Time for our next stop on the trip! San Francisco!
When Theresa was looking at flights up to Washington from San Diego, there was nothing direct. They all had at least 2 legs. In her research, the Hyatt at the San Francisco airport is supposed to have an excellent Club Lounge. The flight times worked out really well for us too, so off to San Francisco we flew!
It's been 2 weeks of keeping ourselves very busy in Southern California with the Pasadena Chalk Festival, visiting friends, playing volleyball, and everything else. Now it's time to relax for a few days and take it a little bit slower. Theresa had the perfect option. A Hyatt hotel on the waterfront in San Diego! And the best part of it, they have a lounge!
Last year, we visited Japan for a few weeks seeing lots of amazing things. When T asked Alli what her favorite part of everything was, she was told "The hotel lounge with all the free food!" Well we don't have to travel international for that. We can do that right here!
The kids really like Pokemon. Theresa and I like Disney. We thought it would be fun to do a chalk mural mashup of what it might look like if the characters from Pokemon visited Disneyland!
This was our mural for the 2024 Pasadena Chalk Festival held June 22 and 23 at the Pasadena Convention Center.
I had two different cameras running time-lapse photos during the chalk festival, and this video is the result of 9792 photos taken across 2 different days. I normally try to set up so there's no shadows in the shot, but it was a losing battle this year. A light pole (that I used to hold my time-lapse cameras) was throwing a shadow right from the get-go. And so you'll see shadows, umbrellas, bumped cameras, and everything else in the timelapse. Enjoy!
Well it's time to leave Colorado and head to the sunny state of California! Dad dropped us off at the airport and away we went!
The 2024 Pasadena Chalk Festival is mostly about the chalk on the ground, but did you know there's a way to take home some artwork too? All the artists are requested to provide a 1'x1' painting for the Lightbringer Project to auction off to raise money to support the different programs they have throughout the year. See if you can match the chalk artist with their painting!
I have to start with this painting by my friend Charlotte. She posted a couple pictures while she was working on it, and it was just stunning to see.
The Pasadena Chalk Festival was a blast, and we were just one of hundreds of other artists drawing murals. Here's a page showcasing many of them. Very picture heavy post this time with minimal commenting from me.
Ruston's first year chalking alone turned out great!
Our friend Jamie Leake always does something humorous. He said this was inspired by conversations with his son.
Time to continue our summer adventure and fly to Colorado! We're leaving the RV in Michigan and traveling the next couple months by plane! When we looked at the cost of fuel and campgrounds, it made more sense to fly and rent a car/hotel once we arrived.
When we last left off from our 2024 Summer road trip, we had just left the Sauerbeck Drive-In Movie Theater where we stayed the night and were driving to Michigan. Now we're in Michigan with family for the next couple weeks!
The first opportunity she could, Grammy made her famous chicken nuggets for the kids.
Time for Day 2 of our Pasadena Chalk Festival Adventure!
It's Day 1 of the Pasadena Chalk Festival and we're all super excited to be drawing together as a family!
When we were trying to decide what to do, the kids deferred to me, saying "you always do Disney, so we should do something you like. Like Hercules." While I do love Hercules, I think we should do something that we all like. We thought on it a little more, and I don't know who it was that ultimately suggested the Pokemon and Disney collaboration, but when we heard it, we knew it was a great idea!
What would it be like if the Pokemon gang went to Disneyland and all dressed up! We started imagining what characters would go, which costumes each would wear, and all sorts of fun idea. Some haven't been implemented in the final design, but we'll see what kind of time we have when we're done.
"What about hidden Mickey Dittos! We'll call them Middos!"
"We could have Rayquaza dressed as Tinker Bell and flying over the castle!"
Whew! Some wild ideas, but let's start on Day 1.
It's the day before the Pasadena Chalk Festival, and we've got nothing to do until later tonight! Our day is our own!
To start our day, we made our way to the Colorado Street Bridge.
It's almost time for the 2024 Pasadena Chalk Festival! It's coming up this weekend, but on Thursday there's a couple important things going on. We've got to pick our spot and later tonight is the artists dinner! Sweet!
