Space Shuttle Launch

After many months of hard working on the house. We decided that after school let out we were going to take the boys on a  vacation. To keep it a surprise we didn't tell them.

The kids got out of school Thursday, so Friday morning we went to Kansas city on the rouse of going to one of out favorite restaurants The Rain Fores...

Our Home in Arkansas

It is interesting to see how far we have come in 5 months. This photo shows what the exterior looked like when we got here is January. It was basically a Octagon only the clear story windows and a small window in the front door to see out.

So what have we been busy doing.
* We had added a covered front porch.
* A nice b...

Arkansas Home - New Cabinet Shelves

Tim, Davids nephew stopped by for a few days and helped put together and hang my upper shelves in the kitchen.

The kids painted most of them, The one on the right still needs the trim painted but overall they are fantastic. Like I told Dave, it was really nice putting up groceries and not having things fall on your head. We have spac...

Interior Cabin Pictures Before and After

When we arrived in January, the cabin was dried in and sealed, but it was still, very much a construction zone. It had the basics, electricity, heater/airconditioner, sub floor and bathroom and basic kitchen.

We have made much progress. It is going slower than I would like but we work on it as often as possible.

Take...

Arkansas Home - Slab for Garage

David has been working hard to clear out and area for the garage. He has been chopping down trees and clearing the area with his tractor. As you can see from the pictures he has done a fantastic job.

We hired a local gentleman and his wife to grind out the tree stumps, they took out 18 stumps in about 2 hours with this heavy duty stu...

The Timberking Log Mill

To build the main house here in Arkansas, we are having to cut down quite a few trees, so instead of just letting them rot on the ground, David decided early on to recycle them and use them in the house and garage.

So after much research and discussion he purchased his own log mill. This is the set up.

Milling the first Posts

This is the first attempt to mill the posts for the garage.

Kids first Snow Day

We got to experience a several snow days this year. This was the heaviest snow, about 3-4 inches. Val and Adam spent most of the Day outside sleding on garbage can lids, and having snowball fights.

Toy Story Musical

We we on a 4 night Disney Cruise  the end on May after the boys got out of school. We had gone to Florida to view the Space shuttle launch ad decided to make a quick family vacation out of it.

Disney premiered a new show on the wonder to replace Hercules the Muse-ical in March. We had heard so much about this show that we...

Arrival in Munich, Germany

We arrived in Germany after an overnight flight at 8:00 am. We usually take a cab to out to the place we are staying, but we decided to use the s-bahn to get into the city from the airport and then take the u-bahn across town to our house. We packed light so as do be able to maneuvers more easily. The underground in Munich is real...

First day in Munich Germany

Today we slept in a little trying to get rid of our jet lag and did some work this morning. As a reward this afternoon we headed to the Marienplatz to the Christmas Markets. It was the most amazing experience I have ever had.  In the center of the platz and all the r...

Deutsches Museum

Today we went to the Deutsches Museum, according to the guide book this is a great museum for kids, so we thought we would check it out. We packed a picnic lunch and headed to the u-bahn. The museum sits on an in the Isar River, so unless you take the S-bahn you have to walk across the river. We didn't mind except we walked the wrong way. The stree...

Deutsches Museum - Aeronautics

The history of fight begins nearly 200 years ago with balloons. There were two rival balloon systems the hot air balloons developed by the Montgolfier brothers and the gas balloon by Robert Charles. The first manned ascent in a balloon was by the Mongolfier brothers from the garden of la Muette castle  near Paris in 1783. They were howeve...

Deutsches Museum - Boats and Marine Navigation

In the Boats and Marine Navigation section the Fishing Boat the Maria that is called an "Ewer" was built in 1880 for use in the North Sea as a commercial fishing boat. It was one of the last of it's kind. The vessel took over most of the room, and was at full mast, there were cutaways showing the some of the quarters and conditions that they crew l...

St Peter's Church:

Today we went to see Munich oldest church (1180) Peterskirche or St. Peter's Church aka Old Peter., located conveniently between the marienplatz and the Market in the old town square.

This church It has recently been rejuvenated with gold leaf and the alter and organ loft are striking. In the second chapel is a bizarre relic of the...

Inglestadt, Germany

Today we rented a car for a week, we discovered that it is more economical to rent a car then to buy train tickets to all the location that we want to go. There is an enterprise office just two stops up on the U-bahn and they had a great rate on a small car for 4. Our car has snow tires which is great since we are heading to Austria and Switzerland...

Rothenburg, Germany

Today we drove and spent the day in the mideval town of Rothenburg on the tauber river. We got to Old Town Rothenburg around lunch time, it is about a 3 hour drive from Munich and we ran into construction traffic. We had packed a sack lunch, so we picnicked in the card before we headed into the city. You can actually drive in the city walls but it...

Germany - The Alps

Today we went into the Alps in on a castle day.  The Alps were very impressive how the foot hills have trees and the peaks are barren because it is too high for anything to grow. This is the first day we ran into real snow that was several feet deep, the higher we went the more snow there was (logically). It was a clear day and absolutely...

Disney's Transatlantic Cruise

This transatlantic cruise was our 5th Disney Cruise and our 1st transatlantic cruise. I have always wanted to take a cruise across the Atlantic and when Disney announced they were going abroad we jumped on the opportunity.

