The Wynns

2011 Florida Vacation Report

2012-02-15T23:43:00.000-08:00

Finally getting around to writing down how we spent the rest of our vacation before Christmas. In case you didn't know, a cruise was a big part of that trip and you can read everything about that here - http://www.the-wynns.com/2011/12/disney-cruise-review.html. This will be another long post with a bunch of photos, hope that you have a few minutes.

After we finished the cruise, we were able to go to Disney to stay for about another week to have some fun together and see some friends. My parents and Aunt Laurie were even to make it down for some time with us too.

One thing we learned this year is that we tried to do too much. Normally we like our vacations nice and relaxed. No agendas, sleep in and eat breakfast before even thinking about what we are going to do. But we wanted to do so much, a lot of things for the first time that we were just way too busy, next time we will structure it a little bit differently.

Having fun with Santa for our 2011 Xmas Card

About those firsts, as the kids get bigger there are a lot of rides that they are able to try for the first time.

Ella got brave and tried Expedition Everest. After being pretty nervous and having some trepidation, she ended up loving it and we rode it twice in a row.
Ella also rode Aerosmith's Rock n' Rollercoaster (family favorite). Watching the train launch at the beginning freaked her out, but just like Everest, she loved it.
Max rode Space Mountain, always a good first ride. Afterwards, he said that he was never going to ride it again, but by the time we got home he changed his tune.
Max also got in his first ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Just like Ella, he was reluctant, but then loved it.
While not his first time, Max wanted to go on Tower of Terror, which is one that Ella is scared of after riding it last year.

Max's 1st ride on Space Mountain

Ella and I being goofy for the photo

You can see the nervousness on Ella's face for her 1st trip on Everest

10 minutes later and we were doing ride #2

Max's 1st go at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Multiple trips on Thunder Railroad after liking it so much

Now the big excuse for us to take a vacation is that we have gone each year on Max's birthday. It really is the only thing that he really wants to do (though now that is changing into going on another cruise). In keeping with tradition, we rode his favorite ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, 6 times in a row. Once for each year.

#5, Max is grumpy because we put his toy guns in the bag

#6, the checkered flag

As always, we spent a lot of time at all of the parks. The biggest bummer was when we went to Epcot on our last night. We were going to get our last ride of the whole trip in on Test Track. It was getting kind of late, and we had not had dinner yet, so Sarah went ahead to get us a table before the place closed down while the kids and I went on the ride. We finally got on, were half way through the ride and were about to burst through the doors to the outside speed part when the ride just completely shut down. The car stopped, everything went black, it was a total system failure. I knew it was not good when I realized that all of the safety mechanisms had been released and I was able to unclick my seatbelt. After awhile, a worked came by and took us out of the car to walk out of the ride. It was kind of cool in that we were able to walk back through almost the entire ride stopping at each car along the way to get the passengers out. The workers pointed out lots of behind the scenes things on how it worked, pointed out hidden mickeys to the kids, so it was kind of cool to see that, but a real bummer that our last ride literally failed at the moment before the best part. On another note, Sarah grabbed a table at the pizza place in Italy, and it was some of the best pizza we have ever had, can't believe that we never ate there before.

I snapped a highly illegal photo on Test Track when it broke down on us

Epcot at night

Max's favorite country, Mexico, at night

The tree in Animal Kingdom

Ella and Max with Mickey

Sarah turned into a bug

I can tell you first hand that a 6 year old should not have a driver's license

Max loves Indiana Jones, so he spent some hard earned money on this leather fedora

It should come as no surprise that the kids were absolutely beat

We even took a day out to head over to Universal mainly for Harry Potter, but they have some other good thrill rides as well. I had the longest wait ever for ice cream. No exaggeration, there was only like 3 people in line before me and I swear it took 30 minutes to get to me. It took so long that Grandpa Jim and the kids played some water gun games and won giant stuffed animals all while I was in line.

Ella has her competition face on

And the spoils go to the victors

As always, heading to Florida means that we get to spend some time with friends from our time living there. We would have liked to have spent a little more time, next time we are going to plan things out a little differently. Somehow, we have almost no pictures from those visits. It is always good to see friends and spend some time catching up. Oh, and unlike last year, we had great weather. No freezing temps and having to buy coats, hats, gloves, and scarves just to try and stay warm.

Ella, Max, Felicia, and Aubree

Disney Cruise Review

2011-12-27T21:26:00.003-08:00

While we were on our vacation, we had a whole ton of people ask us about the cruise that we on. Enough questions in fact, that it warranted it's own write up here.

The Wynns in front of the amazing Disney Dream

If you are not aware, we surprised the kids by taking them on a 4 day Caribbean Disney cruise aboard their brand new boat, the Disney Dream. We had received one of those promotional sales DVD's in the mail at some point about the cruises, and the kids became obsessed with going on a cruise. Max especially so, I am pretty sure that he may know every detail about each boat in the Disney fleet after having watched that DVD probably 100 times.

We'll get into a bunch of what we did on the boat, but I was a little apprehensive that Sarah may not enjoy a cruise. We are more of the lazy vacationer types, sleep in, decide what we are going to do each morning kind of people. I didn't know if the tons of scheduled activities and non-stop eating would float Sarah's boat (pun intended). Turns out that we all loved it and will definitely do it again. As a brand, I'm not sure that there is a brand that I trust more than Disney (and I'm not just saying that as a shareholder). I know that doing something through Disney is going to end in an enjoyable time, and the cruise was no exception.

Part of the excellent service of Disney is that they have a website open up to you once you have paid for the trip to be able to book excursions, make spa and restaurant reservations, and check out activities available on board. Then they also ship you a little book with a checklist on what to bring (don't forget the passports), and other tips that was really a pretty good little guide. Don't be surprised if you login online and find that a whole bunch of stuff is booked. The real serious cruisers get access before once in a while cruisers and book everything up. Not to fear though, try to pick and early boarding time when you check-in and then head straight for the front desk when you walk on and see what reservations are available. We wanted to get a cabana on Castaway Cay, and they were all taken online, but we got one without any problems once we boarded.

The Boat
We took a 4 day Caribbean cruise aboard Disney's newest boat, the Disney Dream. I have only been on one other boat, so it is hard to compare, but it was one sweet vessel. We had a category 4 room on one of the top floors with a small deck on our cabin. It had a split bath so getting ready was easy, along with a queen size bed (with lots of space underneath for suitcases). There was also a sleeper sofa, and then a bunk bed that was lowered from the ceiling each night while we were at dinner. The kids thought the bunk beds were way awesome.

Ella enjoying some late night room service in the bunk bed

Ella enjoying the ocean from our balcony

Max turned 6 while on board, so they decorated the room for him, complete with towel monkey (this cost us a little extra)

One of the signature features on the boat is the Aquaduck. The Aquaduck is a water"coaster" that extends over the edge of the boat, and then travels all the way around the top deck before finishing it. Two people can ride in a tube together. It was pretty cool, not super thrilling or anything, but still fun especially for the kids. Pro tip: ride it at night when there are no lines, otherwise expect to wait 20-30 minutes. We had the first dinner seating, so we would either go to the pool, or a show and then the pool after dinner, and it would be completely empty (could be because it was a little cold in early December, but it didn't bother us).

