A quick excursion

Got to take advantage of the time off these days! It feels like the busy, unpredictable work schedule overlaid on top of the school schedule has wreaked havoc on our adventuring as of late. No more Tuesday afternoon trips when everyone is in school but mom and dad. Lame. Fortunately there is still some time…

Dog days of summer

July is when the temps pick up around here and when that’s the case, we seem to find ourselves chasing the usual American escapes. A little road trip here, a little bike trip there, and as much pool time as we can find. Of course there are near-daily ice cream for the kids (and mom)…

Looking back on a jovial June

Well, another June has come and gone! Looking back, it’s easy to fall into the trap of saying we didn’t do much during the month. After some travel in May, we stayed local-ish. There were a few weekend road trips to visit nearby family and friends but nothing out of what might be called “ordinary”…

Disney or Bust?

If Disney is the metric for success, it was a bust. Old Dad McScrooge put the kibosh on that idea many months ago. Too many lines, too many bucks, and too short of attention spans (the kids of course) for Disney this time. None-the-less, onto the plane we went to spend a long weekend with…

Some out-of-towners

In addition to a couple of birthdays and a little bit of work travel on the schedule, we had a couple of much anticipated visitors swing by during the middle of the month. Both parents and kids alike were excited to spend a few days with John and Lauren. We spent a little time up…

Blossoms a Year Later

I guess it has already been a year since the last time the Tidal Basin turned purple and white. How the time flies. With schedules and the National Park Service’s “peak bloom prediction” both fluctuating, we decided to sneak up to check out the blossoms on a Wednesday. While I was a little disappointed at…

Little Adventures

Little adventures are best embarked upon with little adventurers. Fortunately, there is no shortage of those around here. Lucy, Will, and Sophia all piled into the Land Cruiser for an adventure with Dad today. The truck fired up and west we went. Our goal for the day was to do some exploring in the Shenandoah…

[O]=TOYOTA=[O]

Much to the delight of Meredith, in the midst of snow-pocalypse there sat in the garage one FJ60, partially in pieces. Her disappointment in the loss of the garage parking spot (during the biggest snow storm in 70 years) was only rivaled by my disappointment in the loss of an opportunity to put the rig…

Snow-pocalypse!!!

I am happy to report we narrowly escaped the chaos that was SNOW-POCALYPSE. Or was is SNOW-MAGEDDON? I don’t know. It was all just so crazy and hard to keep up with… Call me biased but to a guy born and raised in Minnesota, it just seemed like it snowed pretty good for 36 hours…

James, is that you I smell?

Not the traditional greeting for a new year but we’ll get to that. Eager to start 2016 with something new, we piled in the car on the 2nd and headed down to Richmond for the day. The first stop was Maymont which was a big hit for both short and tall Wiktors alike. The former…