Dancing with Mae

March 15, 2018

Catching Up – 2016

Wow – a year and a half has flown by without updates on here. We’ve continued all the great adventures, with the requisite photo- and video-taking, but we just don’t ever seem to find time to put things up here. More than anything, I hope to maintain these pages to serve as a one-stop archive of sorts, primarily for the girls when they get older, with the added benefit of being able to update the small circle of people that check in on occasion.

Through much of (though not all) of 2016, I endeavored to record a video every week, piece them together, and post them here…but time got away from me.

So with that, I’ll simply post some of the weekly videos of the months that have flown by faster than I ever could have imagined and let them tell the story. In a subsequent post, I’ll include some event videos, like the 2016 Cannonball, Halloween, Christmas, etc…

In the event you want to binge on these videos, it may be easier to do straight through youtube with this Weekends of 2016 playlist rather than clicking on each video below.

August 6, 2016:

August 13, 2016:

August 20, 2016:

August 27, 2016:

September 4, 2016:

September 11, 2016:

September 24, 2016:

September 30, 2016 (Lula’s 5th Birthday!):

October 8, 2016:

October 15, 2016:

October 22, 2016:

October 29, 2016:

November 5, 2016:

November 12, 2016:

March 4, 2017

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July 2016 in Motion

July, 2016 in motion…lots and lots of adventures, hikes, walks, parks, etc…

First, was a fantastic and memorable long weekend in Yankton:

December 9, 2016

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June 2016 In Motion

This summer, we’ve recorded an exorbitant amount of video. I’m trying to distill it down into a few short videos for the weekends. This is one such block. Later, I’ll post July, August, September, etc…

October 12, 2016

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The Beach Trip in Moving Pictures

We finally wrapped up culling through hours of moving pictures to condense our 10-day beach trip down to a few curated videos.

For best resolution, click the little settings gear and select HD 1080p:

October 5, 2016

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Cannonball 2016 in Photos

For the second time in two years, Grandpa G rode in the Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Race (click here for the 2014 event) which took him through the heart of Kansas. Half way across the country, riders are given a full “rest” day of no riding (the joke was repeated though that little rest was had, given everyone was working on their bikes to maintain the ability to continue riding…) that was timed to take place right here in Kansas. The rest day was in Junction City last time; this time it was in Dodge City. We made the easy drive down there to spend a few days together and couldn’t have had a better time. Auntie Natasha joined us which made it all the more memorable for all of us.

On the way to Dodge City on Saturday, September 17, we stopped at Mushroom Rock State Park, a fantastic little 5-acre state park (the smallest state park in Kansas!). Here is it seen from above — the park straddles the gravel road with “mushroom” rocks found both north and south of the roadway.

Later in the afternoon, we arrived in Dodge City. We located the bike – Number 19 – before tracking down Grandpa G.

Grandpa had Dodge City Sheriff’s Deputy badges for each of the girls:

Later that evening, we ventured over to some railroad tracks behind our dinner location (a fantastic Mexican restaurant in Dodge City) to place some pennies on the tracks in the hopes they’d be flattened over the weekend:

Much of Sunday, the bike was receiving repairs, including rebuilding the clutch:

We ventured to a nearby park for a picnic. This squirrel participated, retrieving one of our discarded apple cores and racing away with it:

We returned to find our flattened coins later that day!

Sunday morning, Grandpa G, along with all the other riders, departed Dodge City westbound through the fog…

…but not before a quick photo op:

Before leaving town, we again visited the tracks and retrieved a few more coins:

A wind farm northeast of Dodge City:

On the return drive Sunday, we detoured to spend a few hours at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve north of Strong City, KS. Wow – what an incredible site! We only had a short time to spend there, but it was enough (1) to know that we’d return for a longer visit another time, (2) to enjoy a picnic on the lawn of the main house, and (3) for the girls to, for the first time, become Junior Rangers through the National Parks program. And the girls made a great new friend – Park Ranger Graves. They couldn’t get enough high-fives from him.

The tour of the main barn was fascinating — complete with 18-inch thick limestone walls. While it was open to the outside, and it was around 90 degrees outdoors around 2pm, it was at least 10 degrees cooler inside.

Completion of the Junior Ranger booklet; earning their badges:

August 12, 2016

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Mae’s Third Birthday – July 16, 2016

July 15, 2016

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Weekend Video – June 18, 2016

The fullest weekend we’ve had in a long, long time. After a Saturday morning run, we went to Crown Center in KC to enjoy the fountain and an outdoor festival before heading in to Kaleidescope and then to Crown Center itself for an indoor picnic lunch. The next day we discovered Cave Spring Park on the Missouri side – what a gem! It has a great little cave that we all explored. It is not a city- or state-run park; rather it appears to be managed nearly entirely by volunteers — a couple of which we ran across on our hike. The park included incredibly varied terrain, including lots of dense forest, a creek, the cave, a little chicken coop in the middle of the forest, and some other oddities along the way. After the hike, we hit up a municipal splash pad not far from the park. After a long bath to rinse away the combination of sweat, sunscreen, and bug spray, we enjoyed an evening bike ride to top off the weekend.