The Aquaduck

Chris and Max cruising on the Aquaduck

The ship really had a lot of awesome designs throughout, this amazing mural was one of the family favorites. This was one of the walls inside one of something like 8 restaurants.

This is an amazing mural made entirely of tiles

The lobby of the Disney Dream

Max hanging out in a porthole

The Sailing
On a 4 day cruise, you leave from Port Canaveral and then hit the following stops:
Day 1 - At sea
Day 2 - Nassau, Bahamas
Day 3 - Castaway Cay (pronounced 'key', this is an island owned by Disney in the Bahamas)
Day 4 - At sea

Nassau
There were a bunch of excursions to choose from in Nassau depending on your wants. We decided not to do any in Nassau, because we just wanted to explore the town. Let me say this, I read all over the place about how shady and dangerous the area was around the port and Nassau in general. What a bunch of sissy Americans who must have written that stuff (I guess if having a local asking you if you want to take a tour of the island scares you, then you probably shouldn't leave the country). Seriously, I never felt threatened or scared the entire day walking around with Sarah and the kids, don't believe everything on the internet people.

Sarah and kids at the port in Nassau

We spent the day walking around the city, checking things out. We did enjoy going to the Pirate Museum which had some pretty cool stuff, I would recommend that. In hindsight, I may have done the excursion to go over to Atlantis for the day. They have a pretty sweet waterpark and aquarium that I think would have been really enjoyable, but we still had a great time. We shopped a bit, had some ice cream, lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, and the museum like I mentioned.

Chris and Ella being pirates

The boat is really quite magnificent

The big shopping attraction in Nassau is jewelry, though to be honest the prices did not really seem to be any cheaper than here. You save on taxes which is nice, but I wouldn't get too excited about scoring cheap jewelry if I were you.

Castaway Cay
Castaway Cay is a small island in the Bahamas that Disney owns. The boat pulls right up at night so you wake up there. They have a few excursions and other activities on the island, along with the beach and swimming. We really splurged here and rented a private Cabana for the day. It was Max's birthday, and just sounded fun. If you can swing the dough, I definitely recommend it. You get your own cabana that is stocked with fruit, snacks, soda, water, suntan lotion, cold towels, towels, and a phone to your own server for anything else. You also get sand toys, snorkeling gear, tubes for the water, and bike rentals included. Plenty of stuff to keep you more than busy for the day.

The view from our room of Castaway Cay

The cabanas are at the end of the family beach and even have their own private section on the beach. There is an adults only beach and I think those may have their own cabanas as well.

Our Cabana (#11)

From the inside looking out

Max played in the sand all day, while Sarah enjoyed the sun. Ella and I went snorkeling and spent some time on some pretty cool waterslides that they have built in the water. Ella was awesome snorkeling, she had never done it before, so I had to show her the ropes and then we headed out. I thought she would last 15 minutes and be done, we snorkeled for just over an hour. They have a whole area that is setup for snorkeling, where they adding some artificial reefs and a sunken boat and stuff to add some interesting things to look at. One of the key landmarks is a Mickey statue underwater. When we found it, I dove down to float next to it and look up at Ella, only to see her trying to follow me. I had to surface and let the air out of her vest and then teach her how to dive with a snorkel. She did awesome, and swam all the way down to the Mickey statue as well. I wish I had one of those underwater cameras for that part.

Ella all geared up for a snorkel adventure

Max doing what he does best, having fun

Disney of course has a restaurant on the island for lunch, along with ice cream and stuff which was a big hit. Sarah and Ella went on a little bike tour of the island just before getting back on the boat. My advice here is to actually wake up and get out to the island to enjoy it. By the time we had breakfast and got off the boat is was about 10am, and we had lost about 2 hours of island time.

Ella and Pluto

The Eating
Get ready to eat, I mean seriously eat. There is food all the time, everywhere you go. 24 hour room service (a really nice menu too), a nice restaurant to have dinner at every night (full 3 course meal each night), and quick service (food, burgers, sandwiches, ice cream) by the pools. You eat and eat and eat. I was good and worked out the first morning (which was cool, the treadmill looked out a window as we were pulling into Nassau), but after that it was a no-go. We even had ice cream 5 times in one day for Max's birthday. It was fairly ridiculous.

Ella decided to have a waffle with her sugar

As most people expect, the restaurants are pretty awesome. There are three main restaurants on board, and then 2 "different" ones. There are 2 dinner services to be assigned to. If you have first dinner, then you can catch a show after dinner, or catch a show and then have dinner if you have second seating. You end up eating at one of the restaurants twice because one night is pirate night (the third night of the cruise). That night all of the restaurants have the same menu and then they cap the night off with a big pirate party on deck along with fireworks (they are the only cruise line allowed to set off fireworks at sea). Your waitstaff follows you around each night, which is great because they get to know you and know what you like. Each place has a slightly different theme and a menu to go with it. Every meal was really delicious, and the waitstaff made it even better. They did stuff like pour the ketchup for the kids (in the shape of a Mickey head), one night Ella ordered steak and our waitress cut her steak for her so Sarah and I didn't have to do it.

The whole family on pirate night

They encourage you to dress like a pirate on pirate night, some people really go all out (not us)

There are two adult only restaurants, Palo and Remy, that cost extra if you want to dine there, and reservations are recommended 6 months in advance of your trip. There were reservations available when we boarded but we decided to not do it because we were able to reserve a cabana at Castaway Cay. From everything I have read, they are supposed to be quite amazing, I think we will definitely go on our next trip.

One note on alcohol, make sure you remember that alcohol is not included and will be charged to your room. It is easy to grab the $10 fruity drinks from the waiters walking around the pool and stuff, just don't get too carried away. We ordered a wine package which I really recommend. We had a new bottle of wine each night with dinner for one price at the beginning. We never opened one of the bottles so they give that to you to take home on your last day. The cool thing about the wine package is that you can go to any bar and get a glass from the bottle that you already bought, along with taking a glass with you at the end of dinner to take with you.

As with most cruises, there is a recommended dress code. For someone like me who does not wear dress clothes to work, and does not own any really, it is kind of a pain. I had to do a little shopping for the trip, and it makes packing a little more annoying with the extra clothes and shoes and stuff. We would tell the kids that it was fancy night and that every one needed to dress fancy for dinner. Ella really got into it, Max tended to complain while we were getting dressed, but it worked out ok. I don't think that it was really enforced all that much, I think it was really more recommended. Palo and Remy may have required dress codes, I am not 100% sure as we did not go to those adults only restaurants.

The whole family at a "fancy" night

Chris and Ella at a "fancy" night

Entertainment and Activities
There are so many activities on board that they leave a schedule of the next day's events in your room each night while you are at dinner. Even over 4 days, we maybe checked out half of the activities at best, seems like there is something for everyone.

Each day is anchored by a Broadway type show in a huge theater that is on the boat. We checked out two of these (Villains Tonight and Believe) and they were both really nice, the kids even enjoyed them. I hear the other two are worth seeing as well, but we chose the pool over shows on those nights.

