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Archive for the ‘Vacation’ Category
Thanksgiving “Break”
Here are the highlights for how we spent our all-too-brief holiday break:
- Cleared and set our dining room table with new centerpieces and a holiday theme
- Baked pie
- Brined and cooked two turkeys, one at our house, one elsewhere, as well as prepared associated trimmings
- Had delicious Thanksgiving dinner
- Went on three separate shopping outings, including an early one on Black Friday, another to buy a suit for an upcoming wedding, and yet another to Philadelphia Premium Outlets to hang out with family
- Gave Bram his first through fifth rides on bouncy cars and airplanes (totally worth $2.50)
- Cleared bookshelves and dressers in the master bedroom of various clutter
- Steam mopped the main level of our house
- Finally replaced X10 wired receiver for dining room fixture (killed many months ago by lightning)
- Sorted DVDs into binder, disposed of about 100 cases (100 more to go and our collection will be neatly organized and out of sight)
- Began planning holiday party
- Collected 3 batches of stuff we no longer wanted and left free items on curb (all taken)
- Sorted old baby clothes into lots – 0-6 months, 6-12 months, 12-18 months, 18 months-2T
- Sorted Tupperware, tossed dozens of old plastic containers kept “just in case,” prepped much unused stuff for sale
- Packed old China and other dishes for sale
- Made 5 postings to Craigslist (see clothes, Tupperware, China above; one transaction complete so far)
- Trimmed Christmas tree
- Hung up 10 pictures from various vacations and life events
- Sorted dozens of other pictures as candidates for placing in newly purchased frames
- Cleared space for Department 56 Christmas village display
- Hauled an embarrassing amount of trash to the curb
- Ran the dishwasher pretty much continuously
- Washed laundry
- Paid bills
- … and many other mundane things
I think it’s fair to say we’re not very good at relaxing, but we’re coming out of a few days off feeling good about some of the things we accomplished.
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A Little Above the Ears, Please
We’re back from our all-too-brief vacation in Disneyworld. Some of the special highlights included:
- An early morning tour of Disney trains and roundhouse
- Bram’s first haircut at the Harmony Barbershop
- Breakfast at the Crystal Palace with Winne the Pooh
- A fun dinner for the grownups at Portobello
- … and Bram’s first steps!
Check out a selection of our trip photos.
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The Bram-iest Place on Earth
Well, we took the little guy on his first flight and he performed like a champ, which is to say that he slept most of the way to Orlando. He’s a good traveler and we had an excellent time in Disneyworld. You’ll see some great pictures here of his meetings with various Disney luminaries, but he showed absolutely no fear. Daddy and Mommy were so proud!
We can’t wait to go back when he’s a little bigger and ready for some of the fun rides!
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Just Deserts
It took awhile, but we finally posted the pictures from our summer trip to:
- Las Vegas
- Zion
- Capital Reef
- Bryce Canyon
- Grand Canyon
- … and back to Vegas!
It was another whirlwind tour of the Southwest, and we had a great time staying in cabins, hiking in the desert, and absorbing the absolutely gorgeous geography out there. Check it out our summer 2007 photos!
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L.A. Vay-cay
Last Memorial Day weekend, we had a great time visiting Amanda and Jared in sunny Los Angeles. (I’ve been reading a lot of Robert Crais lately and was excited to see some local context for what had been spinning around in my imagination.) Other highlights mostly center around food because we are who we are:
- Soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung.
- Delicious ice cream combinations at Scoops — that is, “Guiness Tiramisu,” “Pear, Blue Cheese, and Pecan,” “Mango and Pineapple Soda,” “Chocolate and Porto,” and a taste of “Caramel and Bacon!” — AND frozen yogurt at Pinkberry.
- A drink with the hipsters at The Standard in downtown LA.
- A stop at In-n-Out Burger for a double-double and their deliciously crispy but gut-bustin’ well done fries.
- Brunch (at the last minute!) with Lesley and Greg at Bread and Porridge.
We got to see a music video being filmed in downtown LA. Jared and I also reenacted the scene from the “Heroes” finale where Sylar and Peter Petrelli have their telekinetic battle! I guess it’s easier to have downtown LA double for NYC than truck all your stuff to the east coast; that staircase-like sculpture is unique, though, and I can guarantee it’s not in Manhattan. There are lots of good pics of us mugging it up and doing a Moe-and-Curly eyepoke and deflection at a distance. Those are in our hidden archives, though.
