Merry Christmas!

Santa gave the kids almost everything they wanted. Here they are opening gifts and playing with cousin Chase and Aunt Barbara and Uncle Norm. Hope everyone is having a great holiday season! We miss you all especially everyone in Alaska...

Christmas Eve

We spent the day before Christmas at the Van Andel Museum Center where the boys rode a carousel, learned about Grand Rapids, and got arrested at the Whodunit? exhibit...

The Windy City

We have been in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a while and will spend the rest of the holidays here. However, we left for three days and visited Chicago. We stayed right next to my old stomping grounds (the now defunct, Northwestern University Dental School), on Lake Shore Drive at the W Hotel. The W Hotel is quite sexy and modern especially for a family that lives in a van, but they welcomed Bo...



We got to see the Ryans and were surprised by Wayne's old volleyball buddies, Pat and Susan. It was great to be back in Chi-town and the boys loved the Field Museum (we saw Sue, a T-Rex) and the Shedd Aquarium (amazing every time). On our last day, we went up to Andersonville for breakfast to get Swedish pancakes and cinnamon rolls at Ann Sathers (yummy). And we went to the Swedish Bakery to visit my favorite cake, although we only left with a box of cookies...


I miss Chicago (snowstorms and all), but I think Wayne was only a little sentimental (he did meet his wife there after all).

Christmas Tree Farm

Here we are with Grandma freezing at a Christmas Tree Farm in Rockford, Michigan. Boy, was it ever cold that day (it felt like a day of tom-codding in Nome). We finally picked a white pine, but after 10 minutes outside, they all started to look like the perfect tree.

Kentucky Horse Park

We drove through the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina and through Tennessee and then into Kentucky last night. Luckily we found an RV park right in Lexington, at the Kentucky Horse Park. The place is a huge mecca for horse lovers and has many stables for training and riding. It is also a nursing home and a final resting place for famous race horses ( I only recognized the name of Man o' War). We tried to feed some horses apples, but they weren't interested.

Leaving the South is sad :(

Well, I've relaxed and caught up with my family and friends (although unfortunately, not everyone). This trip has been great, but my underlying thoughts (which I must try to stop having), is that we just don't have enough time. I was so glad Tyler and Joe were able to spend some quality time with my sisters, Joy and Tina; and of course with their grandparents, whom they call Nanay and Lolo Tatay. Tay made his usual pancakes for the boys almost every morning, Tita Joy took them to EdVenture, and Tita Tin "tricked" them into wanting snakes for pets! And we visited with my friends from high school.

And of course, I've gained my normal 5-10 pounds from just crossing into the S. Carolina border. Not just because it was Thanksgiving, but also I had to eat all my favorite Southern and Filipino food at a frenzied pace: blue crabs, Chik-Fil-A, a Lil' Joe's barbecue sandwich basket at Piggie Park, etc., etc.....

It's always difficult to leave home.

South Carolina!

I've been extremely delinquent in my blogging duties, because now that I'm home (i.e. where I grew up), I have reverted to lounging around and doing absolutely nothing. I haven't even taken many pictures this week. But we did leave Columbia (my hometown) for a few days and went to the coast to St. Helena Island where my family has a vacation place. And of course this means...more fishing and creature-finding for the boys. There is a pond on the property complete with large mouth bass and lurking alligators close by. We were right on the Beaufort River where it is so relaxing and sunny. The boys and Wayne even saw two dolphin swim close by them off the pier. We're all doing great.

The Bible Belt

For the last few days we've been driving and driving and driving and staying in hotels...through Louisiana, Mississippi (where we stopped for barbecue), and Alabama, and then finally took a real break at Stone Mountain Park, Georgia, which is just outside of Atlanta. There is a giant sculpture in the mountain of three Confederate Civil War heroes: Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and of course, Robert E. Lee. We had a relaxing night camping and checked out the mountain in the morning. We're finally in South Carolina.