They also have a movie theater on board and showed the latest Pirates movie in 3D (it had yet to come out on DVD), and I am pretty sure they were showing the new Muppets movie that was still in theaters, but we didn't go to double check. We ended up not going to the theater, but it is there and looked pretty nice.

There is also a family friendly "bar" (not really a bar, but sort of bar like without the booze and old drunk dude) where they do family games and trivia. We never made our way there either but it looked pretty cool.

Max looking pretty fly

It seemed like there was always something going on at the pool deck. There are 2 pools and 4 (I think) hot tubs there, along with a DJ going, some kind of party, or movie being played pretty much all the time. They have a huge LED TV screen and play Disney movies while the kids are playing, along with a stage where they did a couple of shows when we set sail and then again on Pirate night (after a show there is fireworks, then a giant family friendly dance party). My favorite part there was we set sail on a Sunday, and the Lions just happened to be playing the Saints on Sunday Night Football that night. They played the live broadcast on the giant screen on deck which was pretty cool even though the Lions lost.

There are also 3 kids clubs (1 is dedicated to non walkers) where you can drop your kids off and leave them while you go do something else. These were just great, they have a nice check-in and check-out setup and you can leave the kids and go do whatever you like while they do a whole bunch of organized activities in there.

There is also some magical teens area where teenagers can hang out with other teenagers. That must be the most amazing place ever because Sarah and I don't ever remember seeing a teenager around the pool or anywhere else. Pretty sure the teenager area has its own pool and food and drinks, so it must be pretty sweet.

I did manage to go to the gym one time while on board. It was a really nice gym, great equipment, and they even had several personal trainers running some group classes and walking around just talking to people, giving them tips. They do an organized 5k on Castaway Cay the morning that you dock there, but I was not up for that....maybe next time.

There is a whole bunch of other stuff that we just never had a chance to check out like the spa, a whole sports area including putt-putt, an adults only section of several bars, each with its own theme. Even on a 7 day cruise I think you could try something new each day and just never get bored.

Of course, being Disney, there are a bunch of character greetings and photo opportunities if your kids are really into that. Our kids are so spoiled and have been to Disney so many times that they don't get too excited about that stuff any more, I think Max took a photo with Pirate Mickey and that was about it.

Chris, Max, and Pirate Mickey

Transportation
Just a quick note on our experience with transportation to and from the boat. Disney offers shuttles directly from the airport to the boat, but getting to Florida from up here in Seattle is an all day affair, so we stayed one night at Disney and then headed to Port Canaveral. I rented a car (Avis had an office at a Hilton right across from Downtown Disney which was very easy to get to) to get us out there. It was cheaper then the Disney provided bus, but a little more inconvenient. If you use Disney transportation, they take care of your bags and everything, you just go to the bus, walk off and head onto the boat. But since we wanted to surprise the kids, we rented a car and said that we were going to spend the day at the beach. It was pretty cool to tell them that we tricked them as we came up over a bridge and could then see the boat.

The other problem with renting a car is turning it in. I dropped Sarah and the kids, along with our bags, off at the curb and then took off to turn the car in which was about five miles away. Not being very familiar with that area, I managed to get pulled over for speeding. The officer was very cool when he found out I was on vacation about to go on a cruise, he let me off with a warning and directions to the Avis office. Avis did have a shuttle to get me back to the cruise terminal, but I barely made it in time for our boarding call.

To get back to Disney after the cruise was over we used the Disney bus which was a nice convenience. Next time we will just use the Disney transportation each way.

Wrapping it Up
Just a last note that if you go on the cruise, keep an eye out for those deck chairs. I broke my toe accidentally kicking one thinking that I was walking by it. Gross photo below of the toe in question. I call it the stupid toe because I have literally broken it 4 times since Ella was born seven years ago.

Chris' broken stupid toe

I think the most complimentary thing that I could say is that we will definitely do it again, probably in 2013. Our only regret is that we didn't book the next cruise while we were on board. If you book another cruise, you save 10% which is nice. At the time, we decided that we may as well wait since it would probably be two years before we did it again, but now we regret not taking advantage of the good price and doing it then.

Last tip, use a travel agent to book. I couldn't get a better price than booking direct, but we were able to get a room credit from our agent which was great. I can also give you a great referral on an agent if you are interested, just let me know.

Max's 6th Birthday

2011-12-27T21:25:00.001-08:00

Given that we were heading to Florida for Max's birthday again, we decided to throw a small party before we left on vacation. We were planning on leaving on December 3rd, so we had to move his party all the way up to November 27th.

Max picked 3 of his buddies to go with him to see the new Muppet movie. Afterwards we headed to his favorite desert place, Dairy Queen, for some ice cream and presents. The kids had a really fun time, the new Muppet movie was actually pretty good (the movie theater even gave him a poster of the movie). We really irritated a lady to take this photo, she was sitting on this bench and we asked her to move so that we could take a picture. She wasn't very happy, and I just don't care.

Max referred to it as his fake birthday since his real birthday was not for a little over a week. For his real birthday, we were on our cruise that we surprised the kids with, so we let him mostly decide what we were going to do that day (we rode the Aquaduck a lot and ate a ton of ice cream).

Halloween 2011

2011-11-30T21:58:00.000-08:00

Still getting caught up with posts to the site, this is the last one to get me caught up.

Halloween has come and gone and was a big success here at the Wynn household. We held our second annual Halloween party which I would say was an excellent success. However, Sarah and I were so busy that we didn't stop to take any photos, so nothing much to share unfortunately.

For Halloween, the kids really put a lot of effort into their costumes. They spend hours pouring over the catalogs full of costumes and usually agonize over the final decision. This year, Ella decided to be a Police Officer, while Max was Zorro.

Their costumes were really nice, luckily they get a lot of use out of them, playing dress-up is one of their favorite activities.

New Tattoo for Chris

2011-11-29T20:36:00.000-08:00

You may have heard by now that I got a new tattoo this last September. I have been wanting to do something for the kids for quite a while now, but wasn't sure what. I traveled to Austin, Texas for a special event to promote Gears of War during the Austin City Limits Music Festival. XBox had setup a special VIP area for the various musicians and other people deemed important. I was there to show the game just before it was about to launch (in fact I went from Austin straight to New York to officially launch the game at midnight on September 19th). There was also a bunch of booze (brought some home because there was so much), a lady who brought some really good cupcakes, and a tattoo artist to tattoo the musicians.

This was setup to run for 3 straight days, on the first day the tattoo artist came over to talk about the game as he was a fan. He happened to have "Ella" tattoo'd on his neck, so we chatted a bit about our daughters. I mentioned wanting to do something for the kids, so he offered to do it while we were there if I was interested. I thought about it for a day, then decided to go for it. We spent the second day drawing up some different ideas until we came up with one that I really liked and went ahead and did it that afternoon.

It was really cool because most of the stuff that he was doing there was really small, would only take him 20-30 minutes. But he really went the extra mile for me and spent just over 2 hours tattooing me, all for free which is even better. I was able to hook him up with an early copy of the game to enjoy before anyone else. I was scheduled to do an interview with a local entertainment site, so we went ahead and did while I was being tattoo'd which certainly made for an interesting chat, you can check it out here - http://amfmstudios.com/magazine/2011/09/gears-of-war-3-releases-worldwide-sept-20th/.