Probably the most fun we had was getting to see Amanda and Jared’s house, on which they’ve done a great deal of work, and enjoy their beautifully landscaped backyard during a nice al fresco feast. Also, they have a dedicated and well-stocked bar about which they are liberally hospitable. You can’t beat that in a host!
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Wawona Go Back
We’ve arrived back from this year’s great summer vacation, and what a great time we had! Here were the highlights:
San Francisco - We stayed at The Argonaut near Fisherman’s Wharf and actually ran into actor Jon Lovitz at the hotel’s great restaurant, The Blue Mermaid. We ate yummy dim sum at Oriental Pearl in Chinatown. Let’s not forget our creepy night tour of Alcatraz. Finally, we went on a touristy cable car tour of the city, got a fun education on the architecture, and drove across the Golden Gate.
Yosemite - Our tour of national parks continued. Yosemite has the wonderful geological monoliths Half-Dome and El Capitan, and our view of both from Glacier Point was spectacular. There were so many gushing waterfalls, runoff from this year’s great snowfall, that I lost count of how many we saw. It was great family fun to stay in a big house with everyone after full days of seeing the natural wonders.
Kings Canyon / Sequoia - There were amazing, mighty trees that can be found nowhere else; their trunks grow huge and their canopies majestic in the 5000 – 7000 foot altitudes. Driving down the switchback mountain roads demanded constant attention but was so much fun!
Death Valley – I didn’t know what everyone was complaining about. It was a dry heat! The mercury settled at a mere 123 degrees on July 1. We saw the scenic and beautiful Artist’s Palette, a colorful formation of rock enriched by the evening sunset. The flat tire was a mere inconvenience.
Las Vegas – Vegas, baby! Vegas! We had another great meal at Mon Ami Gabi with a perfect view of the Bellagio fountains across the street. Having been there several times before, Tiffy and I were intrigued to test out the new monorail system. We had an enjoyable adult evening — no, not that way! — at Red Square in Mandalay Bay with David and Dee; there were delicious libations and a hip atmosphere. We’re sure the teenagers enjoyed just as much all the walking down The Strip in 100 degree heat because they couldn’t either drink or gamble.
And now we’re back home, and we love that, too. At least we have our vacation photos and other family pictures to help us relive those fun times on our most recent 1200-mile road trip!
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This Is Not the Territory
Wondered what we’re up to this summer? At the tail end of June we’ll be taking another fun road trip and visiting a few more National Parks. For a preview, check our this PDF of this summer’s drive. Only 1100 miles this year!
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Lemon Scented Snow
They make it snow in the Magic Kingdom in December as part of the Christmas celebration. They can do this even though it’s 65 degrees out. It’s miraculous! I’m sure that most regular readers are tired of hearing about our Disney trips, so we’ll cut to the chase and just point you at the photos of Disneyworld during the holidays.
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Of Purple Mountains Majesty
We’re back! We have an excellent selection of photos from our 3109 mile loop through some of the national parks and other scenic sites in the west. We had a great time! Here are the places we passed through.
- Rocky Mountain NP
- Wind Cave NP
- Mount Rushmore
- Crazy Horse
- Yellowstone NP
- Teton NP
- Salt Lake City
- Mesa Verde NP
- Sand Dunes NP
- Silverton ghost towns
- Ouray
- Durango
- Pike’s Peak
We’ll have captions up as soon as we can. In the meantime, please enjoy the photos of our trip to Yellowstone and beyond! There are more photos at http://www.hanulec.net/photos also.
Roughing It
That is to say, because of Tiffy, we won’t have to! We have a trip planned with her family to visit Yellowstone and other national parks this August. It’s taken everybody awhile to agree on a plan, but now that we know it, Tiffy’s made virtually all our hotel arrangements overnight. (Yay! No sleeping in the car!) We’ll get to enjoy a wide variety of great American accomodations, including the Best Western, Econo Lodge, Holiday Inn, La Quinta, the Ouray Chalet Inn, and the Hotel Monaco. I was really hoping we could work in a Motel 6 or a Super 8, but alas, it was not to be. Also, unfortunately, there are no creepy hotel rooms available in the Silverton, Colorado, which is where we’ll be touring a cluster of ghost towns. I was really hoping to have some kind of Scooby Doo style adventure and foil an old prospector in a glowing costume. Us darn kids!
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