For the first time in quite a while we had a Saturday with all the kids and nothing on the schedule, nothing that we HAD to do. We wiped the morning out by being lazy, some of us lazier than others. My original idea was to go see the SCAD Sidewalk Arts Festival but there was a steady rain all morning so I wasn’t sure if it was even going to happen and if so when it would start, chalk and water don’t mix well, but once we were all up and dressed we headed to Savannah. Alyssa unfortunately didn’t get to go because she was babysitting a friend’s 3 month old twins, so we had the 3 younger kids only. Read more

Last year we kind of “discovered” Tybee events. We did Mardi Gras and St Patricks Day parades plus July 4th fireworks and attempted Labor Day but the wind/sand storm forced us to leave. We missed Mardi Gras this year but thought it would be good to get the kids dressed up in green and go get some beads and candy. Read more

We were in Disney February last year and it just happened to be one of the “special” weekends in Disney, ESPN The Weekend, at Hollywood Studios. It was totally unplanned as far as the event went, we just wanted to use our annual passes one more time and renew them while we were there. We had gotten there for rope drop and noticed something going on off to the side of the parking lot, some sort of run, so I Googled it when I got back to a computer and found out that they had a 5k run that morning before the park opened that went through the park. So this year our passes needed renewing at the same time and I was still interested in the run, so I booked a trip the same weekend and registered for the run. Read more

Continuing the odd events of 2009, we had only one of our four total kids at home on Christmas eve/morning this year for the first time ever, and likely last until they are adults. The older girls had gone skiing the whole week and Marc Jr was coming the week after Christmas so it worked out to be just Kellie here to open presents alone. Linda had been stuck with us for 2 weeks already, since before the Disney trip, because of her road being in such bad shape from the almost unending rain we’ve had this December, the road was just impassable and the news even did stories on it. Read more

One of the best times to visit Disney is during the holidays because they really go ALL OUT with decorations there, every little thing gets the full Disney treatment. We’ve been before at Thanksgiving a few times as well as early December, but this year we figured out a way to go the week of/before Christmas. There are many “must see’s too; Main Street at Magic Kingdom, the gingerbread house at the Grand Floridian, the Wilderness Lodge Lobby, and tree lighting at EPCOT are just a few. But the one must see has got to be the Osborne Family Lights at Hollywood Studios. We’ve been before several years ago before Lights, Motors, Action when the old Residential Street still existed and that was what got decorated, but since it was removed, they now decorate the Streets of America. We actually went in between years, the one year they didn’t have it at all which was sad to miss because we hadn’t been back at Christmas since whenever that was. Read more

Another new first for a Disney trip this time around. Usually Kriss and I go to the EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival alone. We’ve been with other adults in the past, friends and family, but it’s our one trip a year where we are able to get away without any kids because we plan it on a weekend that the oldest three are at their other parent’s houses and Kellie stayed with my grandparents. Unfortunately both of them passed away this year so we decided to take Kellie with us. We’ve also added another adult going with us, Kriss’ mom Linda. This year we are also meeting some of their family from Boston, Mandy, Donna, and Joe. Again with time constraints of work and kid sitting we planned the trip to be a Friday-Sunday trip. Read more

Just over a year ago, the Disney Vacation Club announced that members staying using their points could access the internet from their room for free, and being able to telecommute, we’d always thought it would be nice to go spend a week or more at Disney and I work from the room and then enjoy Disney when I didn’t need to work. So finally this July we decided to try it before Kellie started back to school, just her Kriss, and I. Read more

So by now I’m sure most of you know we have this little celebration every March 17th in Savannah, Ga, called St Patrick’s Day. It’s only the 2nd largest parade in the US, but definitely the largest party afterward. It was on a Tuesday this year and the girls were out of school so we headed downtown with our neighbor Lonnie. We got there about 8:00 and headed to a Starbucks for a little warm up/wake up juice and get the kids a little bite to eat. It was still a little cool out and I had opted for shorts opting to deal with the cool for a little while in hopes of making it up on the back side with the predicted nice weather so getting inside out of the windy gray chill was good. Read more

Again we took a trip to beautiful Tybee Island for another parade, this time St Patrick’s day. Tybee held it’s parade on the Saturday before the big Savannah parade and we again had kids on hand and an extra one to boot in Courtney, Alyssa’s friend, so we loaded up and trekked to the island hoping for another fun day. It was gray and cooler this time, as opposed to the beautiful day we had in February for Mardi Gras, so we decided to get back off the beach breeze a little and stood on Tybrisa this time. Read more

We usually take at least one Disney trip in the winter during January or February and with annual passes and other membership cards expiring, we decided to go the last weekend in February. I had also thought it may be a slower weekend since Valentines/President’s Day week is usually very busy. Kellie had a Dr appointment at 7:30 Friday morning so as soon as we were done with it we headed south. We got in to Orlando just after 1:00PM at Disney’s Old Key West, one of our favorite places to stay, checked in and grabbed a bite to eat at Olivia’s for lunch. We stayed at OKW on our last trip to Food and Wine Festival in October and actually got the same room both times, studio 3316, by chance. Read more