For Xavier’s 5th birthday he wanted to go to the Kalahari, so we’re here in the Wisconsin Dells for a 3 day mini-vacation. Here’s a photo for everyone of the not quite 5 year old taken yesterday. Oskar has been really interested in the new indoor amusement park they’ve opened and has discovered rock climbing. He spent close to an hour on the wall yesterday. Xavier gave it his best trying to keep up with his big brother…

• Indianapolis Motor Speedway
• Indianapolis Children’s Museum
• Horseback Riding
• Lake Patoka
• Bluespring Caverns
• Morton Arboretum

Just a few random pics…

Today was certainly a full day for everyone in the Alyn household. Erik turned 10 today and Xavier attended Erik’s party as well as Alex’s (from his pre-school). Everything came off as planned and a good time was had by all. To see the rest of the photos, be sure to check out the Flickr set or just see them all after the jump.

We’ve just returned from a wonderful week in Florida with Gretchen’s siblings. Rachel and Kevin generously donated a week at their timeshare in Ft. Lauderdale to celebrate Patty’s 29th birthday. The accomodations were wonderful and a good time was had by all. While we were there, we checked out the Young at Art, The Everglades, the beach near the Ft. Lauderdale fishing pier, Butterfly World and the Museum of Discovery and Science. We also spent some time just hanging out by the pool, playing mini-golf and other activities right at the hotel.

The trip back was an adventure when our connecting flight in Atlanta departed for home without us on it! Delta put us up for the night and we made it home safely Monday morning. See a collection of 60 photos from our adventure.

For those who may not have heard, Erik is spending some time with us while Pammy recovers from a surgery she underwent on the 22nd. She’s recovering nicely and Erik’s doing okay being here with Oskar and Xavier. The Alyn Family spent Christmas in Minnesota this year. We were also fortunate to have a white Christmas again.

Gretchen made the annual gingerbread houses, this year adding stained glass windows. The current thinking for next year is to create one larger house and let everyone collaborate on it. The kids had a great time decorating these houses, and eating candy too. Oskar’s friend Aounghus came up and decorated one as well. Xavier decided after a while that he was done working on his, so Egg took over and did some decorating where he felt the house was untouched. You can see a collection of the photos here that include the finished houses.

Christmas morning, the bigger boys were up at 4am to start in on their stockings. After eating most of a chocolate treat they were sent back to bed. Of course they had a hard time sleeping after that. Xavier finally kicked everything off at around 6:30am and our day began. Everyone had a great time opening presents and Xavier finished around dinner time while the other two were done much earlier. More pictures from Christmas day are online here. This year, Xavier received his own Pikachu plush toy like Oskar’s which Xavier immediately turned around and gave to Oskar. Gretchen and I were awestruck at his unselfish action towards his brother. The remainder of the day was filled with Bakugan, Legos, Radio controlled things and art supplies.

The day after Christmas seemed like a good time to get out of the house and so we headed to the Science Museum of Minnesota. The traveling exhibit of CSI is scheduled to leave on January 4 and so Gretchen smartly got us there. We watched the Mysteries of the Great Lakes IMAX and had lunch too. Egg was pretty excited to see the Seismophone and the CSI exhibit as evidenced by the photos he took. Photos from our day are here. We all solved case #3 successfully and enjoyed exploring the dinosaur, weather, light and myriad of other great exhibits the museum has.

Hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas too!

Egg is heading to Virginia next week to assist NWF with a server migration, helping NWF phase out the equipment he originally deployed over 5 years ago now.

Alyn Family in Petroglyph

Since the trip is a working vacation for me, I wasn’t able to head to the Zoo with the family today but I think they had a good time. Here’s a couple of photos to tide you over until I upload a bunch to Flickr.

Balloon Glow

Sunset over Albuquerque

We took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters after a successful elementary school game that featured the staff vs. 5th graders. Both games were a lot of fun although Oskar was frustrated the Globetrotters spent so much time talking instead of playing the game. Xavier seemed to enjoy it… or at least he enjoyed the candy .

Gretchen had a birthday which Oskar and Xavier made a cake and pinata for. The effort spanned a few days but was enjoyed by all. The cake had a slightly deformed shape after sticking to the baking pan, but we shoved it back together and hid the seams with frosting and it tasted just fine!

Oskar also joined Cub Scouts and attended his first Den meeting this past Tuesday. He’ll be joining the Wolf Pack officially in mid May but will participate with the Tigers now. I’m not sure how much fun he’s having yet, but I’m having a blast. So much so that I started a little campfire with the boys in the back yard this evening. Next time we’ll have marshmallows.

Gretchen has also instituted Friday night Pizza night featuring some most excellent home made Pizza that she’s been making. Gretchen and Oskar have also been working hard at Montessori work. Oskar is working hard as a first time pupil for Gretchen as she masters the materials.

Both of the boys are recovering from cases of pink eye and everyone is being hit hard by the seasonal allergies.

Last but not least, I opened my homebrew that I made WAY WAY WAY back in January for the first time. Despite being heavily over carbonated it tastes pretty good. It takes a couple of minutes for the head to go back to liquid though Next time – I’ll move it to the lagering shelves much sooner.

For those that have never been to one of these indoor water parks, you’re missing out on a feat of engineering and a cacophony of sound. The Kalahari is laid out in one very large room. Amenities include a wave pool, lazy river, flow-rider (artificial surf), multiple kiddy pools, hot tubs, basketball pools and water slides, water slides, water slides!

Each resort has their own gimmicky angle to lure guests. Kalahari is based on an African safari. They also have live animals that guests can have their photos taken with. During our visit was this cub and a kangaroo joey.

Friday, we spent about 2 hours in the park, checking out the assorted hot tubs and the “Master Blaster” a roller coaster style water slide that you actually do go uphill on and a few other slides. Then we had a nice dinner in the restaurant that overlooks the wave pool. The boys even got the secret of the flaming water from the hostess. Friday also began the adventure in the arcade where Oskar struck pay dirt with a “skill” based game where you try to roll the coin into a certain portion of a mat. When it goes into the machine, a light bar reads it and determines if it’s a winner. Oskar of course managed to get the 400 ticket reward. We enjoyed desert from a coffee shop there at the resort a brief story time before bed and crashed hard.

Saturday, the official birthday, we woke up and had another nice breakfast overlooking the water park. We missed the initial crowd of folks who race in at the exact moment of opening to snag a chair and packed up, alas, only one night stay, and then headed to the water park. Xavier spent most of his time over the next two hours on the intermediate water slides.

We wrapped up the day with a little while longer in the arcade (a favorite with the older two) and Xavier had a good time too. His favorites tend to involve skee-ball and other games of chance. I did get it to pause for a moment for this shot on the dance mat on his way to some other game.

The big boys worked hard and all told about 1,200 tickets were earned – plastic stuff and candy was bought – success in the mind of a 3, 6 or 9 year old. (In just a few months, at Oskar’s birthday, the kids will all be prime numbers – just noticed that!)

At 2:30ish, we waved goodbye to the Kalahari and headed west, stopping for a pit stop in Sparta, Wisconsin. We found an open coffee shop and had a snack before finishing the drive home. We did presents at the house when we got back.

There are a WHOLE lot more photos if you want to flip through them. I’ll link to the photoset after I re-created it (I goofed it up last night during the upload.)