Move In Update

Ok, I know it's been a little while but we've been, well, busy! Our movers unpacked the stuff we hadn't seen for three months on the 16th - the morning after we arrived. Since then, we've been living in a sea of boxes. It is, however, getting much better.

The first floor is in pretty good shape. The kitchen is set and the family room is livable. The study is a complete wreck. We've downsized our furniture in there and don't have the storage we once had. That just means we have to throw away the junk we once kept at our finger tips.

We bought new furniture for the dining room as well as for the boys and Kailee's bedrooms. It arrives tomorrow, so all their stuff is laid out everywhere upstairs to make room for the delivery. They are very excited about getting new bedrooms. Kailee has chosen a retro-like them with large polka dots in pink, brown and tans. The boys are going with a outdoor rustic look with elk, bear and moose figures. Ben wants a mounted deer head on his wall. Actually, I think it would look pretty cool!! - we'll see.

Tonight we went to a local shopping area where they show movies outside on a large inflated screen in the parking lot. It was pretty cool. Everybody hangs out on lawn chairs and blankets and watched Shrek 3 just after the sun set behind the Rockies in front of us. Everyone had fun, we actually went with our new next door neighbors.

Tuesday we'll be going to see the local minor league baseball team - the SkySox. More to come on that...

Ft. Myers Beach Vacation

Here are some pics from our week in Florida. Had a fantastic time.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mike.clark.home/Florida2008

Gateway Arch

Today we arrived in St. Louis after a visit with the Allen's on Saturday and the Matlock's on Sunday. We woke at 4:30AM and made it to St. Louis in about 10 1/2 hours. After we checked in to the hotel, we rode down to the river front and had dinner, rode in a horse drawn carriage and visited the arch.

The arch is amazingly larger - over 650 feet - which makes it the highest memorial in the country (the Washington Monument is only 550). Underneath is a museum, a couple of gift shops and of course entry to the tram that takes you to the top.

That was quite the experience. You sit in what looks most like a small capsule or large oil drum laid on its side. The "car" has 5 small seats and rises like an elevator part of the way, then rides more like a train and rotates all along much like a ferris wheel. It was hard to tell who was more nervous - Jack or Lisa.

Once to the top, you can see out the small windows for quite a ways. Pretty amazing. Well off to bed, tomorrow it's CO or bust!!

Walt Disney World

We've just finished five days at Walt Disney World. It started by us taking the WDW exit off of Rt. 4 last Tuesday. The kids had no idea we were making this detour in our vacation plans. They believed we were on our way to Ft. Myers. As we rode under the elaborate WDW entrance onto their property we turned to the back seat and said, "Surprise. We're going to Disney World!"

We started off in Animal Kingdom. Our favorite was the safari adventure. The animals have gotten quite use to people. They were all around us. We had to stop for awhile as 3 white rhinos were blocking the road. We could almost touch them as we drove by.

Hollywood Studios was a great time. We took at midday break to go swimming back at the hotel. We really begin to notice the scare factor that exists in so many of the attractions. Jack was not having a great time and usually was adamant about not wanting to participate. The final event was called Fantismic. This is wonderful display of fireworks, laser lights and images set to music. It's a story of Mickey's dreams and nightmares. Much time is spent in a montage of Disney's past evil villians all with the intense music you can expect in the background. Needless to say, Jack was scared to death and Kailee wasn't much better off. We all had a great time, nevertheless.

The next couple of days were at Magic Kingdom. The fireworks on the 4th were fantastic. Finally, we finished it off with Epcot yesterday. It was the best weather we saw the whole time and park was not very crowded (unlike Magic Kingdom). We did all the big stuff and saw their laser show at the end of the day.

We left Orlando around 10AM Sunday. I'll try to post some pictures of WDW on the blog. Now we are in Ft. Myers. More to come...

On Our Way

Well our trip has finally begun. After a wonderful weekend of seeing Kailee's team win the SYC softball championship and saying good-bye to all of our fantastic friends, we packed up our hotel room and started preparing for our trip to Florida. The packing took longer than usual (as it always does), so we didn't get to sleep until around 11:30PM. That made for short night as the alarm went off at 4AM. We were on the road forty minutes later and did pretty well for a weekday. The kids slept in the car past 9AM and once Lisa woke, she drove a couple of hours so I could get some sleep.

Overall, we drove for nearly 15 hours including stops. Traffic was fine until we got to Jacksonville. Lisa's cousin called in the morning. We were to stay with him the first night, but his family to be coming down with a stomach bug, so we changed our plans and drove down to Daytona. (We'll catch up with the cousin on our Christmas trip.)

Lisa read the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World most of the way (only napping once - a new record!). The kids still don't have any clue (unless one successfully looks over my shoulder right now). We're staying in a Hampton Inn this night (our new home away from home). We'll take off to Orlando late morning and stop there for lunch. Afterward, we'll drive straight into sacred ground - Walt Disney World - specifically, Animal Kingdom.