There are a few different elements in the tattoo, the kids names of course. The red circle gear is actually a symbol from Gears of War. That is in there because moving the family out here to Seattle instead of Sweden has worked out really well, definitely the right decision, so that is there to constantly remind me of that. Then the flowers, font choice, etc., are all classic American inspired which just speaks to my pride of being an American. I have always wanted a classic American tattoo, so it just seemed to fit. I am still really happy with the whole thing, don't regret it one bit, although I did surprise Sarah quite a bit. I gave her about an hours heads up that I was going to do it. Just taking advantage of opportunities.

Soccer Season Summary

2011-11-17T01:00:00.000-08:00

Another fall is through, and another soccer season is in the books. Max got his first outdoor season behind him with a more casual city league. Good to get him out in the grass and running around though.

As Ella gets older, the competitive spirit in her and the league picks up intensity. The still do not keep official score at this age (which is total crap), but don't tell the girls that because every single one of them keeps score. Ella got really aggressive this year, really getting physical and using her body (well, mostly her elbows) to get the other girls off the ball. She also makes some runs towards the net when she gets the ball which she was always hesitant to do. Working with her to keep the hustle up and not give up on plays and to get her shots off quicker.

She still managed two goals on the season. Her highlight game came about midway through the season. At the 2nd grade level they add goaltenders, and each of the kids gets a turn in net. Ella played the 2nd half in a game and didn't allow a single goal, she was just a rock back there all over that ball, nothing got by her. One little girl even rattled off one heck of a shot that actually got some air under it. No problem for Ella though, she just got in front of it and caught it right in her stomach amazing everyone. Her second appearance in net didn't go quite so smoothly, but hey we all have off games right.

Next up is basketball season for Ella through the winter, and Max wants to play baseball and flag football in the Spring.

Back to School

2011-11-15T02:00:00.000-08:00

Another exciting school year begins here in Seattle. For Max, it is his first official year starting Kindergarten while Ella began 2nd grade. Both of them are attending Alcott Elementary and get to ride the bus together and everything. Max only has school for half a day so he comes home earlier than Ella.

Highlights so far seem to be the extra curricular activities like art and running club along with library. At least they look a little happier than last year's first day of school photos.

Road Trip!

2011-11-06T20:45:00.001-08:00

Ever since we got the new car, the kids have been asking to go on a road trip. We think this is just because they wanted to watch movies in the car and hook up the Xbox in the car to play while in the car. Nevertheless, we decided to go for it.

Our original plan was to head down to Lake Tahoe and stay there for the weekend, but my crazy travel schedule through August and September made things a little difficult. Labor Day weekend was the only time available to go and all of the resorts in Tahoe were booked solid so we needed a new plan. We had also planned on stopping in Sacramento to see our good friends, the Schwaznicks, who had just moved there from up here. So instead of going to Tahoe, we just drove down to Sacramento to stay with them over the Labor Day weekend before getting back to Seattle so that the kids could start school.

The map makes this look like a pretty simple drive, pretty much a straight shot, about 750 miles one way. We figured about 12 hours of driving. Our lack of road trip knowledge hurt us on this one. We hit all kinds of holiday weekend traffic, especially in Portland leaving Seattle at about 1pm. At 1am, we were still about 2 hours away and just had to stop in Reading, CA for a quick sleep. A nice night at the Holiday Inn and we were back on the road with a nice easy drive the rest of the way.

We had a great weekend in the pool and just hanging out on the golf course, playing a little night golf. One night we went to visit Whitney's Tomb, which is this crazy mini-pyramid that this eccentric dude who had originally owned all of the land built for himself when he died.

The way home was just about the same, lots of returning holiday traffic. Sarah drove through some of the mountains in Northern California while I took a quick nap. We pulled over for a quick break and as soon as I got into the bathroom with Max, he threw up right into the toilet. Sarah's crazy mountain driving made him car sick. Let it be known that I have never made someone throw up with my driving, I'm just saying. We still got home in time for the kids to get in bed and ready to start school the next day.

The good news is that we can go quite a while before feeling like we need to take another road trip.

No updates

2011-11-06T17:05:00.003-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates here. We have a technical issue and I do not currently have admin access to our own website. Google has been seemingly unhelpful thus far. I may be able to post now, but I have no way to edit things for now.

Some early letters to Santa

2011-08-02T21:54:00.003-07:00

I am cleaning up the office while Sarah and the kids are finishing their trip to Michigan. Buried under a pile of papers I found some early letters to Santa that the kids wrote probably a month or two ago. Max likes to keep things simple, while Ella can get very inquisitive.

From Max:

Santa,
I want a big lego pirate ship
I want the Death Star

From Ella:

My Christmas List:
Dear Santa
Last Christmas I loved my new play-house. And my brother is ruining it. I'm relly up set with him.
Questions:
Can you tell me who is on the noty list
EVERYONE?
p.s. Christmas is my favorite holiday

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-06T23:16:00.002-07:00

I hope everyone out there had a nice 4th of July. We were a little caught out by actually having nice weather here in Seattle. The local saying goes that summer doesn't start until the 5th of July in Seattle. With the weather nice we decided to meet up with some friends and check out some fireworks.

We met up with our friends the Dunn's who have three kids of their own. Their son, Gavin is Max's best buddy, then they have another son Ella's age and a daughter who is just a little older than Ella. They live in Sammamish which is close by and Sammamish was having their own fireworks. So we headed to the City park and took up a nice spot on the hill. They had a bunch of things for the kids to do to keep them occupied, bounce houses and things like that. Then we settled in for a cool fireworks display.

For those of you following along at home, you may have noticed that Max got his annual hair cut. He cuts it short then wants it to be long again, after about a year it is long enough and he wants to cut it. We are getting ready for a busy summer. Sarah and the kids are heading back to Michigan for a few weeks, and I have quite a bit of travel to do for work. In fact I fly out the same day as Sarah, even the same flight to Detroit, but then I continue on to Raleigh for a day before heading back to Seattle.

Ella broke her arm

2011-05-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

We have the first broken bone in the family. About 2 weeks ago, Ella fell off the monkey bars and broke her right arm.

The crazy part is that she hobbled around with it for two days before we finally took her to the doctor. She never really complained about it hurting, it didn't bruise up or really swell at all. She complained a little about the pain that first night, but we just gave her some aspirin and then she never complained again.

I even tested it out, I made her squeeze my finger, she seemed to have a lot of strength, and I even asked her if it hurt and she said no.

So finally on the second day when she was still just kind of holding her arm out in front of her, not using it, we decided to take her to the doctor. She wouldn't even write with her right hand, she just gave it her best with her left and got on with business.

Well now you know that it turned out to be broken. We had to take her to a specialist, but they said it wouldn't impact the growth of her arm or anything like that. They put a brace on it, and said to come back in a few weeks. They figured if she was ok, then she would be ok with a brace, no need to cast it up. I think she was kind of disappointed in not having a cast, she was hoping to have everyone sign it.

