We went to the Jones Reunion today. We are related to the Jones on my father-in-law's side of the family. They can be traced back to some royalty in France, I believe, through Jeremiah Jones' wife, Susanna Agee. It's always a good time. We get to socialize and reminisce. We had a big group this year too. It was nice to see lots of new faces, and get reacquainted with old ones too. There's lots of good food. We'll have some great entertainment. This year, we had the Blues Brothers. They had a great show!

We went camping this past weekend. Not typical camping though. Yes, we set up a tent, and all that, but our day was not spent a campground, but rather next door at Kings Dominion. Not everyone got to enjoy it, though. Austin's arm is still in a cast, and with the weather forecast predicting record hit, and the fact that we didn't want to re-injure it, we decided to let him stay with Grandma and Grandpa.

The weather prediction was right. It was hot! I mean HOT! Heat index of 105 to 107 for the weekend.The heat apparently kept many people away as the park was not very crowded, and the lines were not very long. Most everything was more-or-less walk on, and that made for a lot of coaster riding. We rode every coaster there, except for Volcano. By we I mean that I rode every coaster, and Hannah rode all of the ones that she was tall enough for (including Rebel Yell, and Anaconda). I was able to ride in the front of the new coaster, Dominator. It was a great ride. Kings Dominion acquired the old Batman ride from Geauga Lakes, re-themed it, and renamed it to Dominator. Very smooth ride. I highly recommend it.

We are planning on going back later this month when Austin finally has his cast removed, and are going to try to meet Elliot Sadler when he is there. Some other planned trips for the summer including Dorney Park (for the first time), Carowinds (for a second time), Kings Island (despite the fact that Austin broke his arm there), and Cedar Point. As always, we'll post lots of photos for everyone to enjoy.

Ride On!

I have uploaded quite a few more sets of photos. Included in this batch are several events from this year, including our trip to Charlotte, NC and the NASCAR SpeedPark. While we were in Charlotte, we also stopped by to see Jeff Gordon. He was out for the day, but he let me take his car for a ride.

There are some pictures from this past Memorial Day. We went to the local cemetery to visit my wife's maternal grandparents.

I uploaded photos from Hannah's and Austin birthdays this year. Hannah celebrated her eighth birthday, and Austin turned five, and will be heading to school this fall. Speaking of school, I also added photos from Hannah's end-of-school party. They visited the local bowling alley, and had planned on going to a local playground, but it was rained out.

We even went to see some Disney on Ice this year. All this, and more, and summer is just beginning. I'll be posting the rest of the stuff we have done this year, as well as everything else we do. I have some older things I want to upload as well, and will get those as time permits.

Less than a week, and here I am posting again. Miracles never cease.

We got a croquet set this weekend, and have been playing that some. For what is touted as a simple game, it sure does have a lot of rules that can get very complicated, very fast. I found a nice variation on it though, called Poison, that seems like more fun than the traditional way where you keep points. The only downside to all of this is that I have yet to win. Kim has won every game so far. Its pretty fun though, and if you have never played, I highly recommend giving it a try. It is worth it.

I have decided to keep my blog look the same for now. I started to make some changes, but decided that I still like it for the most part, so Simpsonized it stays. At least for now. I have put the links back to my original games (for Mac only). I do have a re-vamped version of Kaboom that I have posted as well. I'll post the Windows version sometime in the near future.

Lots of new photos are going to be added in the coming days. There has been a lot going on since I last posted any photos, and so I have a lot to post.

We went to the Amish Country (Sugarcreek, Ohio area) this past weekend with a group from my sister-in-law's church. We had a great time. Awesome food as always, and Kim picked up a few things that she wanetd to get for decorating the house. We saw quite a few Amish folk out and about doing business and such while we were there. They have such an interesting lifestyle. I think it would be quite interesting to learn more about theur lifestyle. I would like to try it sometime, but definitely could never do that full-time now having known all the luxuries we enjoy. But they seem quite content, and they definitely know how to enjoy the simple things. Hannah really liked seeing all the horses all over the place. She loves horses, so it was like a dream come true for her to be around so many. She got to pet one of the ones pulling an Amish buggy. I thought that was really nice of hte gentleman to answer such a simple request from a little girl. I took a few photos while we were there, and I have posted those in the photo albums area.

