Happy 5th Birthday Alexandra!

Its hard to believe that 5 years ago today our little Alex joined our family. At the time things were a little crazy. We had just bought our house months before. I had just finished remodeling the bathroom and kitchen and I was in grad school at Penn State.

Alex joined us in hurry. From start to finish she was here in less than 3 hours time.

At year one Alex’s personality was already coming through.

At year two, Alex had become quite the active little kid. She loved her Little Einsteins and her Rocket toy was her most cherished of treasures.

By age three Kate had joined our ranks. Alex adapted to the role of big sister quickly. As her hair grew in (finally) the true nature of her curls revealed themselves.

At four Alex had transitioned from the Little Einsteins to princess and fairy. She loved going to preschool and doing real kid things. After all, she was all grown up.

Now here we are. Five years later. We’ve taken over 10,000 pictures since then. We’ve been to Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Washington DC, New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Disney World (yes, that gets its own mention).

Alex loves to sing and dance. She loves to dress up. She loves her barbies and princess toys. She loves playing the iPad and Kinect on Xbox. She loves being a big sister.

This coming year Alex will be going to Kindergarten. Its hard to believe really. Alex, we love you and wish you a happy birthday!

Our Next Great Adventure

Sometimes I like to think of our lives as a series of adventures. Thinking in these terms is a way that helps me deal with the stress of change. Most people resist change with the core of their being while a few out there try to truly embrace the wonder and adventure that change can bring.

Thinking of my adult life there are several defining moments that marked the beginning of new adventures. Going to college was the first big adventure. It was a chance to be mostly autonomous and the first time that the course of my life was determined solely by my own actions. The next great adventure was definitely marriage. I think marriage would make most people’s list but this was significant as now I had a partner to share in my adventure. Some more notables were taking a job 1000 miles from anything familiar to us, becoming homeowners, and most drastically, becoming a parent.

In 10 days time our foursome is about to embark on the next chapter of our story…our next great adventure. Doors have been opened which will take our family to a new place, a new job, and a new home. The decision to do this was not an easy one and the implications are much bigger this time. A job opportunity presented itself which will take us to the suburbs of Kansas City. Its is a good opportunity with room for career growth that will also bring us closer to family. This move will ultimately make our lives easier and hopefully more enjoyable.

We are saddened to be leaving a portion of our lives behind. Phoenixville has been good to us. We have enjoyed living in an area so rich in culture and history. We will be selling the house where so many memories were created and our girls were born. I will be leaving my first real job and a wonderful group of colleagues who have helped form me into the engineer I am today. Most of all we will miss all the wonderful friends we have made over the years.

My hope is that as we leave the Northeast for a new life in the Midwest that our lives had a positive impact on those we were near to. Thank you all for six and a half years of life and memories. We will miss you all.

-Dan, Erin, Alexandra, and Katharine

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Memories

This year for thanksgiving we decided that we would head down to Florida to spend the holiday with my family and then take the girls on their first trip to Disney World.

After our grueling 16 hour overnight drive we arrived at my moms house. Shortly after arriving we were pleasantly surprised by the fact that my dad was home from Kuwait! This was very unexpected but it made the holiday that much better! We hadn’t seen my dad since last October.

So we had the whole Lopez family together for thanksgiving. After our dinner we drove to UCF where they had an ice rink setup. This was the first time ice skating for both Alex and I. I think Alex did better than me (but at least I didn’t fall).

Next we had a brief visit with Erin’s grandmother in Leesburg. She was delighted to see her two great granddaughters.

From there we went on to Disney. We stayed at The Animal Kingdom’s Kidani Villas. It was a great property. Our room was wonderful and the common areas had views of the Savannah with all kind of wildlife hanging out. Over the six days we were there we visited the four main parks and go to see pretty much everything we wanted to.

The girls had a wonderful time even though we ran them ragged most days. With our dining plan we got to take the girls to several character dining events including the princesses, Tigger and Pooh, Mickey and crew, and the playhouse Disney group including her favorites the Little Einsteins and Special Agent Oso.

We saw lots of show and parades. The girls waited over a hour to meet Tinker Bell and some of the other fairies. It was nice to see them both so excited. You could tell that Alex was just taking it all in.

We followed Disney up with another weekend with my family where we celebrated our Christmas early with them. Then we began our long trip home. Altogether we were gone for 12 days so it was good to be home.

Happy Halloween

What a busy fall we have had! Can you believe that it is already halloween?!?

So whats been going on at DESTINATION:lopez lately? Our routine has been pretty straightforward lately.

Alexandra continues in her pre-school. As part of her curriculum she has swimming lessons, Spanish class, music class and more. She even gets “homework” assignments. She seems to be really enjoying herself.

Katharine has been doing a gym/swim class with Erin once a week but that is now over. She continues to amaze us with her speech and is a carbon copy of her big sister.

Erin has been taking her own set of dance classes at the YMCA and she really seems to be enjoying that a lot.

As for me, my job is keeping me very busy. I’ve had several business trips lately but the weekend work has been sparse, which is nice. I have also been busy around the house. We aerated and reseeded the lawn, which is looking much improved. I have coordinated our re-roof which is scheduled to happen this Tuesday and Wednesday. I recently had the opportunity to go camping in Virginia which a great friend, which I hadn’t done in probably 11 years. It was like second nature. We hiked up the Crabtree Falls, the largest cascading waterfall east of the Mississippi river.