The brace is nice, because she can take it off and take a bath, and she likes to take it off when she sleeps.

It's a new car!

2011-05-06T02:00:00.002-07:00

We finally had to trade old Betsy about 2 months back. Our 8 year old, 160,000 mile, Buick Rendezvous was starting to show it's age and it was time to upgrade. After shopping for a few weeks, and looking at the Buick Enclave, the new Ford Explorer, and the Audi Q7, we went with another Buick. You just can't beat that GM discount.

So now we are the proud new owners of a 2011 Buick Enclave, this baby is fully loaded, leather, navigation, rear seat DVD (which we did not want but got kind of stuck), AWD, the works. I have to say it is really nice, we are really happy with it so far.

Ella's 7th Birthday

2011-05-04T21:47:00.001-07:00

I cannot believe that it has already been a month since Ella turned 7. She is already acting 17, gets her feistyness from her mother obviously.

For her birthday, Ella took a few friends to the movie to see Hop. The kids all wore bunny ears during the movie, we had about half a row filled with little girls, then Sarah, myself, and Max. The theater brought a little kids meal thing to each kid with some popcorn, candy, and a drink. Ella also got to bring home a movie poster from the movie which is now hanging in her room. I need to get a real movie poster frame that lights up and makes it look cool.

The next day we had dinner with some friends, and Ella's boyfriend Joe, who did not go to Ella's party. She was on a restricted number of guests, she would have invited thirty people if it were up to her. I have to say, I made some amazing cupcakes, I made about 75 in total (for her school, for her party, and some for dinner). But the dinner ones were the best, I whipped up a slated caramel buttercream frosting to top the chocolate cupcakes, they were pretty awesome, but enough about me.

She was delighted with all of her presents, including the dozens that were mailed. Now she is heading full speed ahead towards the big number 8.

Trip to Vegas

2011-03-27T15:52:00.001-07:00

A few weeks back now Sarah and I enjoyed a nice complementary (prize from my poker championship). We had 3 nights and 4 days at the Wynn at the end of the strip. We were hoping to get some nice comps just from our name, but none really came. One pit boss asked for a raise, and a lot of people would do a double take when they saw our name.

We had a great time, the room was fantastic, it is a really nice hotel. So nice, that we didn't do a whole lot at the other casinos. Most everything we did was on the Wynn property, we walked the strip a couple of times and checked out a few things, but it was so convenient to stay that we often did just that.

Our home away from home

Our room

Our view of the strip

The furthest we made it down the strip was to Paris for some crepes and a little gambling. On the way we checked out Bellagio and the Animal Rescue thing at the Mirage. Sarah swears that the people right in front of us there used to work with her when we lived in Fenton. She said they even came over for dinner once or twice. I had no memory of them whatsoever, so we did a good job of avoiding them to avoid an awkward situation.

This is just outside looking up

Caesar's Palace Fountains

Sarah got ferocious at the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat at the Mirage

Dolphin at the Dolphin Habitat, I think they had about 6 of them

This White Lion was pretty cool, I wish they had been playing White Lion tracks over the PA in this area

Besides walking around and enjoying a crepe or a cheeseburger we did all of our eating at the Wynn. Every where you go in Vegas is pretty expensive, we sampled Okada on our first night. Good food although it is mainly a sushi place and I was hoping for a cook it at your table Japanese experience. Apparently, I asked for the wrong side of the restaurant. However, we did have the best seat in the house and made the most out of it. Sarah and I really like to people watch and Vegas is a great place for people watching. You get some really interesting characters in that town. At both of our meals we had some odd couples right next to us. Both times they were married (to each other), but from their conversations (yes, we eavesdrop) you would think that they just met. Maybe some weird role-playing, I don't know.

On the second night, I was having one heck of a run at the poker table, so I didn't want to get up and leave to go eat, so we ate late and just grabbed some food at a little cafe by the casino. We saved our best meal for last, eating at the SW Steakhouse. I will say that it was excellent, but I would not rate it as the best steak that I have ever had, despite it costing twice as much as the best steak I have ever had. But I would probably go back, after I sampled a couple other Vegas steakhouses. We also lived it up that night and saw Le Reve at the Wynn, which is their water based show that is an imitation of Cirque's O (also in Vegas). I will have to check out O one day to make a direct comparison, but Sarah and I really liked Le Reve. The theater was a really cool 360 degree theater with the water/stage in the middle. Every seat had a great view, and the performance was pretty cool. We went all out and did the VIP package which meant nicer seats, champagne, strawberries, and chocolates. The best part was that we had our own personal waitress just for the two of us all night.

That was pretty much it, we ate, saw a show, walked around, and gambled. We kept to a little video poker (for free drinks), craps, and poker. I did well at the poker tables, but gave most of those winnings back to the craps table. That's how it goes I suppose.

Chris Wynn - Poker Champion

2011-01-09T02:00:00.000-08:00

Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Hopefully, the first of many.

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, but I did win a small local poker tournament back in October. Sarah gave me an early birthday present and bought my entry to a poker tournament that our gym (Pro Sports Club) was putting on. The prizes were pretty good and she thought I would have fun. I played pretty good and ended up winning. I won a trip for two to Vegas, four nights at the Wynn Las Vegas, airfare and the whole deal. We are hoping that our name will get us a free room upgrade, we'll see. Little known fact the owner Steve Wynn is not a real Wynn, he changed his name, but I think we will let him join the club as an honorary member. We are going to go in mid February, should be a lot of fun. They even put out a bi-monthly magazine called the Pro Pulse that had a nice photo spread of my victory. Check it out.

The tournament had kind of a weird format, almost like a shootout. We played for an hour and the top two chip leaders at each table moved on the second round. I moved on without having to do a whole lot. They raffled off a few additional seats for people who didn't make the cut. We started with just over a 100 people, and were down to 35 or 40 for the second round which played out the same as the first. Round three got us down to about 24 people and then we played to the final table. At the final table there was another hour long cap to see who would have the most chips at the end of the night. I had a pretty big stack at that point so I just stayed out of trouble and watched everyone else to make sure I kept the lead. I was surprised at how conservative people were and not doing whatever they could to get more chips. Second prize was a $1,000 gift certificate to the gym and then it went down to I think a $200 gift certificate for 8th place, so the real prize was 1st place.

Anyhow, it was pretty fun, they even handed me a trophy at the end. Can't wait to go to Vegas, my parents are coming out to watch the kids while Sarah and I go.

Ella's Vacation Report

2011-01-06T23:25:00.000-08:00

In Ella's 1st grade writer's workshop, Ella decided to write all about our vacation. It was sent home today in her backpack for Sarah and I to read. I am rewriting here for everyone because it is pretty funny, this is word for word, but I corrected the spelling to make it easier to read. I scanned the actual papers, including her illustrations and posted those below each report.

I got so much stuffed animals! I got Bolt, Piglet, and a Pygmy Puff. We went to Harry Potter Land. We went on the Hagrid ride 10 times. I went to Ollivander's to get my wand it had real unicorn hair in inside it. I did real Harry Potter magic!

