Tobin Family Website

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend last week.  In the DC area, we had absolutely beautiful weather!  We spent quite a bit of time outdoors enjoying it.  Unfortunately, on Sunday and Monday Ben was ill with a fever.  We were concerned it might be strep based on his history, but he was better by Monday night.  As it turned out, I was next in line to get it and ended up staying home Tuesday and Wednesday with a fever and a stomach virus.  Thursday night it was Karen’s turn, although hers only lasted about a day.  Delaney seems to be the only one who avoided it altogether.

Despite the Monday holiday and being ill on Tuesday and Wednesday, I still managed to get 26-hours in at work on Thursday and Friday.  After working all day at the office on Thursday, I came home and changed clothes and then traveled to one of our operational sites in the DC area to oversee a software upgrade.  The upgrade was supposed to complete by 2AM, but ran into some database problems and didn’t finish until 6AM.  I then had to hang around to brief out the results of the upgrade to various offices that were reporting back to work on Friday morning.  After the briefings were over, I traveled back to my office for a meeting at 11AM and to finish up some other work that I needed to get done.  I finally got back to the house at 2PM on Friday afternoon and laid down for a much needed power nap!   

Last weekend, we went and saw the movie Pince Caspian, the latest movie in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series.  It was a very good movie, although not quite as good as the first in my opinion.  I had read the series a long time ago as a kid, and had always liked Prince Caspian, although I had forgotten the storyline.  As before, the movie was visually rich with some amazing graphics.  All in all, the family really enjoyed it.  We would also like to go see the new Indiana Jones movie.  Perhaps we will get that in during the next month.

Tomorrow, Karen and I will celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary.  It is amazing how time flies!  We have been together now for 20-years, which is almost half of our lives!  It has been quite a journey so far and we are looking forward to the next 20 years.  We have covered a lot of ground in those years, starting out dating while I was at school in Vermont and Karen was at school in Virginia.  After we married, we spent almost 5-years in Dayton, Ohio, before moving to Los Angeles and living in Redondo Beach and San Pedro.  During the 3-years we were living in California, Ben was born.  Then we moved back to the east coast and lived in Satellite Beach, Florida, for 3-years where Delaney was born.  Then it was north to Springfield, Virginia, for 3-years while I worked at the Pentagon.  After going through the surreal events of 9/11, we moved back to Florida.  This time we found ourselves in Fort Walton Beach up in the Panhandle along the gulf coast.  After 3-more years of soaking up the sun and perspiring in the heat and humidity, it was back to northern Virginia and the greater DC area.  Now we are trying to decide where to go next and what to do as I plan to retire from the Air Force next year.  We are looking forward to settling in a little longer than 3-years at one location, although it has kept things fresh and exciting.  We don’t have any grand plans on what to do on our anniversary, but we will be happy to just be together as a family!

Speaking of how time flies, Ben and Delaney both returned home with their latest school photos yesterday.  It is hard to believe that Delaney will soon be 9 years old and Ben is approaching 12!  They are both such good kids (most of the time), and they have really enriched our lives.  We are enjoying our time with them now, as we know that time is a fleeting thing and it won’t be too long before they head off to college! 

In the hockey world, I am looking forward to Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight on NBC as the Penguins will be looking to even up the series 2-2.  I am hoping they can do so and send the series back to Detroit tied at 2-games a piece.  If they lose tonight, it will put them in a very precarious position going back to Detroit losing 3-1 in a best of 7 series!  For full coverage, you can check out my hockey blog at http://nhlpens.com.

Tags: Hockey, Photos, Tobin Family Update

The week before last we traveled to the Florida Panhandle for the kids school vacation.  It was kind of a last minute decision as we were planning on staying closer to home and possibly staying at a resort near Shenendoah or near Williamsburg.  As the time drew close, however, we didn’t find a resort that everyone could get excited about.  I thought that maybe the kids might like to go back to Florida and visit their friends instead.  The response was overwhelming, so I made soe last minute plans to travel to the Fort Walton Beach area.

We ended up staying at the Hampton Inn in Crestview, which was about a mile from the house we used to live in.  Our very first night there, Delaney went to see her best friend Jennifer and ended up sleeping over at their house.  Ben went and saw his best friend Matthew and he ended up staying at the hotel with us for a sleepover.  As it turned out, the week was spent shuttling the kids to and from their friend’s houses so that they could get as much time with them as possible.  Of course, the kids vacations don’t line up, so their friend’s were in school during the week.  They were each able to get a day off from school in which we coud go do things together.  We spent a lot of time in Destin at the beach, and at a small amusement park that has go karts, bumper cars, mini golf and more.  We also went and saw Horton Hears a Who at the movie theater one day and did some bowling on another.  All in all, the time flew by quickly and we all had some fun seeing old friends and looking at houses in the area (for fun).  Click the picture below to see  pictures from the trip.

We returned from vacation last Sunday, but I extended my leave through Monday so that I could take Delaney to a doctor appointment that we had scheduled at Walter Reed Hospital.  The appointment ran long, and she had to fast before the appointment, so I took her and Karen to a late lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  It seemed a good reqard for having 5 vials of blood drawn.  On Tuesday, my return to work was slowed by an early morning migraine.  I ended up not going in until the afternoon after the worse had subsided.  The meds I am taking for migraines are only marginally effective, especially if I wake up with a migraine already in full swing.  That evening, I slipped and fell down the stairs and I think I broke my big toe!  It was very stiff and painful for a few days and had swollen up and turned purple.  It seems to be doing much better than the last time I broke a toe, so maybe I only sprained it. 

Yesterday, I was a chaperone for Ben’s school field trip to Gettysburg.  It was a great field trip!  It took about 2 hours to get there by bus.  Once we got there, we had a docent who got on the bus and gave us a tour through town and then through the battlefield.  We would get off the bus at various points and spend time getting some history and hearing stories about the Civil War and the battle at Gettysburg.  The kids had to learn how to march so that they could re-enact Pickett’s Charge in the afternoon.  For the re-enactment, they were led by a Park Ranger who was very good at providing historical insights.  The kids (and I as well) really enjoyed walking the 1-mile re-enactment of Pickett’s Charge in the soldier’s footsteps.  It is hard to even imagine the carnage that took place there.  I would like to go back when we have more time to see all of the monuments that are erected all over the town and throughout the fields there.  Click the image below to see pictures from the field trip.

This weekend is a time to relax and get some work done around the house and get caught up on some cleaning.  My parents will be stopping back in next Friday on their way back north after spending a month in Florida.  They will probably spend about a week with us before heading back north.   

Tags: Family, Vacation