Category: Vacation

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Staycation

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What do you do when your house is too messy, and things seem a bit too overwhelming to clean and be responsible?

Staycation! We went to our go-to hotel where we get regular upgrades to jr. suites and got an amazing deal for $71 a night. We then arrived and were surprised to be given, for the first time at this hotel, an upgrade to the Presidential suite. Living room, dining room, bedroom, palatial bathroom and another half-bath.

All-you-can-eat sushi lunch, two visits to the pool, afghani dinner in, great sleep, breakfast buffet, no phones or Internet, no chores, and no desire to see the sights; more relaxing than vacation. 🙂

Steve and Julie partook of the fun; thanks for coming out guys!

#spgplatinum #whyweobsessaboutpoints

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New Orleans with Bernard’s Family

You never know if you can vacation with another family, especially when kids (and protective parents) are involved. Add to this that we are “bottom feeder foodies,” whose vacations are essentially food crawls AND we like to eat across the spectrum from hard to pick shellfish to stranger parts of plants and animals, it is with a bit of trepidation when we go on vacation with others. So it is with great satisfaction that I can say “Success!” to the joint effort between our families in New Orleans (and Slidell). Click the picture to read the whole vacation.

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Thomas Land at Edaville

We went the second week it opened and they were not ready for prime time yet. Many buildings unfinished, no concessions really, restrooms not constructed yet, and a few rides not open- it’s no Disneyland – but from the kids’ perspective? True magic.

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Having each of the engines or characters in full size was pretty cool. The adults did spend a huge chunk of time talking through how they could have done it better and made more money.

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Magic for the kids, both were young enough to be totally into it. We did have amusement park meltdown at the end, but that was not unexpected.

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Erin’s parents treated us to the park and the kids loved being with them.

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Strasburg 2015

Erin’s father came down to visit while her mother and sister were in France, in a moment of spontaneity, we decided to go to Strasburg for a little adventure. If you recall, the Strasburg Railway and Train Museum is where Curie kindled her love of trains. While Elia had been here before, this is the first time she could see the trains with wonder, and pointed out a lot of things to us. We actually found Strasburg before we had children, and, even then, we wanted to take Erin’s father.

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Thomas comes to Strasburg three times a year apparently and as we were leaving Erin’s father noticed a covered engine in a shed with remarkably familiar colors. You can see it in the picture right above the little Thomas picture. We had to tell Curie that Thomas was asleep; she was so excited.

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