To all the dads out there in the interwebs, I hope you had a fantastic day. You're awesome.
My dad is an avid train lover, as you may know from his blog or if you've been to his house, you've seen the train room, which is exactly that: an entire room just for his trains. It's pretty amazing.
So I decided to reach back to my inner kid, and create a card specifically for him:
Awesome, huh?
And we also bought him some parsley to put in his garden. We figured that parsley is easy to add to anything Italian, so they should be able to use it.
So yeah, it was a fun afternoon. Great food, really relaxed, and perfect weather. We sat and chatted outside for a while, long after dinner was done.
Isa and I drove down to Newark to pick up my parents from their trip to the UK, and it's a good thing their flight was a little late, because we took several wrong turns and got hopelessly lost in the airport.
At one point, when we stopped seeing signs for terminals/highways/exits/anything we might want to head toward, and everything around us disappeared and turned into a graveyard of rarely used planes and forgotten equipment, we knew we were definitely not going the right way. It was at that very moment that we saw a fantasticly helpful sign:
As in why on earth are you all the way the heck out here?
No map. No number to call. No radio station to tune to. No information at all. Just a subtle slap in the face and a welcome to Jersey.
Isa and I have been looking for an excuse to buy a new digital SLR for a long time. Since before we got married, actually. But we could never justify spending that much money, no matter how badly we really wanted one. And oh, how we wanted one (for the right effect, say that longingly and stare slightly off into the distance).
Well, our prayers/dreams/wishes were granted. Behold, the Canon Rebel XS Digital SLR:
Doesn't it just make you smile?
In addition to the award-winning quilt (I'll put a link as soon as I write about that) that Mary Anne (my step-mom) made us for a wedding present, they (my dad and Mary Anne) wanted to give us something more for our wedding. And boy did they ever! They're buying a new camera (if you can believe it, an upgrade from this one), so they gave us this one. GAVE IT TO US!
I've had a Canon Rebel 2000 for over a decade, and this is pretty much an exact digital version of that one, so I know how to use all the aperture/shutter/manual settings already. And we are beyond stoked. Like, completely beside ourselves and giddy excited. I don't think we've ever said "thank you" more times in a 10-minute period ever before in our lives.
So we can take pictures like this now:
I realize that I took that with my point-and-shoot camera, but I can only do that on "flower" mode. What is that? Macro? Super-macro? Whatever. The point is, the SLR can blur the background in any mode. And I love that. And hello 30-second exposures again! My Olympus' night mode is a whopping 4-second exposure. :(
And just in time for our trip to Las Vegas and San Diego. Have we told you that yet? We're going on vacation tomorrow. Yeah. Woohoo!!
As I said in the long layover post, my dad turned 60 on November 15, and his one dying wish was to get the whole family together. So he and Mary Anne set everything up and flew us all to Orlando. And when I say all, I mean all of us. Me, Christopher, Jason, Jennie, and Emily, and all the spouses and kids. There were 17 of us all together. Dad rented a huge house just 10 minutes from Disney. The house was "rock-and-roll" themed, with pictures of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, and other rock legends throughout every room. Very fun, just to go along with the fun-ness of Orlando and Disney.
The first day (Monday) was dad's birthday, so we all surprised him by wearing matching shirts which featured his face wearing his favorite Goofy hat, and a big "Happy 60th Birthday" over it.
Yes. We were that family. With matching shirts. And it was awesome. But mock it as you may - those shirts made it really easy to find the rest of our group. You know how I have a knack for wandering off and losing groups. I found somebody from the family every time. So that first day, we stuck together in the Magic Kingdom and traveled as a herd. Here's all of us on Small World:
You can see Dad in his Goofy hat there on the right. :)
We were so glad we were able to take a week off from work and make it all the way from Australia to be with the family for this. We had a lot of fun and I know it meant a lot to Dad that we made it (and survived it - a 46-hour journey with a 15-hour time change kinda messes with your sleep pattern).
And it would have been really sad to miss stuff like this:
Because that's just priceless. Oh, speaking of Ty, you need to watch this video. Normally I'd just put a link here, but I know you're lazy and you won't click on it and since I really want you to watch this, click play:
I love the slow motion part. Isa made that and we crack up every time we watch it. By the way, this is what happens when you ask us to babysit (Jason and Christy were on the Tower of Terror).
And here's another pic of Ty with Dad on the race cars. Dad never touched the wheel once. Ty drove the entire time.
So overall, super fun trip. Dad, Mary Anne, thank you for putting this all together and for making it possible for all of us to be there with you.
