake, Kindermusik, and Backyardigans the whole trip. And let's be honest. Even when we get to listen to our own music in the car (which we make a point to enforce regularly) it's not like we really get to listen much.

And this is truly a rare treat for me. I'm a music guy, okay? It's my job, it's my hobby, it's the one passion I have that's not my family. My iPod is LOADED with almost a month of music. My favorite gift is an amazon or iTunes gift card so I can get more music. It's my simple, free pleasure to sit down with headphones or alone in front of some good speakers to just sit and let the music work on me. And sadly, the reality of my life is, I don't have time to just sit and listen anymore. My only time to enjoy music without interruption is before bed, and guess what? I can't even make it 10 minutes any more before I have to take the headphones off and go to sleep. So the thought of 5 hours of real, adult, quality music time is like a little slice of heaven.

I also love to share my musical discoveries with Steph - and of course she's worried that I won't let her choose anything the whole way down, but that's not true. I know she's excited about this too, so I'll let her partake equally. I just hope she stays awake for a FEW minutes of my stuff.

Anyway, posting has been sparse and probably will continue to be so. But once we get down to Tennessee, we'll post daily (provided we have reliable wifi).

So long for now,
Matt

Hot weekend...and Mind-Blowing Nostalgia

Coney Island went well. MAN it was hot. Cincinnati hasn't had as many hot and humid days as usual so far this year, but this weekend was certainly miserable. Anyway, we went to Sunlite Pool first (Steph makes fun of me for calling it that - I'm not a Cincy native so there are still some subtleties I don't get...but it technically really is called Sunlite Pool). Anyway again...For the non-Cincinnati folks, it's the world's largest recirculating swimming pool. Look for it on Google Earth - very cool. Steph managed to get us a spot under a nice shady tree, and we managed to keep the girls amused in the shallow end for over 2 hours in the hot sun. Hauled back to the picnic area for our lunch and then did rides. Both girls got on a Tilt-a-Whirl for the first time - and they both loved it. Since Steph gets sick on round-and-round rides, it'll be nice to have someone to go on them with me. Made it back home before dinner hot and exhausted.
We would be remiss if we didn't give a big thank you to AS for the tickets. We don't have the resources to do little things like a day at Coney any more...you helped the girls have a wonderful memory they wouldn't otherwise have had. Thanks! Keep that blog going, and let me know about the fried oranges.

Today, we had our church's young families picnic up at Woodland Mound Park, part of the Hamilton County Park District. Set up the picnic, got rained on. Finished the picinc, found out that the wet playground was NOT going to reopen after the brief rainstorm...all the employees had vanished. Not surprised. I used to work for the park district back in my college days. No one wants to work Breezy Point. SO....we played on the playground instead. Another hot, humid day, another set of tired daughters.

In other news, Grandma S is back from Kenya. We'll get the details tomorrow but we'd assume at this point that things went well.

And so, thoughts slowly start turning towards the upcoming trip to Tennessee. Smokies and Chattanooga. This summer's "big trip" and the last hurrah before it's time to settle back down and get ready for school to start up again.

But what's really on my mind now is this:

This was our last trip to the Smokies, in Spring of 2005.
Wow.
Just look at that. One kid. Faith is barely a year old. No Mari. Twins? Don't make us laugh. Simpler times.
In a little over a week, we will gather again, in what I think is a pretty common tradition for a lot of people - another family photo at that National Park sign. Grandma or Zayde will snap another picture. At the end of that day, I'll upload both pics so we can look at them side-by-side. And I will stop and think...

What will the next picture we take here look like?

[contemplative silence]

We hope you'll all still be around to find out.

That's all for now...
Matt

Busy week

Whew - the girls went to King's Island on Thursday with Zayde, we're going to Coney Island today, we have the church young families group picnic at Woodland Mound Park tomorrow, Grandma S gets back from Kenya tomorrow night, and we leave for Tennessee in just over a week.

A lot going on. Posting might be tough the next few days, but I'll try to get a few things up when I find a spare moment.

Matt