Extended-Family Christmas

Every other year we spend Christmas with my Mom's side of the family. I had just bought a new camera and 2Gb cards for it, so I filled it up taking lots of pictures and playing with the video function. Here's some videos from it:

Great-Grandpa and Ora playing with electronics:


Aspen, Eden and Ansley playing:


Mitch playing with Ewan and Eden:

Labels: Aspen, Ewan, Ora 5, vacation

posted on Saturday, December 27, 2008

The Martindales Visit the Creation Museum

Christmas day we drove all day long to make it to the Creation Museum in Inglewood, KY (suburb or Cincinnati, OH). We picked this day because Buddy Davis was giving a concert. Buddy writes children's songs and our kids love them.

Here is a video I made of our trip:

Labels: vacation

posted on Friday, December 26, 2008

Camping at Longview Lake

We camped at Longview Lake over the Memorial Day weekend. It rained the first night and we almost aborted the camp trip. Instead we went home, watched the weather, decided to give it another night and bought a weather radio. We had great weather all Saturday and that night as well. There was an 80% chance of rain Sunday night, so we cut our trip a day early.

The only complaint that we had was that many of the other campers were rude or vulgar. I heard the F-word constantly from people of all age groups and had to warn one group of pre-teens that were playing in a greenspace next to our tent to watch their language! I don't run into that problem when camping at KOA. Do state campgrounds attract a different group of people than a KOA?

On a lighter note, Ora 5 and Aspen met some friends on the playground. While there many kids were humming the Indiana Jones theme as they ran around the playground. It reminded me of myself and my brother playing on camp playgrounds and pretending to be in an Indiana Jones adventure.

Here's some pics:

Ewan walking down to the lake through tall grass:


Ewan on the playground:


Ora 5 and Aspen cook hot dogs:


Teaching Aspen to cast:


Ora 5 selects a worm:


Aspen was unafraid to pick up a worm:


Done fishin'. Just give us a Capri Sun:

Labels: vacation

posted on Monday, May 26, 2008

Martindale Texas Vacation

I'll get a full description of our vacation posted up here later, but for now, please take a look at our vacation pictures.

Labels: vacation

posted on Sunday, June 17, 2007

Google's Route 66 Map

Google announced it's My Maps feature today and one of their examples is a Route 66 map. It's better than my unfinished Route 66 Map, but it's nice to know that great minds think alike.

My Maps is a great feature. It allows you to create a map without knowing all the code in the background. In less than an hour I was able to create a new map of our 2005 vacation to the Great Smokey Mountains and Biltmore Estate.

Labels: vacation

posted on Thursday, April 05, 2007