When we were done with lunch we lost Ella Grace. I thought that she was behind me but she was gone. The moms kept looking for her but the moms didn't find her. But in a while Ella Grace's mom found her. Now I know that to make sure that I'm always be with my mom and dad.

I went to the pool. I did not know that Ella Grace and Anna and Jacob and Ashton were coming. I went on the big waterslide with Jacob. Me and Ella Grace tired but we started swimming then we weren't tired any more. Then me and Ella Grace went on the little waterslide 15 times. My vacation was so FUN!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

2010 - 0, The Wynns - 1. That's right, we kicked 2010's butt, wiped the floor with it. Moved the whole family across the country, started a new job, new routines, new friends, everything and we came out pretty good if I do say so myself. We have a busy 2011 ahead of us, so look out.

New Year's resolutions you ask, ha not for this family. I have never been a resolution kind of a guy, we always have goals that we are working towards, but those goals cannot be stipulated to by a calendar. They happen when they are ready to happen, not because the calendar says May or June.

In other news, Ella lost another tooth. The other front bottom one this time, she lost it in school while in class, it just popped out she said. The tooth fairy got a little stuck and only had a $5 on her, that was it, so this tooth was worth $5. Good thing the tooth fairy wasn't stuck with only a $50 or $100.

I have started another blog to track my renewed interest in brewing my own beer. Follow along, hilarity and failure will undoubtedly ensue - Little Monkey Homebrew.

I was able to earn Silver status on Delta airlines from all of my travel last year. Free upgrades all next year baby, should come in handy on a flight to LA next week...

Finally, thank you all for the presents and warm holiday wishes. Sorry we did not send out any cards this year, we were just a bit busy through December and just did not get to it. I hope everyone enjoyed your holidays, we sure did.

Vacation Report

2010-12-29T15:51:00.002-08:00

Well now that we are through the holidays and getting caught up on most of the stuff around the house (except for cleaning up all of these Christmas presents), I have a moment to write about our trip to Florida.

Not sure I will remember everything, hopefully I will, but there is one thing that I remember for sure. It was cold, not some sissy Florida cold, I mean it was freezing cold. Highs during the day were in the low to mid 50's and when the sun went down it dropped into the 30's. When you are outside all day...in Florida, that is absolutely freezing. In the six years that we lived there, there was never a cold spell like the one that happened when we were there this year, and I believe is still going on. It would get cold like that occassionally, maybe two nights tops, a week and a half was unheard of. We had to buy jackets, hats, gloves, scarves, the whole kit. We had two days in the 60's, so we took advantage of one of them to go swimming. Luckily the pool was heated, but when you got out of the water it was really cold. At least it was sunny the whole time....

We had a whirlwind 9 days on our vacation, between both sets of parents being there while we were there and trying to fit in all of our Florida friends, we were not left with much family time. But we had a lot of fun, so there is no complaining there.

We stayed at our new timeshare, we are members of Disney's Vacation Club now, and this was our first trip using it. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, where we had stayed before. We love looking out from your balcony and seeing giraffes and zebras and other animals native to Africa. Our savannah view this time around was not quite as good, the cool animals mostly seemed to stay on the other side of the building, or it was so freaking cold they just didn't venture around very much, I'm not sure.

One thing that is really cool at Disney around the Holidays is that they deck the whole place out, the parks, the stores, the hotels, everything. The lobby to our hotel was pretty cool, the glass is already pretty festive, and then they put up a giant Christmas tree that you see when you walk in.

Check out these videos from the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Lights at Hollywood Studios. This was taken from some guys house in Arkansas that just went crazy at Christmas time and now they set it up every year at Hollywood studios, filling this entire block of a fake city at the park. It is really impressive.

We of course visited all of the Disney parks, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. It was a lot of fun this time because Max was finally tall enough to ride most of the rides that he never could before. We rode a ton of rides, some firsts for Max were Splash Mountain ("dumb" according to Max, but I bet he rides again), Tower of Terror ("awesome", it terrified Ella who swore to never ride it again the last time she rode it when we lived there, I give her credit for giving it another go), Dinosaur ("awesome" again), Test Track ("so fast, it was awesome"), Soarin' (sorry don't remember his commentary here, we rode this one really late, we were kind of tired).

Max enjoying the Barnstormer at Magic Kingdom

We booked to go on a "Pirate Cruise" to watch the fireworks but unfortunately the boat broke down and we could not do it.

Max and Sarah getting ready to enjoy the Muppets 3D

And of course we continued the tradition of riding Max's favorite ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, 5 times in a row on his 5th birthday. We have done this since his 2nd birthday, so it was pretty exciting for him. One disappointment is that the Star Wars ride was closed because they are redoing it. It definately needed an update, so that is good I guess, but Max really loves that ride so he was a little bummed.

Ride numero uno

Number 2

Number 3, we are mixing in everyone that was with us

The big number 4

Five, ah, ah, ah...

Ella nailed a notable first ride on the legendary Space Mountain. She got a little nervous when she had to get into the seat by herself, but at the end of the ride she really loved it. Sarah and I tried to talk her into riding Expedition Everest with us, but she couldn't quite get up the courage for that one (she was scared of the Yeti), but I think next time she will jump on it. My prediction is that she will love that once, good speed plus some twists, just Ella's style.

Ella about to ride Space Mountain for the first time

Ella also enjoying the Barnstormer, you can see Sarah in the background there

Doing her best impersonation of whatever it is that animal is

Ella, Sarah, and Chris enjoying Bug's Life 3D, we got yelled at for taking this photo

Looking cheeky in a sombrero in Mexico at Epcot

We took good advantage of Disney's Extra Magic Hours to get some extra time with short lines to get some rides, which was great because we could take the days a bit slower, just the way the Wynns like to roll. Extra Magic Hours are when a select park either opens early or stays open a few hours later for any guest staying at a Disney resort. Each day a different park offers it, and they are great because the lines are way shorter. If you know us at all, then you know we didn't attempt any early mornings, so we threw those out and concentrated on the evening hours. There were a few nights where we are at the parks until 1am, getting back to our hotel and into bed around 2am. The kids were troopers and never really got too whiny or tired to go on, they really soldiered up. I really recommend the Extra Magic Hours if you go, you can really zip around and get a lot of rides in. If you make good use of Fast Passes and Extra Magic Hours you can traverse every ride at Disney without hardly having to wait in any lines, giving you time to enjoy some cotton candy, ice cream, funnel cakes, and other awesome things to do.

We took advantage of the lack of crowds so that Sarah could sneak in and take this photo

Ella and Max in good enough spirits to fool around even after staying up late

Did I mention that it was cold? Around midnight it was downright freezing.

We checked out Turtle Talk late at night when not a lot of people were there, which meant less kids to get chosen. Both Max and Ella talked to Crush, Max discussed Macaroni and Cheese, and Ella asked him how he gets his shell. I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get a video of Max, but I did get Ella.