Last weeked we had the Thompsons in town for a visit. We did the obligatory visit to the Shady Maple and then went to Cherry Crest Farms for a day of fall activities.

I will try to post pictures of all these activities over on our Flickr page soon.

Have fun Trick or Treating. We’ll get pictures of that up soon as well.

Happy 2nd Birthday Katharine!

Its hard to believe that its been 2 years since Kate joined out family. We should have know when she showed up at 2am that we were in for some trouble! Kate has shown us how truly different two children can be. Her energy, adventurousness, and fearlessness have been evident since she has been able to move.

To have a two year old who is able to carry on some really interesting conversations seems weird to us. Kate we love seeing you grow and learn. We love seeing you play with your big sister. We love your raspy little voice and the cackle you make when we tickle you.

You are a blessing to our little family and we love you very much.

The Long Awaited Blog Post

Perhaps you have been wondering where we have been. Perhaps you suspect that my rambling on Destination Lopez have shifted over to other forms of social media like Facebook. I am on a mission to make sure that this blog stays alive. I have hopes that in the future we can compile the writings of this blog as a pseudo family history.

Imagine looking back in 20 years and being able to remember the minutiae of how everyday life was back at the beginning. The trials we experienced, the emotions, the mundane, the funny, all of them memories.

So, where have we been? The answer is everywhere! What an action packed 2010 we have had so far. The last post here left off on Alexandra’s birthday back in late February. I’ll try to fill in the rest.

On February 22nd I left home for an extended business trip to Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central coast of California. The project that I had been working on for the past 2+ years had reached the deployment phase and I was one of the crew tasked to field and launch one really sophisticated and very fast glide vehicle. This deployment lasted 9 weeks and I only had one trip home after the first three weeks. It was a tough assignment with an insane work schedule that ended with one of the most intense and draining days of my life.

On April 22nd at 4:00pm PST our rocket was launched from Space Launch Complex 8 at Vandenberg AFB. This was the end of a long road and was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. It was an experience I will not soon forget and I am grateful that of all the people that worked on this project I was able to have this experience.

On the flip side of things, this job assignment came with much sacrifice required. The year leading up to this trip required many weekends and long days of extra work. I was away for Alexandra’s fourth birthday and I missed Easter with the family. I missed 9 weeks of Katharine’s stellar growth and development at a phase in her life where she changes so much. Erin was put in a tough situation where she was at home with both kids for nearly nine weeks by herself. She got them through sickness, stomach bugs, and a bout of pink eye that hit all three of them. She is my hero.

Fortunately, Erin had some reinforcements during my trip. She had family visit and even took a road trip to Nashville to visit her aunt and sister. There were play dates and activities like Disney on Ice that filled in the time.

I made it back into town on April 26th. It was so good to see everybody. I missed them so much. The fun didn’t stop there. Since my return there has been a flurry of activity which isn’t going to slow down any time soon. Alex finished up her first year of preschool just last week and now we are gearing up for summer activities. Alex will be going to Kids Camp at the YMCA, going to Vacation Bible School, and taking ballet and tap lessons. Kate will be getting her first shot at swimming lessons and Erin and I, well we get an all-inclusive vacation to Jamaica without the kids, which is well deserved. We leave in less than a week.

Shortly after my return we took a day trip down to Washington DC where we met up with Erin’s family. We explored the Air and Space museum and the botanical gardens and hung out around the mall. It was a perfect day and the girls both had a blast.

This past weekend we had a special visit by Aunt Megan and Uncle Ryan. They flew up from Florida to spend some time with us then they went on to NYC to spend a few days up there. While they were here we went strawberry picking at Highland Orchards and had a wonderful picnic in Valley Forge Park.

As mentioned above, in less than a week Erin’s mom will be flying in to stay with the girls as we jet to Jamaica for a week of relaxation. Our resort will have pristine beaches, snorkeling, kayaking, catamarans and a whole lot of nothing going on. We are excited. See you all on the flip side.

Happy Fourth Birthday Alexandra!

Its hard to believe that four years ago tonight our little Alexandra made her rapid entrance into the Paoli hospital. Its been four wonderful years or learning and growing (both for her and us).

Its weird thinking of her as a little kid instead of a toddler. She is in preschool and can have real conversations (which can be very interesting and extremely funny).

We got Alex a real bike and it will be fun teaching her how to ride it (safely).

The only sad spot is that I cannot be with her today as my work has taken me to California. We love you Alexandra!

SNOW

Well we just heard on the news that the volume of snow we are getting right now is unlikely to be seen again for the rest of our lifetimes. We had a snow of nearly 2 feet roll in over last Friday and Saturday and right now we are getting hit with Blizzard conditions which may be expected to drop another 2 feet on us. This puts the yearly snow totals for the region at over 70 inches which is way higher than normal.

Other than the back breaking task of shoveling the snow we are staying inside. Today was a snow day from work and a good chance to stay home and hang with the girls.

Well here we are and its February already. Alex will be four years old this month and Kate is already 16 months. The time is going by so fast. Kate is into everything, especially the things her big sister is doing. She is starting to talk a lot more and her little voice is so adorable.

We have uploaded pics from January and February for your enjoyment. The full sets can be found on our photos page but here are some highlights:

This is from the first snow, not the blizzard hitting us today.

Sorry for the Down Time

After two weeks of being in limbo Destination Lopez is now back online. Sorry for all of you that did not get your fix.