Then we went to the birthday party where Caden has a blast, and ended the afternoon with a trip to the playground by the Renissance Tower.
Showing posts with label Travels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travels. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
March 6, 2009: Day Trip to Florence
We took a day trip to Florence in early March for a birthday party! We arrived a little early so we stopped by our old stomping grounds! It was Caden's first visit to The University of North Alabma. We took him to see the Lions (Leo and Una). He was so cute roaring at them.
Then we went to the birthday party where Caden has a blast, and ended the afternoon with a trip to the playground by the Renissance Tower.
Then we went to the birthday party where Caden has a blast, and ended the afternoon with a trip to the playground by the Renissance Tower.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Celebratory Beach Vacation
I can't remember what I've posted on here and what I haven't. The plan was to print all of this each year as a keepsake and I've basically left out everything that's happened since 2009 started! Sigh... I'm especially sad about all the cute things Caden has done in the last 3 months we've been back in Huntsville...
When we arrived back in Huntsville John immediately started getting his resume out to people, meeting people, etc. It was so cool to see God at work during this time. John received two job offers in the same week! One was a government job and the other was a contractor job. We prayed and talked and weighed out all the pros and cons and in the end John felt led to accept the contract job as a Systems Analyst for a company called AEgis (pronounced EE-gis) Technologies. John's been working there for almost a month now and he really loves it! We feel very blessed to have found a job so quickly in the current economy. And, because I love to brag on my amazing husband he actually got a call for a 3rd interview from another big name in the contractor world shortly after accepting his job with AEgis! :)
After signing on the dotted line we headed to the beach for a mini-vacation to celebrate! Of course the rain rolled in when we got there and rained (I'm talking torrential, relentless downpours, hurricane force winds, and tornadoes) the entire time we were there! Fortunately our condo was less than a mile from the outlets so we shopped our hearts out! It was SO much fun to go on such a shopping spree. We spoiled ourselves! It was so much fun though after the lack of shopping available to us in Korea.
As our time drew close to an end we saw the forecast predicted beautiful sunny skies the day we were supposed to leave, so we extended our vacation one extra day so we could at least see the sun and show Caden the beach! It was an amazing trip! 
When we arrived back in Huntsville John immediately started getting his resume out to people, meeting people, etc. It was so cool to see God at work during this time. John received two job offers in the same week! One was a government job and the other was a contractor job. We prayed and talked and weighed out all the pros and cons and in the end John felt led to accept the contract job as a Systems Analyst for a company called AEgis (pronounced EE-gis) Technologies. John's been working there for almost a month now and he really loves it! We feel very blessed to have found a job so quickly in the current economy. And, because I love to brag on my amazing husband he actually got a call for a 3rd interview from another big name in the contractor world shortly after accepting his job with AEgis! :)
After signing on the dotted line we headed to the beach for a mini-vacation to celebrate! Of course the rain rolled in when we got there and rained (I'm talking torrential, relentless downpours, hurricane force winds, and tornadoes) the entire time we were there! Fortunately our condo was less than a mile from the outlets so we shopped our hearts out! It was SO much fun to go on such a shopping spree. We spoiled ourselves! It was so much fun though after the lack of shopping available to us in Korea.
As our time drew close to an end we saw the forecast predicted beautiful sunny skies the day we were supposed to leave, so we extended our vacation one extra day so we could at least see the sun and show Caden the beach! It was an amazing trip!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Cousins Finally Meet...
On July 5, 2006 the first grandchild to the Nichol's family (Isabella) was born. One year later (the exact same day) Caden made his grand entrance followed in August by Addie and in September by Cyrus. All three Nichol's ladies were pregnant at the same time and all during our pregnancies talked about how much fun it will be having little ones so close in age. And fun it was when we got them all together for the first time! John's Mom was in Grammy Heaven the whole weekend. Here are some pictures/videos from our time together:
Saturday, January 31, 2009
We made it!
It's been over a week since we arrived back in Hunstville, Alabama! We flew out of Korea on Thursday Jan 22, at 6pm, and arrived in Huntsville on Thursday Jan 22, at 8pm! Only two hours of travel! Haha! Wouldn't that have been nice! Total travel time was actually 25 hours, but that doesn't include the hours of "awake time" we had since Caden decided to wake up at 4:45 am the day we left (which would have put us just over 30 hours of travel time, before arriving in Huntsville).
God saw some flaws in our planning and we truly think he knew Caden needed to wake us up early that day. It actually worked out quite well. Caden slept the entire 2 hour bus ride to the airport and we actually had to wake him up when we arrived!
