Of course who doesn’t want to be able to go to Hawaii all the time and just relax and have fun with your family? I suppose I’d be crazy to say, Geez I sure wish we didn’t have to do THAT again.

Maui is a great place for families we learned, and had a beautiful trip to the island for 6 nights. The weather wasn’t as accomodating as we would have liked for sun and warmth-starved Northwestern dwellers, but it gave us enough opportunities to enjoy shorts, t-shirts and sandals appropriately.

Some items of note for this trip:

• Cora didn’t exactly warm up to water play, BUT she didn’t give it the cold shoulder she has in the past.
• Lots of pets/animals and other things to look at helped keep her happy, which meant we were happy.
• A fridge and a sink are invaluable when you travel with a toddler, we thought we could get away without it, wrong!

Eventually we’ll get more pictures up on the site, but it will have to wait until watching the videos doesn’t make me seasick.

Cora, Cora, how big you’ve gotten! Old enough to celebrate the birth of her nation with a smile and spirit.

Dipping her feet in Kelly’s Creek to cool off.

We celebrated Independence Day between Hurricane, Glasgow and Mammoth, West Virginia with the Beard Family. It was a scorcher for the area, averaging 97 degrees each day that we were here. Which was a real treat after the freak storms that hit the area, disabling electric service for over 200,000 people.

We celebrated nonetheless, enjoying cousins, aunts and uncles aplenty. And my favorite person to visit, Toots, Grandma Beard! She makes a great hostess and is such a fun lady to share with Cora. I hope she gets to share many more visits with us.

For Cora’s milestones, this trip saw more pulling up on the furniture and standing on her own. Lots of squats and pull-ups to get stronger for the walking she is bound to do soon enough.

More pictures can be found here.

We travelled from Austin to El Paso in about 8 hours thanks to my lead foot and Sean’s iron bladder. The wind was killing our gas mileage and we averaged only 20 mpg from Fredericksburg to Van Horn. This area clearly is appropriate for all the wind farms dotting the plateaus along I-10 on the route to El Paso.

There was also a lot of varied terrain in this part of our trip. The last time we came out this way by car was Christmas 2008 and there was virtually nothing growing. Now look at all the green!

Once we arrived in western El Paso, Grandma Miller warmly greeted us and helped us settle in for the night. Karen Miller, Sean’s aunt was due home in a couple hours (we arrived much earlier than all our technology told us we would) and Lorne and Rich Schriver from Las Cruces, NM (Sean’s aunt and uncle) would also join us for dinner.

Dinner was at a great place to celebrate the southwest into which we were about to head: Great American Land & Cattle restaurant, home of the famous steakburgers. There were a lot of antlers and leather rugs on the wall. Doesn’t that make you think of the southwest?

To wrap up the evening we connected via Skype to Sean’s parents in Magnolia. We wanted to test out the connection and give Bonnie a chance to chat live with her mother and sister. It was fun to see the enjoyment on all sides. Sean looks a lot like his dad via video camera.

The next morning, I made up a workout in the local park to try and keep myself primed and ready for the World Club Championships with Showdown in Prague. Great scenery and the cool dry air made it easy. I got back and we had breakfast with Grandma and Karen then headed out.

We gassed up after crossing in to NM at a Chevron and have now officially contributed to the bottom line for all the major oil companies (here’s to you Kim B., Amber A. and Julie S.!) and will undoubtably spend plenty of money to help you guys stay employed. We are now officially crossing in to uncharted territory for both of us.

I have to figure out an easier way to get pictures to this site than what I’ve used in the past but you had better believe they’re coming. I can’t promise our idea of “adventure” will be as exciting as you had hoped but each gory detail of it will be here in some way.

We’re on the road officially now that we have left Houston behind after visiting my parents, the Moore’s in northwest Houston.

On Saturday, before what Sean called “the handoff”, my parents and Sean and I caught a movie at this cool theatre that serves you while you watch the movie. And you can keep ordering after the movie has started! You could get a full compliment of drinks and food but we were already starting to feel the pain of eating out for every meal so we didn’t go overboard.

After the movie, we had dinner at Goode Barbeque for a final (of sorts) Hurrah for Texas barbecue. I’m sure we’ll have some on our stop in Austin or El Paso.

We also stopped in Magnolia for the 2nd leg of the trip to spend a little time with Sean’s parents. We went for a nice walk through the neighborhood, saw a lot of deer and enjoyed the cooler temperatures since we were out of the city.