One final note: the Kaboom game is finally done, and I will be posting it to the site here really soon. Be on the lookout.

Just got back from Kings Island once again. This was our third trip there this summer, and should be our last for the year. Of course, you just never can tell. We had a great time as usual. The weather was perfect. The most odd thing I had ever seen there though was that the kiddie-land was crowded and all the big rides were pretty close to walk-on rides, or had very short lines. Hannah rode the Vortex for the first time today. She really liked it. She rode Top Gun for hte first time today. She thought the ride was too short (So do I!). Kim and I rode Flight of Fear. That's the first time we have been able to ride that together in a long time. Kim's sister Brenda came with us, and she watched the kids while Kim and I rode. That was a huge help. Austin rode the pirate ship for the first time today. He really liked it. He rode the Shake,Ratte, and Roll too. It's like the Scrambler, but you go up in the air. He really likes the "air-time" type rides. I posted some new photos as well, so check those out too.

We have just returned from our second trip to Kings Dominion. As always, I posted some new pics for you guys to enjoy. This trip was better than the last in some ways, and more exciting in some ways too. Last time, we had all the fun of a tent collapsing while we were attempting to put it up in the rain. Then we had to repair it (and thankfully Kim remembered to remind me to bring duct tape!). This time we managed to get the tent up in one piece, and didn't have to fight the rain. Near the end of the trip though, we had quite a storm, and a big branch from the tree directly above us, broke and fell, missing our tent by mere inches. The rain poured, but we only had a minor leak from when the air mattress was leaning against the edge of the tent while we were in the park. The campground did refund us a night's stay which I thought was a great gesture on their part. We weren't upset about anything, but it sure does make you feel good to know that they want you to feel a little bit of relief after going through that. Or maybe they are trying to avoid a lawsuit.. Either way, I'll take anything free!

I did make some time this trip to build some campfires, and I learned that pine needles make great fire starters (Insert clever Smokey the Bear joke here). We managed to ride some things that we left off last time around, and Austin became a bit more brave, tackling the Triple Spin, the Scooby Doo Ghoster Coaster, and the Flying Eagles and Avalanche more times than I can count. Hannah rode the Anaconda in the front with me, and I got the chance to ride Shockwave and Flight of Fear (I rode this at Kings Island as well, but at Kings Dominion you can see more of the track which makes for a better ride.)

During the rain one day while in the park, we took shelter in the loading area for the Avalanche, and we spent some time chatting with a couple of the workers. They were great, and after the rain quit, we rode the Avalanche like eight or ten times straight without ever leaving our cars. The front of that ride is awesome, and if you get the chance to ride, ride up front.

Back-tracking a little bit, while we were in line to enter the park on our second day, a gentleman came up to us, and gave us a free meal tickets to a all-you-can-eat buffet in the Picnic Grove sponsored by the DC Police. Apparently this fellow and his family couldn't make it, and had a prior appointment, and he didn't want the tickets to go to waste. We ate great, and if that fellow happens to read this blog entry, my family and I want to send a BIG THANK YOU to you. The food was great, and we ate more than we should have. I had a hamburger, a barbecue pork sandwich, roasted chicken breast, ice cream, cake, salad, and rolls. It was quite a meal. (Note to Saturn: when you have Saturn Day at Kings Island again, contact the planners of this feast.. you could take a lesson or two.)

Overall this was a great trip. I am not sure if this is our last trip of the year, but if it was, it was a great way to end the year.

We took another trip to Kings Island this weekend. There are new photos posted in the Kings Island photo album for this year. Overall, a pretty good trip. At the end of the day, we return to our van to find that I had left our portable fridge hooked up to the cigarette lighter, and our battery completely dead. Thankfully, Kings Island has a great customer service group, and within 5 minutes of talking to the customer service folks, the van was running. This makes the second time I have drained my battery using that portable fridge. This is one time I wish that the cigarette lighter plugs didn't function when the van is off. But aside from that, a good trip.