At the airport we faced our next big challenge: getting all of our 7 suitcases, 6 carry on's, a stroller, a pack and play, and a car seat from the bus to the gate all while toting a toddler. God, again, provided for us! There was a bellman (or whatever you call them) waiting at the exact spot the bus unloaded us and he took care of it ALL!
The rest of the trip I will share in little "snippets" with the pictures below:
Once through security we found our gate and next to it was a play area for kids. This was just one of about 30 of these play areas situated throughout the airport. Korea is just so kid/baby friendly! The play areas were all very clean. Caden played here until John's tummy told him it was time for a snack...
We had some ice cream for a snack... and it was here that we think we lost Caden's little teddy bear that I bought for him when I was pregnant. It is so hard on a mommy to lose something with sentimental value... We realized the bear was missing as we were boarding the plane and I got permission to go run through the airport frantically searching for it, but returned empty handed...
At gate 113 (our gate) Caden spotted the little walk way things that are like flat escalators... he has an obsession with escalators lately so he spent the remaining 30 minutes or so before we boarded the plane riding on these. John rigged up the suitcase that he wanted to carry (but was too heavy for him) with some string so Caden thought he was hot stuff pulling his little suitcase around!
On the plane we were fortunate enough to get the bulkhead seats, and ones by the window at that! Caden stayed awake about the first two hours of the flight, and then he was spent! He was so tired that it took nothing more than his blanket and paci and he was out in minutes! He slept for about an hour, then woke up briefly trying to roll over, but found he was strapped in his car seat... so we decided to put a pallet on the floor under his seat and let him sleep there... and he did for 4 more hours! In the picture below you can see the little bulkhead area where he slept.
Here is is watching a video on Daddy's tray table (his wouldn't come up over the seat- one disadvantage of bulkheads).
After a 13.5 hour flight we arrived in Atlanta, quickly transitioned to a new plane to take us to Huntsville and an hour later (Caden slept the entire time) we arrived home!! After exiting the gate in Huntsville, Caden wandered over to the nearest bench in the deserted airport and climbed up... he was ready for sleep!
Here we are greeting my family (it took two trucks to get all our stuff home)...
God saw some flaws in our planning and we truly think he knew Caden needed to wake us up early that day. It actually worked out quite well. Caden slept the entire 2 hour bus ride to the airport and we actually had to wake him up when we arrived!
At the airport we faced our next big challenge: getting all of our 7 suitcases, 6 carry on's, a stroller, a pack and play, and a car seat from the bus to the gate all while toting a toddler. God, again, provided for us! There was a bellman (or whatever you call them) waiting at the exact spot the bus unloaded us and he took care of it ALL!
The rest of the trip I will share in little "snippets" with the pictures below:
We arrived at the airport about 2.5 hours before our flight opened. We planned it this way hoping we would be the first in line to get our tickets when the flight opened and maybe get a bulkhead seat. So, for lunch we picnicked with some McDonald's on the benches by the Delta counter.
Our luggage... We had a lot of luggage (as you can see). Many of you are probably thinking we paid a pretty penny to get all these bags on the plane, but actually Delta allows 10 bag up to 100 lbs each (that's 1,000 pounds total!) for military members traveling on orders. Nice!
We decided to check our stroller under the plane and use a handy little strap to convert our rolling carry-on suitcase into a stroller by attaching the car seat! The best $12 we ever spent!
Once through security we found our gate and next to it was a play area for kids. This was just one of about 30 of these play areas situated throughout the airport. Korea is just so kid/baby friendly! The play areas were all very clean. Caden played here until John's tummy told him it was time for a snack...
We had some ice cream for a snack... and it was here that we think we lost Caden's little teddy bear that I bought for him when I was pregnant. It is so hard on a mommy to lose something with sentimental value... We realized the bear was missing as we were boarding the plane and I got permission to go run through the airport frantically searching for it, but returned empty handed...At gate 113 (our gate) Caden spotted the little walk way things that are like flat escalators... he has an obsession with escalators lately so he spent the remaining 30 minutes or so before we boarded the plane riding on these. John rigged up the suitcase that he wanted to carry (but was too heavy for him) with some string so Caden thought he was hot stuff pulling his little suitcase around!
On the plane we were fortunate enough to get the bulkhead seats, and ones by the window at that! Caden stayed awake about the first two hours of the flight, and then he was spent! He was so tired that it took nothing more than his blanket and paci and he was out in minutes! He slept for about an hour, then woke up briefly trying to roll over, but found he was strapped in his car seat... so we decided to put a pallet on the floor under his seat and let him sleep there... and he did for 4 more hours! In the picture below you can see the little bulkhead area where he slept.
