Katherine’s family has been going to the YMCA of the Rockies family camp in Estes Park Colorado since before she was born. We’ve carried on the tradition, getting up there once every year or two and even extending the tradition to some of Stu’s family. Here are highlights including another birthday party for Claire, visiting our old standby the Bald Pate Inn, cooking around the cabin including Persian food, fun with bubbles on the deck, lots of hiking, and a group selfie.
We’ve fallen behind posting pictures here. Thanks to Katherine’s photo organizing skills, we’ll be posting a half dozen catch ups over the next week or so.
Christmas 2013 took us to both Houston and Oklahoma City to see family. In Houston, we visited the Johnson Space Center with the girls’ cousin Will and had a fun Christmas morning (new pajamas!). We also got to visit Katherine’s old friends the Taylors and see their girls. Then it was off to Oklahoma City for much fun with the family there involving another Christmas morning, bowling, baths, and of course cheerio covered waffles.
In mid-May I took a week’s long trip to St. Petersburg with my sister-in-law Mona. Our first day in the city was May 9th, Victory Day, a national holiday that commemorates the Nazi surrender of 1945. We paid a moving visit to Piskarevskoe Cemetery, where veterans were honored by huge crowds. We had a fabulous guide, Helen (pictured in the pink argyle sweater), who showed us sites such as St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Hermitage Museum, Church of the Spilled Blood, Peterhof Palace, and Catherine Palace. We took in Swan Lake at the Mikhaylovsky Theatre and ate plenty of beef stroganoff and chicken kiev. The girls didn’t really miss me, since I sent home photos of their kitty (see red bus photo) and brought them airplane-shaped gummies from the Frankfurt airport.
Last weekend was my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. My sister Eileen and her family hosted a great party and dinner at their home in Oklahoma. In preparation for the celebration, Eileen, my other sister Mona, and I poured through the family’s collection of old 8mm films, 35mm slides, and prints. We pulled out the best of the best and put together a 22-minute video which we showed at the anniversary dinner. Here it is! Please leave a reply below with any stories of best wishes for my parents.
We caught a quick Southwest flight from Houston for part 2 of our Christmas with my family in Oklahoma. Imagine five girls 12-years old and younger under one roof, running around non-stop, making lots of noise, and generally having a ball with each other. Highlights included lots and lots of cooking and eating, opening presents, playing with the new Kinect they received, going out to a fondue restaurant for a fun family dinner, volunteering for a second year at the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, and ice skating in the sun. Click on the family picture for a slideshow of pictures from both us and Abbas.
Gearing up for Christmas this year involved a few of our favorite activities — going to see Santa, a visit from Aunt Mona, and decorating a tree — along with a few new adventures including going to an aquarium in holiday clothes and heading to a local farm to pick and cut down our Christmas tree. Claire also went with some friends to her third annual performance of The Nutcracker. Click on the picture of Claire and Juliet making gingerbread men with Aunt Mona for a slideshow.
We collected a few pictures over the spring, including making cookies with a visiting Aunt Mona, Juliet enjoying the Sound of Music, an early spring visit to a family oriented “eco resort” on the Pacific coast called Costanoa and the nearby beaches, the girls doing yoga and playing games with me, Katherine doing a rainy triathlon with a group of her friends, a visit to a nearby zoo and amusement park, and finally Juliet’s two-year-old photo. Click on the picture of Aunt Mona and Claire making cookies for a slideshow.
February is birthday month for us, with celebrations including another 29th birthday for Katherine (Aunt Mona helped the girls bake a birthday cake and we also went out to a local Mexican restaurant), Juliet’s 2nd birthday (featuring a few cupcake parties in our backyard with the Princess Castle from cousins Sara/Sophie/Susan), and finally my godson Harrison’s 8th birthday (with pizza and cake in a nearby park). For a slideshow, click on the picture of the first of Juliet’s cupcake parties.
We spent Thanksgiving with my family in Dallas this year. Highlights included staying at Mike and Lou’s new house, Claire and Juliet enjoying time with their cousins Sophie, Susan and Sara including singing along to the Sound of Music for the first time, and seeing Katherine’s cousin Tom and Aunt Betty (one of Claire Elizabeth’s namesakes). The visit wrapped up with two fun days at a local indoor waterpark, where the girls played in pools, rode down waterslides, gorged on cheese curds, and helped Susan celebrate her birthday at Scooops, the ice-cream themed “no parent zone” spa.
Here’s a kid quote from the visit, something Claire said to me after spending a few days hanging out mostly with her Sara, Sophie and Susan. I tried to take her to the bathroom and she told me:
Daddy, only my cousins can take me to the potty!
For a slideshow of picture from Abbas and me, click on Abbas’s great picture of Claire and her three cousins with my parents’ dog Jeffrey.
Our Christmas adventure this year began in Oklahoma City, where we visited my sister Eileen’s family. The week started off with a Christmas Eve record snowfall of over 12″ that triggered an Oklahoma state of emergency, an unplanned overnight stay for my Uncle Mike and Aunt Lou Ann, and lots of fun snowplay for the five girls under 11 in the house. Other highlights include cooking, presents, movie nights, volunteering at the local Food Bank where we packed bags and bags of frozen cauliflower, and Santa’s unexpected gift of Christmas the cat. Click on the family group shot below for a slideshow. My sister Eileen did a cool video of the week as well.
