Very Busy Day

Well, today we had a very busy day and I took a LOT of pictures but will only post a few. We got up early because we had to get the door lock fixed before heading out. We had a nice breakfast and then headed out to Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abby, Churchill's War Room, and Buckingham Palace before heading the Museum of Natural Science. Yes, it was a very busy day and I find that it is more than I can really post about effectively. Let's just say that both Anthony and I had a great, though busy day. We took our time going through Churchill's War Room and the Museum. Anthony does enjoy taking his time and reading everything he can. We were happy that we got to see so many things and feel like we actually spent the time to look at all of the things we wanted to see today. Perhaps I will get a chance to post more pictures from today another time.

Tower of London

Okay, another short post. Anthony and I slept a little bit later than planned because we were both exhausted. It took us some time to get to the Tower of London after getting up and eating, and once there we spent most of the rest of the day there. Anthony has always been one that can spend a lot of time in a museum or historical site as he reads most of the material available and takes his time going through. We had a Yeoman tour, and Steve was fantastic. It was entertaining, even when it began to rain he had jokes and historical details to add. Anthony and I had a great time going through the Tower of London and learned a lot about history that isn't in the books. After the tour we went through a lot of the additional towers and areas, including the White Tower where we had another tour. We headed back to the hotel after our visit to Tower of London. We thought about stopping at one of the museums on the way, but realized it would close soon after we got there so continued on to the Hotel. After a brief rest we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant named "Bizarro" which was quite good. Then we got back to the hotel and found that our keys didn't work. After the keys were reprogrammed, still no luck. Then one of the staff came up and the master key didn't work either. Turns out the batteries for the lock are dead. They got the room open for us but we can't both leave without keys that work. They should have staff here at 9 AM to fix the lock. Anthony and I plan to head to Buckingham Palace and the Churchill War Room, and hopefully a few other locations tomorrow.

A Trip to London

Well, it is almost 3 years since I have bothered to post to this blog. I would like to say that I will do better, but, probably not, maybe, oh, who knows. The reason I am finally posting is that here I am in London with Anthony and Melanie isn't with us. I guess that means I have no choice but to post a bit about our trip. We have wanted to make a trip to Europe with the family but the expense has always held us back. Now that Anthony has graduated from High School we have an excuse to make a trip. Again, a large family makes the costs a bit extreme, and this is Anthony's graduation into the world, so Melanie and I decided that it would be a trip with just Anthony and me. I will try to post a few times here and there with some pictures. We got here to London at about 6:15 AM London time after having basically no sleep on the way here. Our plane landed a good 45 minutes ahead of the rescheduled time and more than an hour earlier than we expected. It took us a while to get through immigration, customs, and on to our hotel. Once here they actually had a room ready for us. A room I will describe another time. We then did our best to stay up in order to get on a more London schedule of time. We walked off to Hyde Park and Kensington Palace. (Picture outside Kensington Palace before a statue of Queen Victoria) We actually got to the palace before it opened at 10 AM so we wandered the park a bit. I have a number of pictures of the palace as we walked through but I chose this one because, well, it is a bit "different." After touring Kensington Palace Anthony and I headed toward the Science Museum in London. On our way we stopped at Royal Albert Hall and picked up some lunch. We both got so exhausted at the museum that we decided we needed to return to the hotel for a nap before heading out again. After a bit of rest we felt much better and took a stroll to decide what to eat for dinner tonight. I am still a bit exhausted so we will see if I find time to post some more on this trip.

Wedding Time!

Well, I really did plan to post more often than this. I guess I will have to work harder at getting back into the habit. One change I am making is actually naming the kids in posts now, following Melanie's lead. My posts are clearly going to be a bit disjointed. I have had about a dozen breaks while writing this for various reasons, but hey, at least I am getting it posted!

This past week has been a week of, well, parties. The first party was a beautiful wedding that we simply could not miss. Of course, with Filipino weddings this pretty much means a series of parties for several days in a row. The next "party" was Natalie's birthday, but I'll save that for another post.

We traveled to Michigan for our cousin's wedding. Yes, really Melanie's cousin but we are all so close to their family that I say "our cousin." I have literally known R since she was a little girl and it is always a wonderful time when we visit her family. I was particularly thrilled to see how quickly our children warmed up to seeing relatives that they don't see often.

The trip out was a nightmare that I will rant about another time. Once we got there we had a wonderful time. Eric was the ring-bearer for the wedding. He fell asleep during the rehearsal, but, even though he didn't practice his part, he walked up the aisle for the wedding. Here is is crashed out, gives you a hint of how tired all of us were, but that rant is being saved for another time ;).

One of the nicest things about this trip was the fact that Uncle N chartered a bus to take people back and forth from the hotel to the church, rehearsal dinner, etc. This made things MUCH easier on me (as I do the driving), particularly on Friday for the rehearsal because I still didn't have much sleep. The rehearsal dinner was a lot of fun, particularly for the kids. Eric woke up and, eventually, was in a good mood to play with the other kids. Here he is with Natalie playing in my coat.