Here is is watching a video on Daddy's tray table (his wouldn't come up over the seat- one disadvantage of bulkheads).After a 13.5 hour flight we arrived in Atlanta, quickly transitioned to a new plane to take us to Huntsville and an hour later (Caden slept the entire time) we arrived home!! After exiting the gate in Huntsville, Caden wandered over to the nearest bench in the deserted airport and climbed up... he was ready for sleep!
Here we are greeting my family (it took two trucks to get all our stuff home)...
We're very glad to be back!!
Monday, December 15, 2008
13 Hours, 30 Minutes...
13 hours, 30 minutes... that's how long the flight is from Korea to Atlanta. At least the second leg of the flight (Atlanta to Huntsville) is only about 45 minutes. Whew!
The end is in sight for our time here in Korea, and it will be a very bittersweet goodbye for us. We only have just over 5 weeks left here! I'm very torn, emotionally, about being sad to say goodbye to the great friend's I've made here among many other things, and being very excited to get home to my family, dog, and America! I am not, however, looking forward in any way to the very, very long flight home... with a 17.5 month old little boy who needs his freedom to roam and explore. Caden can not stay home all day, he would go insane, so it will be very interesting to see how he does cooped up in a plane (ahem, in a car seat) for 13+ hours. We did break down and buy a harness for him (aka a leash... yes we will be one of 'those' parents and proud of it)!
I have two reasons for posting this:
1) For prayer! Start early friends! We will take all the prayers you can give us for our little man to somehow sleep well and behave as best as can be expected on this long flight! We managed to get a red eye (overnight) flight so I hope that pays off a little!!
2) For advice! I have many readers who've done this before! I'll take any suggestions you have to give me! Especially advice on toys, foods, medicines, and other must have items to keep my toddler entertained!! So far we've got a magnadoodle, some new interactive (lift the flap type) books, new DVDs and a DVD player with a 13 hour battery life (plus we'll have our laptops), a new toy cell phone, and a few other small toys... what else should we bring??
The end is in sight for our time here in Korea, and it will be a very bittersweet goodbye for us. We only have just over 5 weeks left here! I'm very torn, emotionally, about being sad to say goodbye to the great friend's I've made here among many other things, and being very excited to get home to my family, dog, and America! I am not, however, looking forward in any way to the very, very long flight home... with a 17.5 month old little boy who needs his freedom to roam and explore. Caden can not stay home all day, he would go insane, so it will be very interesting to see how he does cooped up in a plane (ahem, in a car seat) for 13+ hours. We did break down and buy a harness for him (aka a leash... yes we will be one of 'those' parents and proud of it)!
I have two reasons for posting this:
1) For prayer! Start early friends! We will take all the prayers you can give us for our little man to somehow sleep well and behave as best as can be expected on this long flight! We managed to get a red eye (overnight) flight so I hope that pays off a little!!
2) For advice! I have many readers who've done this before! I'll take any suggestions you have to give me! Especially advice on toys, foods, medicines, and other must have items to keep my toddler entertained!! So far we've got a magnadoodle, some new interactive (lift the flap type) books, new DVDs and a DVD player with a 13 hour battery life (plus we'll have our laptops), a new toy cell phone, and a few other small toys... what else should we bring??
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Amenities
In preparation for our upcoming trip to China I got on the hotel website to see what amenities they have to help me determine what I need to pack...
You KNOW you're traveling in a foreign country when "Hot Water" is listed as a hotel amenity! A few of these made me chuckle and I hope they will you too...
Internet access–high speed
Cribs (infant beds) available
Domestic Direct-dial phone
International Direct-dial phone
Complimentary newspaper
Hair dryer
In-room safe
Wheelchair Access
Desk
Fridge
Coffee/Tea-making Facilities
Minibar
Table Lamp
Shoe Shine
220DC
220AC
24hour hot water
Slippers
Housekeeping
Smoking Rooms
Bedside Light
Thick Towels
Hot and cold water
Central air conditioning
You KNOW you're traveling in a foreign country when "Hot Water" is listed as a hotel amenity! A few of these made me chuckle and I hope they will you too...
Internet access–high speed
Cribs (infant beds) available
Domestic Direct-dial phone
International Direct-dial phone
Complimentary newspaper
Hair dryer
In-room safe
Wheelchair Access
Desk
Fridge
Coffee/Tea-making Facilities
Minibar
Table Lamp
Shoe Shine
220DC
220AC
24hour hot water
Slippers
Housekeeping
Smoking Rooms
Bedside Light
Thick Towels
Hot and cold water
Central air conditioning
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