Because we just were not cold enough while we were there, we also took some time out to go visit ICE at Gaylord Palms. The Gaylord Palms is a nice resort in Orlando just outside of Disney. Each December they put up a big gigantic tent in the parking lot, make it freezing cold, and then put in a giant display of carved ice. Sarah's parents had a room there while they were visiting, so we went over to check it out. And it was cold, 8 degrees to be exact, it made outside feel down right tropical. The ice is pretty impressive, some of it is colored, some is all lit up from the inside. It is pretty cool to see, I can't imagine being an ice carver though and spending all of your time in such frigid conditions.

Here is a secret from us to you from our years of experience at Disney. Epcot has the best Santa that you will ever find. As a bonus you get Mrs. Clause as well. So we copped out and had the kids visit Santa while we were at Epcot to avoid having to wait in line at the mall. Ella asked for a puppy, which was quickly over-ruled by her parents (I think Santa talked her into it to be honest), and Max asked for an AT-AT from Star Wars.

Now that the Harry Potter area has opened at Universal Studios, our trip would not have been complete without visiting the park to check it out. Universal's Islands of Adventure is pretty cool because they have a lot of thrill rides that are a little more adventurous than the offerings at any of the Disney parks. The only drawback is that the kids are not big enough to ride most of them. Luckily they have a child swap option where one adult can wait with the kids in a room while the others ride the ride, and then you switch adults. Since we had 4 adults, I was able to ride some of the rides twice in a row while someone else waited with the kids.

The Harry Potter section is pretty cool, the built a whole section of Hogsmeade, which is the little wizard town in Harry Potter. There is a lot of stores selling stuff of course, along with some rides and a restaurant. One of the stores is the candy and toy/prank shop from the films. Ella bought some kind of purple fuzzy stuffed thing (a pygmy I think), and they announce the purchase and whatever she chose to name it to the whole store which was pretty exciting for Ella. They also sell Every Flavor Beans, which if you remember from the films, come in some strange flavors like puke and boogers. We bought some but have not had the courage to eat them yet. They also have Butterbeer from the movies and books that you can only get at the park. It was really good, almost like a butterscotchy root beer or something like that. I think I drank three of them.

Hogsmeade at Univeral Studios in Orlando

There are two main rides that they added as well. One is a small roller coaster, the Flight of the Hippogrif, that all kids can enjoy. Max really loved this one, he was putting his hands up and screaming the whole time, this might have been his favorite ride. The other is a kind of a hard to describe motion experience that is in the castle that is built from the movie. The ride's line is the coolest ever as you walk through the castle, complete with talking paintings (that are incredibly convincing, not just a TV in a frame), and Harry Potter and friends projected onto a platform talking to you (also fairly convincing). It was a pretty cool ride, Sarah chose not to ride it because she gets motion sickness pretty easily and did not want to get sick. When we went to ride it one last time at the end of the day, Sarah and Max headed to the Flight of the Hippogrif. While we were in line, the ride broke down, so Sarah and Max kept riding the ride over and over again until we came out. Then we all rode Flight of the Hippogrif a few more times before heading home. Max ended up riding it 10 times in a row, it was pretty exhilarating.

Ella and I on the Flight of the Hippogrif

Max enjoying the Flight of the Hippogrif

Max rode this 10 times in a row and could not have been more excited

The last thing to do there is to get a wand of course. Everyone knows there is only one place to get a wand, and that is at Ollivander's. That is the store that Harry visited when he bought his wand. It is also the most popular store there, we had to wait in line to get in for about 20 to 30 minutes. However, once you get inside you are treated to a whole experience. A wizard comes down a set of stairs and tells you the history of the shop, he then selected a young boy in the front to see if a wand would chose him. The wizard goes through a whole thing about what the wand is made of and had the boy try it, but the boy choked and wouldn't do the spell. So the wizard sent him back to his parents and then selected Ella to come try it out. He had her try to levitate some books, but instead Ella sent the books all shaking and falling. So he gave her a different wand and she tried to water some flowers, but killed them instead which was funny. He then tried another wand and when he handed it to Ella, wind started blowing through her hair and a spotlight from above her turned on. It was all really dramatic and fun for her. That wand picked her which was great, but you feel a bit obligated to buy it at that point. We had planned on doing that anyway which was a good thing.

It was a good trip, we saw a lot of people, rode a ton of rides, and had a lot of fun. Let's just hope that next time it is a bit warmer and we get to enjoy getting out of rainy, not hot, Seattle.

Christmas at the Wynn's

2010-12-26T23:59:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone had a very jolly day. Here at the Wynn's, we had an excellent, very relaxed day. This was the first Christmas that we spent with just us since having Ella 6 Christmas' ago.

Each of the last 6 years, we have either had family come to us, or we traveled back to Michigan to see friends and family. This year we decided to vacation a few weeks ago and then stay put for Christmas, keep it nice and quiet.

Sarah worked feverishly all week baking cookies to give to our friends here in Seattle. I'm not sure how many cookies she ended up making, but it was a lot. We had a full time bakery going here. On Christmas Eve, we still had enough cookies left to put out quite the plate for Santa who ate them all of course. I hear his favorite was the whoopie pie, I can verify the excellency of the whoopie pies.

Santa stopped by with a few things for the kids. He brought Ella an indoor playhouse for her to play in, and for Max he brought a giant Star Wars AT-AT. They both loved their gifts, Ella had asked Santa for a puppy, but Mom and Dad had to veto that one from the fat man. I wish Santa had taken some measurements before assembly, Ella's playhouse is too big to fit through the door to her room, so it has taken up residence in the bonus room, not exactly what we had in mind.

We spent a nice long day opening presents, having a huge breakfast of Cinnabons, sausage, scrambled eggs, and hash browns. I had to wait in line for 30 minutes just to order the Cinnabons on Christmas Eve, and then go back a few hours later to pick them up. That place was absolutely packed, I think next year I will take them up on their pre-order program. I asked the kids what their favorite presents were and they both answered "all of them", so I guess that is a good sign.

Max opened his stuffed Wampa from Star Wars, complete with a detachable arm so it is just like after Luke cut its arm off

Check out these awesome socks we got the whole family from Little Miss Matched. The whole point is that they do not match, in fact these all came with 3 socks to a "pair". You just grab any two and throw them on. Peace out until next Christmas, we are targeting Hawaii for a Christmas vacation next year, but may end up somewhere else, who knows.

Max's Birthday(s)

2010-12-22T15:22:00.000-08:00

Max really lucked out this year and scored the birthday trifecta, he ended up getting cake 3 different times because we ended up being all over the place around his birthday so he scored 3 little parties with presents, cake, and ice cream. The only trouble was getting all of his presents from Florida back to Seattle. We had to buy 2 new bags to pack stuff in to take back with us, we didn't have enough room in our luggage.

Max kicked off his week of birthday celebration with having a few friends over to the house to watch Star Wars and have some cup cakes and ice cream. It was nice and simple, we ordered a few pizzas and made "light side/dark side" cupcakes. They were just chocolate cupcakes with either red or blue frosting in the middle, the kids had to choose wisely to see which side they ended up on.