Some day I’ll finally get around to curating all the beach trip video; I have no idea when.

July 9, 2016

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The Beach – 2016 – In Photos – Part 3

The final leg of our beach trip included a stop in Asheville before two additional days of driving to get home. We enjoyed an evening dinner picnic at a rest stop in western North Carolina before pulling into Asheville:
Upon arrival in Asheville, Lula was quick to find a little treasure in the woods on Oak Lane:

Visiting (and meeting new) family down the road:

Thanks to Paul and Jenny, rather than getting trapped in holiday weekend bumper-to-bumper traffic in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, which was our original thinking, we instead took a brief detour into Pisgah National Forest the morning we left Asheville. Specifically, our destination was a peak along the Appalacian Trail: Max Patch:

The 15-20 minute hike up was just the ticket for some restless legs. The view from the top was unparalleled on this trip:

Standing on the USGS marker at the top:

For a lunchtime break, we stopped at Cumberland Mountain State Park in central Tennessee for a picnic:

We stumbled upon a park ranger giving a presentation to several other kids about snakes native to the region:

The last overnight stay of our trip was at a hotel in Paducah Kentucky — and one last chance for a swim before getting home:

Day 10 of our trip took us through southern Illinois — including a lunchtime stop at Crab Orchard National Wildlife Preserve in south-central Illinois. What a gem! We took a great hike through the woods to a spectacular waterfall along an underutilized and overgrown trail — just the kind we love! It was a great midday stop to help the trip last just a little longer before the last leg of driving brought us home.

July 8, 2016

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The Beach – 2016 – In Photos – Part 2

After arriving at the beach, the girls couldn’t get enough time in the sand.

We checked out surfers that were having more luck than we anticipated in the waves right outside our door:

We dug for buried treasure after finding a map in a bottle:

Gold!

A midday trip to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk, with a picnic lunch:

Back at the beach in the afternoon, my dad and his wife visited and we were tasked with burying the girls in the sand. I am told that when I first visited this beach, I wanted nothing to do with being buried in the sand until Natasha went first; then I wanted to be buried too. The same held true for Lula and Mae: Lula was eager, Mae apprehensive, but after Mae confirmed Lula’s approval (see the grin below), she couldn’t resist:

Evening on the beach, as the sun set behind the house:

Shell hunting in pajamas:

An evening drone flight over the beach:

The next day, we started out early, to get a jump on the long lines for the ferry to Ocracoke Island. It turns out we didn’t have to wait too terribly long and fortunately, the weather was perfect, so the wait wasn’t an issue.

Pink Bear accompanied us to the island:

Kind of cool to see our present location on the iPhone map as over the water:

The rumors of abundant seashells on Ocracoke Island proved true:

We may have been a little overcautious with the sunscreen on Mae, but better safe than sorry.

Standing on a beach on a sunny, 80-degree day with no other people as far as the eye can see in either direction was pretty incredible.

The little specs on the beach are us; the blue car parked on the side of the road is ours.

An overhead view, looking south from our location.

We drove south a bit after leaving the beach while briefly considering trekking up the Ocracoke Island lighthouse, but by the time we got there, both girls were completely conked out. After an exhausting day at the beach, we didn’t have it in us to wake them. I hustled in for our National Parks Passport cancellation and we made tracks back north.

The wait for the ferry was again relatively brief, as compared to peak times of the day. We are about 12 or 13 cars back in this line:

Back at the beach the next morning, we were greeted by another unexpected sight: dolphins just off the coast!

And lots of flocks of birds, streaming north:

Before leaving the beach cottage, we discovered an old pirate flag on the porch that had to be flown before we could depart:

After leaving the beach, we drove west through North Carolina. As great as the beach was, some trees (and their shade!) were welcome sights. Umstead State Park was our midday stop, on the way to Asheville.

June 29, 2016

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The Beach – 2016 – In Photos – Part 1

In late May, we embarked on the longest roadtrip we’ve taken since the girls were born – a 10 day trip centered on several days on the beach of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Photos will be posted in groups – this is part 1 of three — the trek East.

Lunch day 1 at the St. Louis Arch. Construction on the arch grounds had a large area blocked off, but we were still able to access the arch and go beneath to the museum and gift shop.

Looking West, at the Old Courthouse: In line to get (free) tickets to enter the underground portion of the arch.

Heading east through Kentucky…

Lunch on Day 2 — at the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia:

Adding a cancellation to our National Parks Passport books:

The small gift shop across the street from the Parks grounds proved irresistible:

Looking south through the gorge. We took the narrow winding road down from the Visitor’s Center to the gorge below — the road in the center-left of this frame.