Come out to the Pasadena Chalk Festival this weekend to see us and hundreds of other artists! We’re going to do a mural with a combination of Disney and Pokémon! Pikachu is just going to be a small part of it! There’s lots of characters planned!
All the artists are asked to donate a 1’x1’ painting to be auctioned off to benefit the Lightbringer Project.
It's Father's Day and I sure am lucky to be the dad of these two awesome kids. They certainly make life a lot of fun! They both made me cards to celebrate my special day!
Happy Father's Day! We're currently in Colorado which means I get to spend Father's Day with my Dad! And one of his favorite things to do happens to be hiking the Manitou Incline. Let's go!
Tonight, Alli, Avery, Patrick, and I all got to attend Rapunzel & Pascal's Enchanted Evening at the Chick-fil-A in Garden of the Gods Colorado. It's a Daddy Daughter Date Night!
Any time I see a new Oreo flavor out, there's a pretty good chance that we're going to try it. But what is this new flavor I see?!? Sour Patch Kids!!! We taste every single Sour Patch Kids items that we can get our hands on!
From Sour Patch Kids Ice Pops, Ice Cream, Sour Patch Kids Cereal, Marshmallows, Yogurt, Sour Patch Kids Chips Ahoy Cookies, Sour Patch Kids Watermelon Ice Pops, Sour Patch Kids Freezer Pops, Sour Patch Kids Popcorn, Sour Patch Kids Gelatin to Sour Patch Kids Gum! There's even a big Sour Patch Kids taste test that I haven't released yet that will be even more epic!
But getting back to these Oreo Cookies, I knew we'd be tasting them as soon as I could find them.
It's 2023 and we've left Florida to start our summer of travels. It's going to be a very busy start though because there's a lot of big events happening!
The first major event - Abby is getting married!
We've arrived in Tennessee as we are starting our 2023 Road Trip. Our RV is parked at Whispering Falls RV Park and we can definitely tell why it's called that. There is a general background roar of thundering water that we can hear from where we're parked. Let's go on a hike!
While visiting our friends, Danny and Gayle, in Sunset Holler, I already had a few taste tests planned, but when Gayle mentioned her favorite candy was Reese's I went back to the RV and pulled out yet another taste test. (I've always got something on hand for anyone who wants to be a part of a Flowers Taste Test).
So today we get to try the new Reese's Caramel Big Cup, and we'll be comparing it to the tried and true, good ol' Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. It's my favorite candy too.
It's time for another new Doritos flavor! Patrick found one called Late Night Sizzlin' Cheese Burger!
And for dinner, I'm making cheeseburgers to go with it to compare it against!
Today we've got a fun one planned. Whenever Theresa looks at our route and places to stay, she's always looking for something fun to do. And so, when she saw that a brand new Harvest Host popped up in Kentucky that was a drive-in movie theater, she knew we'd be stopping!
It's time for another fun Dole Whip taste test!
I've been seeing posts about this new frozen treat in the freezer section of the grocery store! All the Disney enthusiasts are posting all over Facebook about Dole Whip that you can take home! But my big question is how does it compare to the real thing?
And so, to test it out and compare, we bought a bag of the actual real thing! This is the real Dole Whip mix that they serve at the Disney parks and in Hawaii. All you have to do is mix it with water, freeze it, then process it! With our new Ninja Creami that's super easy!
The best people to try it with are friends who also love Dole Whip! We're visiting friends in Michigan who we previously did a taste test to compare Disney's suggested recipe, Dole's suggested recipe, and the real thing to see what comes closest. I wrote all about that taste test here! Now we're together again to give this new frozen treat a shot!
Okay, fair warning, this year might get a little confusing on the blog postings. I am pretty far behind writing things up, having missed writing most of our adventures in 2023. Since we're starting 2024, I need to write those up too. So, it'll be a mix of 2023 and 2024 posts simultaneously until 2023 gets finished. Here we go.
It's mid-April and we've got to get traveling North! Reasons will be in the next post, but regardless we've got to head out soon!
Thank you Chuck E. Cheese for offering the summer fun pass again! Ian and Alli were on a mission! Day 1 clean out the claw game. Day 2 with their cousin Aubrey, clean out the claw machine again.
They gave balls to every kid they saw inside Chuck E Cheese and still came home with a bunch!