Dinosaur Valley

We really are on our way to South Carolina, but had to stop in Glen Rose Texas, just outside Dallas/Fort Worth to see REAL dinosaur tracks at Dinosaur Valley State Park. The river bed is full of these fossils made 105-113 million years ago. Controversial fake human tracks have been sculpted into the limestone as well, and a Creationist Museum is also located nearby.



I think I was the most excited about the footprints, and Tyler and Joe were happy just throwing stones into the footprints and playing with the minnows. This was way cool.

Big Bend

I wish we had an entire month just to spend in Big Bend National Park in Texas. Unfortunately we had to settle for two nights and we only saw a fraction of the park. This place has everything: deserts, mountains, and not just any river, the Rio Grande. We drove in at night and it was kind of scary, it was so big and endless. And the night skies were so clear because there are no cities near Big Bend.

We saw deer, roadrunners, huge bugs: beetles, caterpillars, butterflies, grasshoppers, and even a tarantula crossing the road. Wayne swears he heard coyote. But we were eluded by the javelina (a wild pig) and the chupacabra (the mythical goat blood-sucking wolf creature). We also tried to catch catfish in the Rio Grande with no luck, although we did find an amazing hot spring right on the river. It's amazing how narrow the Rio Grande appears, and how easy it looks to cross the border.





















Big Bend is also full of fossils and we got to touch a hadrosaur and pteranodon fossil, and Tyler even found some seashell fossils (in Texas!). This place is truly special...

Carlsbad Caverns

Trying to take it slow which is impossible... We visited the caves in New Mexico and were 700 feet below the ground. I'm not sure the boys really understood how far underground we were. I'm not sure I understood either...The pictures just don't do it justice.

Grasshoppers!!!

Today we went to Guadalupe Mountains National Park which is actually in Texas which we crossed into just for a little bit. We took a little nature hike, because obviously the kids can't do anything for too long, especially Joe. We did get lucky, however, and saw three deer cutting across our trail just as the sun was beginning to go down. And we can't seem to escape from the kid-friendly grasshopper, which in Texas are huge! Tyler loves them, and I'm glad we know how to work the macro feature on the camera.

What little boys are made of...

We've spent a day and a half in Arizona. We had a great night stargazing at Catalina State Park and toured around Saguaro National Park during the day. The Saguaro cacti are very cool, and we have learned a lot about the desert. Tyler and Joe spent all morning chasing grasshoppers and at breakfast Wayne caught a Regal Thorny Lizard, aka the "horny toad." The poor reptile spent 30 minutes being examined and having it's belly rubbed by Tyler and Joe. I was sure Joe was going to kill it, but we did finally let it go.

Joshua Tree

It's so great to not be in busy traffic again. We're finally able to take it slow, and we've spent the last two days in Joshua Tree National. Park. It's two deserts here (Mojave and Colorado deserts), and this odd tree only grows in the Mojave part. It really seems like Dr. Seuss got some of his ideas from the flora in this area. The Colorado desert area looked very similar to Nome's tundra--very vast and desolate. This is a haven for rock climbers, and the boys, especially Tyler, did their fair share of rock climbing. They also "hunted" for lizards, but we only saw one the whole time.

We're actually in Arizona now and we're not missing Nome's 14 degree weather right now--it's a balmy 76 degrees here.

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Today is Tyler's 5th birthday.
We started the day at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits which is an area right in the middle of LA where there are sticky asphalt ("tar") pits. The asphalt has preserved thousands and thousands of fossils such as mastodons, sabre tooth cats, and wolves. When you walk around the museum's park and sidewalks in the neighborhood these "tar pits" actually surface to the top of the earth and they are black and gooey.


Then we went to Grauman's Chinese Theatre to people watch. Joe and Tyler imprinted their feet and hands into the cement (okay maybe into Harrison Ford's hand and footprints) and Bo checked out her favorite stars' stars.




Finally we went to Anaheim and had Tyler's birthday celebration at the Rainforest Cafe. Tyler was so happy at bed time and we stayed up reading one of his birthday books, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

Whew...it was another busy day. We are going to need a vacation from this vacation soon.