Wordless Wednesday

a perfect way to end the day

Photoshop Note: I corrected the exposure on the sunset portion of this picture by following the instructions in the fabulous Photojojo tutorial Find Detail in Your Photos That You thought Was Lost...in Five minutes or Less. I was able to select the bright portion of the picture based on color range (genius!) and then adjust the levels of just that portion of the picture. A huge improvement in just minutes!

weekly winners june 22-28

This weeks winners are from our trip to North Conway, NH and Storyland Amusement Park. Nothing like some summer family fun!

Happy Family

Let's Go Daddy!

I princess, Mommy!

Claire Hits the Kiddie Pool

Exhaustion

See more Weekly Winners over at Sarcastic Mom

a good old fashion family road trip

My husband and I enjoy traveling very much. Back in the days of two incomes and no kids, there was lots of traveling going on here. Business trips, trips to visit friends and fabulous vacations together. Weeks relaxing on the beach. Weeks exploring fabulous cities. Good food. Lots of drinking.

Our biggest limitation was the number of vacation days we had.

Add two kids and subtract one income. Gone is the time. Gone is the disposable income. Gone is the traveling.

So we were thrilled when an offer of $400 in free travel money from American Express Blue landed in our mailbox. What to do? A romantic weekend? New York City? A spa maybe?

After considering all the wonderful possibilities, we settled on a hotel that features a talking moose head in the lobby, trays of cookies at snack time and fabulous pools. The big local attraction? Storyland Amusement Park.

Oh, how times have changed.

The girl’s favorite parts of the trip were fairly predictable- the abundance of macaroni and cheese, the late nights spent in the pool, the roller coasters (Abby) and the carousel (Claire). The exhaustion and kiddie meltdowns were also fairly predictable. Abby's passionate fear of moose heads was a bit of a surprise, but she survived.

My favorite moments?

...watching my fearless daughter enthusiastically run from ride to ride, then watching her laugh and laugh when Daddy got soaked on the River Raft ride...



...enjoying a delicious burger and a beer on the deck of a surprisingly good restaurant overlooking beautiful mountains, then watching the girls dance in the summer rain after all the other sensible diners had gone inside....



...splashing around in the pool and the hot tub with the girls long after their normal bedtimes...



... all falling into bed exhausted at the end of each day ...

... and waking up at 8:30am and quietly watching my still exhausted two year old peacefully sleep for another half an hour.

These are the memories that I will hold on to as I return to the reality of an empty refrigerator, a pile of dirty laundry and two overtired, grumpy kids.