We love the fact that our children get along so well with their cousins, Natalie stayed in Houston for two weeks this summer playing with her cousins and Alex stayed in Houston for the several days before the MLS All-Star game. This instantly makes weddings like this more comfortable for the kids, and when they are more comfortable they warm up to other relatives that much more quickly.

Eric made it up the aisle like a champ. Helped, no doubt, by the very precocious and outgoing flower girl that LOVED the attention!
His flower didn't make it through the wedding, in addition to being rather abused, the magnet that held it on his coat fell off while he was playing with the flower and must have rolled away. He crashed at the end of the wedding and slept the whole bus trip back to the hotel. He woke up a little bit when I tried to set him down in bed at the hotel before the reception, and eventually "came around" to join in the late night festivities. He likes bus and train rides and was VERY upset that he wasn't going to get back on the bus.

Eventually he warmed up and went on the dance floor. Everyone had a wonderful time, and the next few days we were able to relax with family and simply enjoy the wonderful weather.

Back in the Blogger Again

Okay, I am finally back trying to blog a bit more. I guess I have just been lazy the past few months. I guess I always figure that my lovely wife's blog covers everything but I need to admit that this isn't always the case.

Case and point, this past Wednesday night I took the big boys to Houston for the MLS All-Star vs Manchester United game. Yes, I said Houston. DS#2 was already there staying with his cousin for a few days, so I picked DS#1 up early from his PE Camp Counselor bit at school and drove to Houston. It rained most of the trip, but we got there in time.

Then we had to deal with the horrible Houston traffic to get to Reliant Stadium for the game. The traffic was particularly awful, and getting into the parking lot was terrible too. Leaving the game was just as painful, the trip home took over 4 hours.

Basically, I totaled well over 8 hours of driving for the whole thing, we got back to SA at 2:00 AM the next morning. It was worth it.

The boys and I had a blast, it was fun to see all of the various star players on the field, as well as the noise and cheering of actually being able to watch at the stadium. With over 70,000 fans in attendance, this was the largest number for any MLS game, ever. With the excitement of the World Cup, maybe soccer really is starting to become more well-understood by, and interesting to, American fans.

I didn't try to take any pictures of the game, as you can see we were pretty far up and I only had the small camera. We had a great time. Of course, Man U is a "team" not a collection of all-stars from different teams that don't regularly play together. The 5-2 game actually wasn't even that close. We loved seeing the game, and DS#2 was thrilled to see some of his favorite players on the field.

Keeping Up

Sometimes my dear wife and I feel like we are struggling just to keep up with all of the various activities the kids are involved in. Add in a few parties and special events and sometimes we really feel like we are just leaves being tossed about in the wind. While each individual child doesn't have that many activities, when you add them all together it fills the calendar pretty quickly.

Tomorrow DS#2 has soccer practice, DD has a party to go to, and DS#1 wants to meet a few of his friends for dinner. DS#1 has to have an early night due to getting up early in the morning for soccer.

That brings us to Saturday, DS#1 needs to be at the school by 7:15 AM and should be done with his JV soccer games by about Noon or a little after. This gives us a little bit of time to eat and change for the 2:30 PM soccer games in the afternoon. Both DS#1 and DS#2 have games at 2:30, fortunately, they both have home games so we don't have to split up for the games. Then we get to come home, get cleaned up and head to church and possibly a family dinner out. That way DS#1 and I can get a good rest before Sunday morning's trip to Corpus Christi (2 1/2 hour drive) for another soccer game.

Looks like it will be a busy weekend-let's hope I can keep up.

Back in the Blogosphere

Okay, I admit it, I have been lazy about blogging for a while now. The solid 1-month gap between posts is a good sign. Usually I just use the excuse that my lovely wife has posted everything in her blog so that I don't need to. She does do her best, but she can't cover everything so it is time for me to step back in and start posting more often.

I am going to start with a series of pictures I saved just for the blog several weeks ago. DS#1 has been enjoying High School Soccer but has to deal with the fact that he is, well, a freshman. This means he is pretty far down the totem pole in terms of play time, even for the JV team. Some schools have enough boys for 2 JV squads and on days they play those games, he gets to play a full game. These pictures are from one of those games. DS#1 doesn't complain about play time because he gets more time than a number of other freshman on the team and because he recognizes that it is part of being one of the youngest players on the squad.

I didn't get as many good pictures as I had hoped but I did get a few. I picked this series because it shows DS#1 making a fantastic play on the ball and also shows that they are playing on a football field in a large stadium. DS#1 had a great game against the New Braunfels HS team and his play was not only recognized by his coaches but his teammates as well. He has had several other good games lately and his play has been steadily improving and we are very proud of him and how hard he has been working.

This series of pictures shows him stopping an attack and sending a pass up the field right between two attackers. The pictures look a bit chaotic but keep in mind these three frames were taken in a period of about 1 second.