Happy 24th anniversary Theresa! We’ve had lots of fun adventures and I’m looking forward to many more!
We're coming up to the end of our amazing Moorea vacation, just Theresa and me. There's a few more things we've got going on before we leave though. Let's go have some fun.
Earlier in the vacation, Therea and I were on the island of Moorea at the beautiful Hilton Moorea, but our room was on the land. The great news though was that we were told an upgraded room was available after a couple days!
It's time to start our 2024 travels! We love Florida during the winter, but when the summer comes along, it's time to travel the country! We've got a lot of fun things planned already! Lots of fun adventures to come. We'll meet up with some old friends and hopefully make some new ones too! We've got just 6 more states to fill out on our USA map for the RV too, and the plan is to complete them all this summer! Let's go!
Since we got back to Florida, we've really wanted to get the kids into some sort of physical activity. Ian used to love bouncing on the trampoline, and Alli has really enjoyed watching gymnastics on YouTube. Lucky for us, we happen to be near the largest gymnastics school in Florida! Gymnastics USA!
So, ever since November, Alli and Ian have been attending multiple times a week, trying out different disciplines to see what they like and where their skills lie.
Ian spent the first few months in Ninja Kids, and then moved into Tumbling. Alli has progressed through Beginner Gymnastics all the way up to Advanced Gymnastics! She's strong and determined!
For the past couple of months, they've been learning a specific routine to perform at their end of the season Olympics! It's a big event for them and so we invited all the family to come out to watch! Although many would have liked to attend but couldn't, we still had a very strong turnout with both sets of grandparents and Uncle Donald!
From January 2023.
Theresa and I are going to a trip to celebrate our anniversary! We've been to a lot of fun places, like Curacao, Bora Bora, a motu beside Bora Bora, and Hawaii, but there's one that we can't help but compare all our get-away vacations to. It where we went for our 10-year anniversary. The island of Moorea near Tahiti! Now, for our 23rd anniversary, we're headed back! We stopped in Colorado to leave the kids with Gram and Pop Pop.
On a beautiful Saturday in April, our friend Nicole invited us to join her at a classic Florida theme park.
Gatorland!
While wandering around Sams Club, Theresa texted me a photo of a new offering from Smartfood Popcorn! They've previously given us Nacho Cheese Doritos popcorn and Cap'n Crunch Berries Popcorn.
Today though we're trying a match-up with Buffalo Wild Wings and their Garlic Parmesan wing sauce! I loved BW3 wings in college and Garlic Parmesan was definitely something I'd get on 25 cent wing night. It was even better on 50 cent chicken leg day!
We've been able to try so many different Snickers bars! 12 unique flavors that I've written about on the blog so far including Original, Hazelnut, Almond, Crunchy Peanut Butter, Creamy Peanut Butter, Creamy Almond Butter, Peanut Brownie, Dark Chocolate Almond Brownie, Snickers White, Snickers Ice Cream Bar, Snickers Peanut Brownie Ice Cream Bar and Snickers Cinnamon Bun. So how did we find 3 more unique flavors? For that we had to go International!
Aubrey and Jared were recently out and found an amazing little shop that has imported different snack items from all over the world!
It's always fun when we get visitors coming to Florida!
Every year for the past few years, Donald has a conference down in Florida in St. Pete Beach! On the weekend when they're done with all their meetings, we get invited to come visit!
As a family, we've tried a whole lots of different Peeps.
Original Peeps to homemade sugared marshmallows, Cotton Candy Peeps, Hot Tamales Peeps, Pancakes and Syrup Peeps, Fruit Punch Peeps, Blue Raspberry Peeps, Sour Watermelon Peeps, Party Cake Peeps, and Root Beer Float Peeps. We compared all those flavors in a Peeps Face-off Taste Test challenge. We bought the chocolate dipped Peeps. We tried Peeps cereal back in 2019, and then again in 2021 when they changed the cereal marshmallows. And when Pepsi came out with a Peeps flavored soda called Peepsi, we tried that too! There was Peeps Cotton Candy, Peeps Gummies, and Peeps Lollipop Rings.
So, when I saw another version of Peeps on the shelves this Easter, I knew we'd be trying it. These are Peeps Filled Ropes!