The cruise left port on Saturday may 12th with an amazing send off. We were no traveling to the Caribbean we wer...

Palos

We were able to get our favorite server Annie Marie from South Africa for most of our Palos dining. In fact we always request her when making our Palo’s reservations. She sold us on her skills on our very first dinner, we like a sweet wine but don’t know anything about wines so we asked her to make a recommendation and she brought us a bottle of Tr...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released at midnight, the night of July 20, 2007.  Barnes and Nobles around the country held a party to celebrate this release.

The festivities began at 8:00 in Corpus Christi, Texas with people in costume, contests, face painting and more. There were ov...

Getting to Chantilly by Train

North of Paris is a wonderful palace that is not as crowded as Versailles and offers a treat that no other place can offer.  Getting there takes a little train trip.

To get to Chantilly, you must depart from the Paris Nord train station and go to Chantilly Gouvieu.  If you just tell the person at the ticket window...

The Louvre Museum, Paris, France

After a restful day and a good nights sleep, we thought we could tackle The Louvre museum.  From our neighborhood in Montmartre we took bus 80 which dropped us off at Champs Elysees and Franklin D Roosevelt.  This is right near the Grand Palais National Museum and takes you through the Tuileries gardens in fro...

The Arc De Triumph

We walked up the Champs Elysees from Franklin D Roosevelt.  Shopping along the way, Jennifer found a shoe store then Cartier.  We found a silver dongle for her cell phone at THE Cartier store.
At the end, we arrived at the Arc De Triumph.  Jennifer decided to...

Renting an Apartment in Paris

In preparation for our stay in Paris, we investigated staying at a hotel and discovered that it was very hard to find a place  that was not triple our budget for the stay.

We ended up getting an incredible apartment from Gail Boisclair at Perfectly Paris rentals.&...

The Catacombs Beneath Paris

A little history is needed here.

Centuries ago, a tunnel was dug into the limestone beneath Paris.  The tunnel was used to mine building material for the growing demands of those living in Paris.

Later, those tunnels were expanded by a monk to supply water for Paris in times of siege. ...

The Barcelona Aquarium

The Barcelona Aquarium is located near the dock in the ship's harbor and is easily accessible by the Barceloneta metro station.

The aquarium and Imax theater is just a short walk around the harbor. We had a great walk looking at all the expensive yacht and wandering through a sidewalk market where local vendors were selling leather...

Renting an Apartment in Barcelona

As we planned our stay in Barcelona, we priced a few hotel rooms before looking at apartments.  What we discovered very quickly is that hotel rooms may include all the 'perks' but you can pay dearly for them.
For just over half the price of a hotel room, we found a number of apar...

Spanish Port City of Cadiz

The city of Cadiz, Spain is a historical port with thousands of years of history.  It is located on a peninsula that protects a large bay making it an ideal spot for ships to come and go.

For many years it had a mighty city wall all the way around for protection from pirates and conquerors, never falling...

Tenerife, Our Island in the Canary Islands

The Disney ship docked in Santa Cruz de Tenerife on Sunday, May 20, 2007.  The arrival was breath-taking to say the least.  The Island of Tenerife is a dramatically landscaped volcanic island with cities, villages and roads nestled between steep green hills.  Originally this was a brown island, but t...

The Arkansas Cabin has framed walls and running water!

On July 3, the boys and I went to our Arkansas property to work on the plumbing.  We met the people that put in the well pump the previous Friday.

They installed a 2 horsepower pump 600 feet down our 972 foot well.

The first bit of water tasted like PVC, but before we left, it started to get better. &nbs...

Sea World in San Antonio, Texas

Our family enjoyed a visit to San Antonio.  While we were there, we did the Sea World thing.  The bad Part was that I had broken my foot while packing the car, so I rented one of those electric scooters to get around with.  Jen and the boys had to keep up... it was great....

Docking at Disney's Private Island Castaway Cay

Our veranda faced the island.  The view was incredible and the weather could not be beat.

The first thing to meet our eyes was the Flying Dutchman, the ship that was sailed in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie by Davie Jones.  This was the ship that came up out of the water....

Disney Dreams show

There is a great awarding show on the Disney ships that should not be missed.  The Disney Dreams show really makes the trip, even if you do not enjoy stage shows, this is one that you must not miss!

I shot over 1200 photos in the hour of the show.  Included here below, you will see a selection of the images. ...

Pirates IN the Caribbean Party

After dinner in Animators Pallet, people started finding their way up to the deck around the Goofy Pool on Deck 9.



This pool is special because the deck closes over the  water and it becomes a great dance floor.



Lead by Chip and Dale, the party begins. ...

Grand Cayman and Georgetown

The Disney Magic stopped at Grand Cayman and we had to tender in to Georgetown.  


This was a sweet town, a place we will have to go back to, maybe for one of our month visits to foreign shores.


We shopped around town for a while, stopping in a couple shops and having lunch....

Pirates IN the Caribbean Party

On the past two longer cruises we have taken on the Disney Magic, we have joined in the celebration of the Pirates IN the Caribbean party.  It is their take on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies they made.


The celebration starts in the the dining halls and continues on the upper decks and the th...