Next up, we headed down to Florida for a vacation at Disney World on Max's actual birthday. So we had a birthday lunch at the Magic Kingdom with my parents and some friends from Florida. I think the restuarant was supposed to give Max a cake, but all they brought out was a cupcake. He didn't know the difference and enjoyed it just the same. We continued a tradition of riding Pirates of the Caribean (his favorite ride) 5 times in a row that night, we did it 4 times in a row on his 4th birthday, 3 times in a row on his 3rd birthday, and twice in a row on his 2nd birthday.

And then finally we had a bunch of friends from Florida meet us at our hotel to enjoy the pool (on the only warm day we had on that vacation). We ended up with more pizza and a cake for everyone to enjoy. So Max blew out his candles for the third time, and I ate a whole lot of cake, so much for losing weight this year.

Max loved it all and is happy being 5 now, although he is already talking about what he is going to do on his 6th birthday.

Soccer Update

2010-12-21T16:51:00.002-08:00

Finally getting around to another update here. This time a little sports news before we can post some info from our vacation and Christmas. Both Ella and Max played soccer this fall. Soccer is pretty huge in these parts, there must be a million kids in soccer here. The professional team, the Sounders, are routinely sold out and the games are supposed to really be something. Most everyone stands through the whole game, we haven't had a chance to make it to one yet, but we would like to next year.

Ella played on the local youth league. She got teamed up with a few girls in her school along with a few in nearby charter and private schools. It was a fun team, all girls which was new as Ella played co-ed in Florida. I will say the Apopka league in Florida was really good now that we have a comparison. The program there was really top notch (good uniforms, excellent fields, thoughtful scheduling, etc.). Here in Seattle it feels not quite as good, but Ella still had a lot of fun playing for the Golden Tigers. I did not volunteer to coach this year as I wanted to keep some time to myself, I have to say that I missed it a bit, it is incredibly rewarding to coach little kids in something. Ella's skills increased quite a bit through the year, I think it is starting to click with her. We will probably sign her up in the spring again, though she is asking to try basketball, so we may give that a go at some point. I think I also might try to get her into golf this coming summer, she has the long arms and body to develop a good golf swing.

Ella is hustling to play some defense here

Ella needs to learn the finer details of helping out her teammates, never leave a man behind

Max also played at a nearby indoor facility since he is not old enough for the local youth league yet. They run a nice program just to get kids having fun, they learn some skills and scrimmage every practice. We signed him up again for the winter session, and will probably try baseball in the summer. Max has a real knack for hitting the ball, he might be a good golfer one day too.

Halloween at the Wynns

2010-11-03T21:15:00.002-07:00

Halloween has come and gone and it was the busiest one yet for the Wynn Family. We had a full weekend of activities and a surprise house guest. We had trick-or-treating at Chris' work on Friday, we were having a party at our house on Saturday, and then another party and trick-or-treating at a friend's house on Sunday. Then of course Monday, the 1st was Sarah's birthday. And on Friday, Sarah's mom's boss' son came down to stay with us for the weekend. He lives in Vancouver and was having a car delivered here, so he thought he was going to pop down and pick it up and go back to Vancouver, but the delivery got delayed so he had to stay and help us all weekend.

Pumpkin carving was a fun event. Ella drew a design on hers for Chris to carve. Thinking it would be easy to do some silly face, I went over to check it out and she had drawn 2 trees with a big spider web in between. That was a bit tricky to carve. Max was literally gagging from the smell of the pumpkins and kept his distance. I had to do his whole pumpkin, he didn't really have any interest after getting a whiff of the insides.

Ella decided to dress up as Wonder Woman this year, and she was pretty excited by it. Max had a Captain Rex costume from Star Wars, then on Sunday he decided that he wanted to be Darth Vader without the mask, which we already had a costume for. We went over to a friends house for a halloween party and to go trick-or-treating with a whole group on Sunday. They were a pretty crazy group of kids, running from one house to the next in a race to get a ton of candy. Luckily the weather cooperated and we didn't have to contend with any nasty rain or anything.

Ella & Max in their costumes on our spooky porch

Check out the whole gang of trick-or-treaters

Backing up to Saturday, we decided to host our own Halloween party. Have some friends come over and give the kids another chance to wear their costumes and do it inside to not worry about the weather. In typical Wynn fashion, we over did it a bit. We made whoopie pies, brownies, cupcakes, witch's fingers, sliders, pulled chicken sandwiches, chili, breadbowls, and homemade salsa, and a chocolate fondue. We are still eating the leftovers. We had so many people coming over that we actually hired one of Max's pre-school teachers to come and organize some activities for the kids upstairs so that the adults didn't have to worry about it.

Ella is getting the treat bags ready

Upstairs, decorated for the kid's activities

A menacing site awaiting the revelers when they went upstairs

The desert table

The whoopie pies were awesome

Breadbowls for the chili

The kids put on a costume parade for us

A Day at the Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

With Halloween quickly approaching, we spent the afternoon at the pumpkin patch this past Saturday. We had to get some pumpkins after all. The place was jam packed with people, the kids played around on some hay bales while I went in search of a wheelbarrow to carry the bounty in. We figured, there was no way we would be able to carry them all throughout the field. It was quite the contest to secure an unattended wheelbarrow, I finally found one hidden by a tent and scooped it up before anyone saw it.

Max was probably the fastest pumpkin picker ever. It took him all of about 3 minutes to look at a nice orange, round one and say "that one". We loaded it up and Max spent the rest of the day riding around in style. Take a look at this giant pumpkin that we scored for the front porch, the thing is gigantic. Max's choice is right next to him.

Ella on the other hand has a lot more of Sarah in her when it comes to this type of thing. She has to make the perfect choice and will take her time to make it. She scoured that field looking for the perfect pumpkin. She had 2 criteria, it needed to be orange, and she needed to be able to pick it up. As you can see this one did not fit her criteria.

When I was paying for her pumpkin of choice, I noticed that the bottom of it was a bit rotten, so we had to go through the whole process once again. We went back through every row of the field until she finally found another one. Then on the way back we took a detour through the corn maze that was next to the patch. Once we found our way out I realized that you were supposed to pay to do the maze, felt a little bad that we jumped in there without paying, but such is life sometimes. Besides, we probably went a little overboard on the pumpkins.

We plan on carving these bad boys this week sometime. The rest of the month we are spending getting ready for a Halloween party that we are throwing on the 30th. Now that we live somewhere where Halloween gets cold, we thought it was a good idea to throw a party so the kids get another chance to wear their costumes, especially indoors where it is warmer.

Ella is all lined up to be Wonder Woman, while Max has stuck with his love of Star Wars and is dressing up as Captain Rex.

Ella the Song Writer

2010-10-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

Ella has been getting into pop music lately, her musician of choice right now is Selena Gomez, I must have listened to that CD at least 5 times today driving around with her.

With her new interest, she decided to take up song writing maybe in hopes of becoming a pop-star. She has decided to call herself, Lady Googoo, an obvious spin on Lady Gaga which she finds to be a funny name.

Her first single is titled "Nachos and Cheese", here it is in its entirety.

Nachos and cheese

Olives, sour cream

And meat

Ham, ooh ooh ooh oh

Reach to the sky

Ooh ooh ooh oh

I love you mom

Not bad, I think she might have some talent here.