Tobin Family Website

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

I took advantage of the long weekend to finally finish updating the new theme for this site, giving it a brand new look and feel.  I was looking for something simple, yet professional looking.  I am not sure I have achieved that, but I have tried.  There are probably still a few quirks that I will have to track down and fix, but it was good enough to go live.  I tried to keep the best elements of the website and ditch some of the others (or at least put them in mothballs for now).  The site focuses on a few main areas of content: 

1. Blog Articles (my rambling articles, like this one)
2. Genealogy Pages (I get a lot of traffic on the Tobin Genealogy Site)
3. Photo Album (I need to update this more frequently)
4. Tobin Fine Arts (a section devoted to my brother’s artwork)

Of course, I also have some links to other sites I frequent, and a link to my hockey blog, NHLPens.com. 

Hopefully you will find the new look and feel of the site an improvement over the old site.  I would love to hear any comments or suggestions you may have. 

In other news, I spent all of last week in Rancho Bernardo, CA, on business.  The name may sound familiar to some as it was in the news a couple weeks ago as one of the hardest hit areas in the California wildfires.  In fact, a great number of homes were destroyed less than a mile from the hotel that I routinely stay at.  Fortunately, most of the folks that I work with out there managed to escape any significant damage, although thre families at the company I work with did lose their homes.  One person I work with indicated that over 60 kids in their children’s school were rendered homeless by the fires, and 20+ teachers in the same school met the same fate.  It was a pretty incredible sight to see.  In some cases, whole neighborhoods were gone.  In others, the entire neighborhood was intact, with the exception of 2 or 3 random houses in the middle of the neighborhood that were burned to the ground.  It seemed highly improbable that surrounding homes would be untouched, but I am told that the unlucky homes were hit with burning embers that were driven as much as 1-2 miles through the air in the 60-mile per hour winds.  As in any disaster, it will likely take a long while for the area to fully recover.

Here at home, it was a pretty quiet weekend recuperating from the trip.  On Sunday (Veteran’s Day) we celebrated my 41st birthday with a trip to the Macaroni Grill and then a little shopping.  When we got home, Ben and I played several games on the XBox 360 (to include the baseball game “The Bigs” and “NHL 08″.  We had a good time, and Ben is really good and understands the games very well.  He beat me up pretty bad in hockey.  We usually play a pretty tight game, but this time he killed me. 

Delaney attended a neighborhood birthday party on Saturday.  She was also supposed to have a sleepover at a friend’s house on Friday night, but the girl came down with strep and the party was cancelled.  It was probably just as well as it was nice to see her after being gone all week. 

Karen is getting over a nasty headcold that nearly took her voice away mid-week.  When I would call her on the phone from San Diego, I could barely recognize her.  I thought that maybe she had strep too, but it seems to have cleared up.  I did have to go get her some decongestant on Saturday to help her poor head.  The interesting thing is that now, because of all the meth drug problems, you have to give up your first born child to get a thing of Sudafed!  I had to get it dispensed by the pharmacist and they took my drivers license number and had to enter it into the system before they would sell me the stuff.  Pretty crazy! 

I have one more trip to San Diego before Christmas, and it looks like it will be just enough to put me over the edge to get Platinum status on Delta this year, their highest Skymiles level.  The requirement to get Platinum is 75,000 qualifying miles in a year.  Based on 1 more trip to San Diego, I should have 75,077 miles this year.  Talk about a squeaker!  I thought I was going to fall just short, but I must have miscalculated.  The reason this is a big deal, is that Platinum members get the highest priority for free first class upgrades.  This makes a huge difference in comfort level when travelling across the country every month.  Travelling in coach can be very cramped and uncomfortable on those 4-hour legs twice a month.

I plan to post a little more frequently than I have lately on this site (at least weekly).  I just came off from a very busy period in which all of my blogging time was spent updating the NHLPens.com blog that I run.  It takes a fair amount of time to keep it up, since I post game previews and recaps for each of the 82 regular season games, plus update the team stats and standings.  It is kind of fun, but can take some time.  I need to find a better way to keep the stats and standing current without having to manually update them myself!   

Tags: Family, Website Update, Work