Quick Trip Update

Howdy, I thought I would give a quick update from our summer vacation back east. Our trip east was uneventful and Melissa wisely dressed the kids (and me) all in orange so we stood out amongst the thousands of summer travelers.

We spent a fun few days at my in-laws the Durley's in Maryland. They live in Leisure World, a nice retirement community which caters to the active retiree, which they certainly are! We had a couple of activities as well as celebrating my mother-in-laws 80th birthday!

We took the kids to the National Zoo which was fun for the kids and good for us. We have not been since we were kids and it is nice to see the zoo is holding up well and continuing to improve the facilities.

I highly recommend it if you are traveling to the Washington D.C. area.

We also had a quick visit with Shari Elliker who is Melissa's long time and very good friend. She has a radio program called BroadMinded which is available on XM satellite radio. We hope to see her later in our visit.

We have now transitioned to my sister Beth's house in Charlottesville VA for a family reunion. I'll post more on that later.

Future Soccer Star?

Watch the future soccer star Lea in action! (I've just learned how to post video) She was playing in a summer soccer camp and on the final day they played a game, mixed boys and girls.

Here is the setup...

She is the one in the purple baseball cap moving behind the (future male star) dribbling the ball.

She sees the young gun making a break and falls in to support. When encountering traffic the young star goes down and Lea's competitive instincts kick in and she pounces on the loose ball.

Watch her keep her balance with her arms, maneuver around a defender, give a couple of toe kick dribbles and drive for the goal!

Unfortunately it is a 2 on 1 situation with two older boys defending a small goal or she certainly would have scored!!



She clearly has the killer sports instinct! As she said in a post performance interview "if it had been a bigger goal I could have scored daddy!"

As a parent it was very exciting!

John

Camping Adventures - Northern California Coast

We recently returned from our annual camping adventure with the Moxley clan. This year we chose to go to the Northern California coast and camp at great little state park called Russian Gulch SP. This was our third year camping with the Moxley's and we now have it down to a science. The kids know the routine, we have all the gear organized, and we have good estimates as to how much chocolate/wine is needed, etc.

When we arrived at the coast near Mendicino it was literally breath taking. If I had a dime for every time Melissa said "Oh my God! It is so beautiful" -- I would be rich, well not rich but if you added a dime for every time she said "John, I want to retire here." then maybe I would!

We arrived in the afternoon on a Sunday and quickly set up camp. This gave us enough time to explore the local beach and for the kids to get soaked in the cold water lagoon. We had a delicious dinner and then roasted marshmellows and made s'mores (a nightly ritual).

Melissa has posted her pictures on smugmug and Richard has posted a large number of additional photos here. Check out the photos he did in natural light around the campfire. They are most interesting.

On the second day we went to Glass Beach - which is effectively an old city dump.

Now that doesn't sound very glamorous (and it's not) but there is a small cool factor in that there are tons of wave smoothed glass beads for the kids to collect.


The next day we went on a very pretty 4.6 mile hike with the kids to a waterfall at the top of the park. We made it through to the end with frequent stops for snacks and looks into old Redwood trees. The downside was that Nicolas was unable to make it the whole way back so I carried him on my shoulders for 2 miles which at 30-35 lbs is a healthy workout.

On the final day we went to Jug Handle State Reserve to a beautiful beach with a meandering stream flowing down to the beach. The kids had a great time. We could peer through the opening in the cliffs to the crashing waves just outside. This way they could see and hear powerful surf -- from a safe distance.

There were so many other places along the Mendino Coast that we were not able to get to see. We will certainly have to go back some day. All in all it was an excellent trip and we look forward to next year and keeping up the Moxley-Kreisa camping tradition.

Potty Training 2 of 2!!!

Well as my Aunt Susan recently pointed out to me I have fallen behind on blogging so I'll try to catch up.

One effort we had undertaken was to attempt to potty train my 3 yr. old Nicolas. Boys can notoriously be slow to potty train but I am happy to report that Nicolas jumped on the bandwagon fairly quickly. We started 3 weeks ago and within a week he was starting to use the potty for #1 sometimes. We went camping with our friends the Moxley's (see an upcoming post) and brought his training potty to the woods to continue the process and to encourage him to go when he needed to. We set the potty outside the tent which was in the adjacent campsite to where we set up the cooking and play area. That led to Nicolas running off from time to time yelling "I've got to go potty!" which was really funny. He had an accident or two and didn't quite get the hang of making sure he was aiming in the potty but by in large he got it during the camping trip.

Last week (the week after camping) he used the potty for nearly everything and happily graduated to "pooping" on the potty!

So in what was really just 2 full weeks we went from no interest in using the potty to completely done! He is even dry at nights and gets up and goes first thing in the morning.

I must say that there were several keys to the process for us. First we never got upset when he had an accident, just encouraged him to keep trying. Second we bought a ton of "big boy nickers" with all of his favorites, spider man, Thomas the tank engine etc. and put him in those as a continued reward for doing well. (one funny aside, some of the underwear had spider man on the back only, causing Nicolas to wear them backwards which was quite humorous because he tended to get a bit of "cheek leak" in the back because of is ample behind!)

I am happy to say that not only can we see the light at the end of the diaper tunnel we are standing in it!