Kevin Minnis

This summer we decided to go to the East Coast to visit my Sister and her family who live in New Hampshire. We weren’t sure at first if we wanted to tackle such a feat with Jayden and Josie not being that old, but thought what the heck might as well give it a try. So, on May 24th, 2009 at we set out at 6:00 in the morning. We didn’t make it out of Iowa before the kids already started asking if we were there yet. oh dear!

Our first overnight destination was the Maumee Toledo, OH area. Traffic wasn’t bad up to this point despite it being Memorial Day weekend. We traveled from Toledo to visit Hershey Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The kids thought it cool and hadn’t seen so much chocolate in their life. From there we traveled to Strasburg, Pennsylvania to visit the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum. Jayden and I could have stayed there a lot longer, but we had to continue on to visit the Crayola Factory in Easton, Pennsylvania. We got to see a mini crayola factory and all things color. We also got to play with some boats and cannals. We survived driving through New York City and Connecticut even though “Carmin” (The Garmin GPS) let us down in a few spots…more on her later.  We managed to arrive at my Sister’s place on day three.

It rained the first two days we were in New Hampshire so we decided to do a few things that didn’t require us to be outside…shopping and visiting a few places. We went to the Cape Neddick Lighthouse on York Beach, Maine, and shopped at some outlet stores in Kittery, Maine. The following day went Boston to visit the New England Aquarium, and Ikea.

Finally, on May 29th we had no rain! We headed to The Flume Gorge and then up to a fogged in Mt. Washington.

We also made extensive use of Steve’s Kawasaki Mule (Red Gaiter) and 4 wheeler. We also visited Hampton Beach a couple of different days. Jayden loved the ocean, but Josie hated it. Karrie and Steve also threw a party for us with Steve’s family and their friends. It was fun to meet them all and have kids play/make new friends. Steve also hooked up his leaf blower T-ball machine. It was hard to say goodbye as we had such a good time out there.

On our return visit we stayed overnight at the Wolbrinks’ in Liverpool, New York and then made our way to Niagara Falls, New York. We also missed the Supper Nanny, but saw her car. We arrived back at our place on June 4th after another night’s stay in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Here are a few tips for anyone taking long road trips. Get your hands on a GPS. That thing saved us so much and let us find places that we normally wouldn’t have gone to. Yeah, I can read a map, but this gave us the flexibility to do something at a whim instead of having to plan out the whole trip. I did have the hotels booked for on the way out before we left, but didn’t book them for the way back. Garmin along with the Marriott 800 number got us places to stay on the way back. Another thing that I’m glad we got before we left was the iPass/EZPass for tolls. We only found one state that we had to actually pickup a ticket and pay at the end for tolls. The rest of the states we used the iPass. It was so much easier than having to stop and pay someone. We also packed Josie’s little porta-potty thing. That saved us a few times. Her bladder really is as small as she is.

All in all, we had a great time and trip. The kids were great and Kim had lots of activities planned for them to do in the van.  She’s so organized. We wouldn’t have been able to do it had she not had everything setup the way she did. Now we just have to figure out where we’re going next summer!

The complete set of pictures can be seen here.

Okay, so i’m not a steady blogger. I’m not really sure what the reasons are, but some of them are just being busy being a dad, Twitter, and Facebook. It seems that I’ve done more micro-blogging if you want to call it that using Twitter.

So, what’s been going on? Well, we had  a great Christmas and 2009 started out pretty well inspite of The Great Depression II. I’m very fortunate that the Ag industry is holding strong.

Jayden has been learning all the time and is becoming the little man.  He loves to figure out how everything works. He also loves talking your ear off once he gets going. He also knows how to use pause on the DVR. It’s sad he won’t even know what a VCR was. (Actually, it’s a good thing the VCR is dead. ) Jayden got to make a pirate box to put his pull-ups into and have the pirates visit with a bunch of treasure. We’re so glad that he’s doing pretty well in making it through the night without a pull-up. He still wakes up wet occasionally, but he’s getting there.

Josie is a daddy’s girl. It’s not uncommon to hear her tell me, “I need you” and then proceed to try and get you to drop whatever you were doing and pick her up. I don’t mind. She’s my little Princess, Tinkerbell or Cinderella depending on the day. One day we tried to straighten her hair, but I told Kim that I never wanted it straighted again…unless Josie does it herself when she’s a teenager. She did not look like our little Josie at all.

Kim has been feeding her facebook “addication” and has hooked up with quite a few people from her past. It’s pretty cool to think we can reconnect with people in such an easy method.

Well, there you have it.  The start to 2009.

So the days go by and by so fast that we fall behind on a lot of things. Kevin mentioned the other day that we hadn’t written a blog for awhile. So…as I sit today, with a few minutes to spare I thought I would fill you in on the Minnis household.

Jayden has settled in to his preschool routine fairly well. We have had a couple rough days of actually getting him out the door. He loves going and playing with all his friends. Mommy likes the free time to spend with Josie! It’s amazing how calm and fun she is when Jayden is not around! But, as soon as he gets in the van, she turns back into high maintenance! As fall as almost gone, I look back on all the stuff we did. We spent a Saturday at Howell’s Pumpkin Patch. Always a good time! And it was such nice weather! That makes it even more fun. The kids also got to go trick or treating and loved every minute of it. I usually try and find a nice, warm costume for them to wear. Well, this year we didn’t need the warmth! Jayden was sweating pretty good in his dragon outfit! But a good time was still had and lots of candy brought home that we didn’t need! Josie loved being a butterfly and still talks about it. She liked to have daddy lift her in the air so she could “flap her wings”.

Kevin and I got to enjoy 4 days away from the kids! A much needed break for all. Thank you Grandma Pat and Aunt Chris! We were actually supposed to be going to California for a week, but that was canceled. So we settled for “balmy” Minneapolis. It’s our home away from home. We like to go there and just walk the mall and eat fun food! The rule was that we couldn’t eat anything that didn’t require utensils!! So we managed to eat Italian, Mexican, Chinese!! It’s great to eat food that doesn’t require it to be dipped in ketchup.

Josie is working on potty training. She’s about 80% there! She does really good for the most part, but then there are the random moments where she just comes and stands by you and pees. It can be so frustrating! I’m at least glad I am not changing diapers anymore!! I’d rather change wet jeans any day!

The last week was a busy, stressful week. My oldest brother Kevin was in the hospital. It comes down to that he is having liver problems. Hopefully things will get a little better for him, but we’ll see what the weeks ahead prove. Last week, we also lost a great, great family friend! I had known him since I was around 7-8 years old. He was like a Grandpa to me! He will be greatly missed by all. We just got back from spending time on the farm this weekend. Our little farmer had a good time and had to be out with Grandpa as much as he could. He loves to help feed the cows and ride the loader tractor! It was a nice relaxing weekend after last weeks stresses.

We are very excited to spend time with family this week and Jayden and Josie cannot wait for x-mas. Jayden’s list is about 10 miles long, but we’ll get it narrowed down. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. Hopefully we will, as I have to take Josie to the doctor today. I think she has pink eye! I hate pink eye! We’ll wake up tomorrow and Jayden will have it, too! That happened the last time. Oh–the joys of kids and germs! Update: They both have it. Just like last time.