We're a week into our 2 week road trip. Helen's last day of teaching was Friday, May 22 and we hit the road as soon as she got home. We spent a whirlwind week at the Wilderness Lodge in Disney World and we'll spend the next week traveling around Florida. We're currently in St Augustine and plan on making our way around the coast line; down to the Keys and the Everglades; and back around the west coast.
Last year we visited my sister, Katie, in Louisiana; continued on to Texas; and even crossed over into Mexico. We had such a great time! We thought about a lot of possible trips this year, but settled on Disney World and Florida. We spent a week in Disney World a couple years ago and loved it. We were anxious to get back, especially while the kids are still young enough to see the magic in it all.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Spring Break 2009: Seagrove Beach (Day 2 of 8)
Derek and Adam
Sister Katie and Mom
Derek and sister in law Laine
Adam and Helen
Laine and sister Kelley
Sunday April 5, 2009
The boys woke up eager to try out the new skim boards Aunt Laine bought them. Aunt Laine bought a new board for herself so she was eager to try it out as well. The weather was overcast and a little cool, but it didn't stop them from having a good time.
My mom was still recovering from a broken leg so she had limited mobility. We ended up swapping bedrooms so that she could be on the 2nd floor with the kitchen and more easily satisfy her middle of the night cravings.
Scrabble was the board game of choice and everyone helped out with Laine's "doodling" project for her art class. There was plenty of good food, drink, and relaxation.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Update
I hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day weekend. On Saturday we were at the boy's baseball games all morning and afternoon before heading to my Mom's for a pre-Mother's Day dinner. We visited with Jason and Laine before they head out of town tomorrow. They showed us the new blog they set up so we can track their travels. Derek is already harassing them with instant messaging.
Unfortunately both boys won their games on Saturday so they will continue on in the end of the season tournament. They were fun games to watch and we want them to do well, but this season has dragged on long enough.
Yesterday we did Mother's Day for Helen's side of the family. We had a good time visiting with everyone.
Swim team practice starts this week. This is the first season the boys are doing swim team. They weren't too happy about it, but we told them to give it a try. We figured they might like it and it should definitely help them be better swimmers.
The school year is winding down as well. Helen is very stressed right now. It seems like some semesters she's reasonably on top of things, but this semester is not one of them. She was grading labs all weekend and was not happy about it. Whenever she complains that she doesn't have enough time to get her school work done, I offer to take care of everything so she can have unlimited time to work, but that makes her even more cranky because the point is that she doesn't want to be working on her personal time in the first place.
We're irritated that Helen's not going to get paid for the Tuesday following Memorial Day. The last day of school was supposed to be the Friday before Memorial Day, but the school system is forcing the teachers to make up a snow day on the following Tuesday. We will be long gone out of town by then so she's taking the day off without pay. At least she has the option to take it off without pay, but shouldn't grading labs all Mother's Day weekend count?
I've also been bogged down with some computer issues. I like to stay on top of things so it really deflates me to come home feeling like I've got everything under control only to have Helen inform me that something has broken. I have to fix it even though I wasn't the one to break it. In fact, I wasn't even home when it happened. It's bad when you walk in the door and are informed that something needs fixing, but it's worse to go and use something and find out that it's broken and either no one informed you or no one knows anything about how it might have been broken.
The other night it was the printer. I tried some things to fix the problem and then finally decided to uninstall the printer software and reinstall it. Unfortunately, the install would not run. I was obsessed with fixing the problem for a few days. I stayed up late several nights and went back and forth with HP technical support only to figure out (on my own using some tracing tools) that the install would not run because I had disabled auto run a couple months back when the conficker worm took control of our computer.
The night we were attacked by the conficker worm we had returned late from Derek's basketball game and we were trying to shut everything down, but Derek got on the computer (when he was supposed to getting ready for bed) and all the sudden things started going haywire. I'm not sure if Derek caused the problem, but it was certainly suspicious that things started going wrong while he was on the computer. It took me several days of obsessively trying all sorts of things before I finally had to restore the main hard drive from backup. Luckily, I run daily backups of the main hard drive to an external drive each night so we didn't lose anything. I really don't know how non-technical people have any hope of keeping their computers up and running. There's always something.
Unfortunately both boys won their games on Saturday so they will continue on in the end of the season tournament. They were fun games to watch and we want them to do well, but this season has dragged on long enough.
Yesterday we did Mother's Day for Helen's side of the family. We had a good time visiting with everyone.
Swim team practice starts this week. This is the first season the boys are doing swim team. They weren't too happy about it, but we told them to give it a try. We figured they might like it and it should definitely help them be better swimmers.
The school year is winding down as well. Helen is very stressed right now. It seems like some semesters she's reasonably on top of things, but this semester is not one of them. She was grading labs all weekend and was not happy about it. Whenever she complains that she doesn't have enough time to get her school work done, I offer to take care of everything so she can have unlimited time to work, but that makes her even more cranky because the point is that she doesn't want to be working on her personal time in the first place.
We're irritated that Helen's not going to get paid for the Tuesday following Memorial Day. The last day of school was supposed to be the Friday before Memorial Day, but the school system is forcing the teachers to make up a snow day on the following Tuesday. We will be long gone out of town by then so she's taking the day off without pay. At least she has the option to take it off without pay, but shouldn't grading labs all Mother's Day weekend count?
I've also been bogged down with some computer issues. I like to stay on top of things so it really deflates me to come home feeling like I've got everything under control only to have Helen inform me that something has broken. I have to fix it even though I wasn't the one to break it. In fact, I wasn't even home when it happened. It's bad when you walk in the door and are informed that something needs fixing, but it's worse to go and use something and find out that it's broken and either no one informed you or no one knows anything about how it might have been broken.
The other night it was the printer. I tried some things to fix the problem and then finally decided to uninstall the printer software and reinstall it. Unfortunately, the install would not run. I was obsessed with fixing the problem for a few days. I stayed up late several nights and went back and forth with HP technical support only to figure out (on my own using some tracing tools) that the install would not run because I had disabled auto run a couple months back when the conficker worm took control of our computer.
The night we were attacked by the conficker worm we had returned late from Derek's basketball game and we were trying to shut everything down, but Derek got on the computer (when he was supposed to getting ready for bed) and all the sudden things started going haywire. I'm not sure if Derek caused the problem, but it was certainly suspicious that things started going wrong while he was on the computer. It took me several days of obsessively trying all sorts of things before I finally had to restore the main hard drive from backup. Luckily, I run daily backups of the main hard drive to an external drive each night so we didn't lose anything. I really don't know how non-technical people have any hope of keeping their computers up and running. There's always something.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Jason and Laine's Excellent Adventure
My brother, Jason, and his wife, Laine, have officially entered the next chapter in their lives. Yesterday was Jason's last day at IBM. Jason left his perfectly good well paying job to join his wife Laine, who left her perfectly good well paying job at the end of last year, in early\semi retirement. They have been planning this exit for the past year and we've all been excited for them and vicariously living through them as they shake the shackels of the corporate world.The plan is to travel, visit friends and family, decompress, evaluate whether or not they're happy living a slower simpler lifestyle, and then decide what they want to do after that.
Follow their travels here: http://thingswithham.wordpress.com/.
Good luck and have a great time!
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