I Can Fly Like An Eagle

Sunday morning started out exactly like Saturday, with Lori having to get up way too early to be at the Full Marathon by 4:30. We of course, slept in a while. We eventually got up around 9:00am, and headed towards breakfast at Olivia's restaurant. We ate a big breakfast, and the boys and I headed for Disney's Hollywood Studio.

Normally, we always find a place on the course to wait on Lori, and cheer her as she runs by. Today would be different. First, she was running the marathon with a few of her friends, so they would be there for encouragement. Secondly, she was running through 4 different parks, and stopping to ride roller coasters and taking pictures with all of the Disney characters along the route, so we just decided to get in a couple of fun Disney hours before meeting mom back at the room.

The boys and I got to Hollywood Studios around 10:00am. Wow, this place was cool. I'm a bit embarrassed that I did not snap more pictures. Normally, I have help corralling the boys, so taking pictures is easier. Because I was a single point man, I only took one picture. Here are the boys showing their anticipation as we headed for the Star Wars Studio exhibit.

Speaking of the Star Wars exhibit and ride..........wow. This is a "ride" only to the senses. You enter into a briefing area, where it is explained to you that you will be part of the new recruits of the Galactic Alliance. You board a "shuttle", and once you are seated and strapped in to your seat, your view out of the shuttle window is enabled. The shuttle "takes off", and you are on your way to an adventure. Here is the thing, at no time are you ever in motion. The chairs you are sitting on are moving in rhythm with the shuttle view, and you feel like you are actually flying through space. It is a truly fantastic feeling. It amazes me that I can be "tricked" like this. The boys absolutely loved, loved, loved that ride. I did to. It was really cool, and I'm sorry Lori missed it. Technology is cool.

After checking out a little more of the park, and cheering on the runners who were making their way through Disney Hollywood, I got an alert on my phone letting me know that Lori had finished. A few minutes later, Lori called letting me know that she was doing OK. I am always really happy when I get that call. Whew.....she did another one, and finish safely.

Congratulations Lori, including the Mickey Mile, and the Half and Full marathons, you ran 40.3 miles and walked at least 15 additional miles at the parks, all in just two days. Incredible, we are so proud of you. What a gifted athlete you are.

The boys and I headed for the busses, and made our way back to our villa. About 20 minutes after we arrived, Lori stepped through the door. She looked great. Wow. She was a bit sore and tired, but after a long hot bath, and putting on her compression socks, she was ready for our last day at the parks.

Today was Epcot day! I had really been looking forward to this. From a learning, experiencing, and information's stand point, it can't be beat. You could spend days in this park alone.

We arrived at Epcot around 2:00pm, and made our way toward the entrance. At the entrance, you are immediately greeted by the iconic Spaceship Earth Sphere.

The geodesic dome is really a site to behold. Unfortunately for us, on this day, our last day to visit the parks, the 15 minute Spaceship Earth ride was down for maintenance. Oh man, I was disappointed. Oh well, next time.

I have to admit, when we go back the next time we will be much more organized. Epcot offers so much to explore, you really need a plan of attack. We just kind of went off the cuff, and we ran out of time before we could experience everything the park had to offer.

First order of business, get a picture of Lori wearing her Goofy Medal, along with a matching Hat.

Let me tell you, it's pretty special when you wear your Goofy finisher's medal at the parks. She spent the majority of the day being congratulated by not only park staff, but many of the patrons as well. If I had earned that medal and gotten all of the praise she received during the day, I do not believe that Goofy hat would have been big enough to contain my swelling head. Lori on the other hand, took it in stride, and being the humble person she is, acted like it was no big deal.

I guess I need to bite to bullet, and include one picture of the blog writer. Here's me, with my two favorite primates.

Next in line was The Land.

The Land is a huge pavilion that houses rides and is themed around human interaction with the land itself. It has a few different rides, the first of which is Living with the Land. Living with the Land is a boat themed ride that takes you through various exhibits, all while explaining the parks research into various approaches to living in different environments. Very relaxing and informative.

The second attraction at The Land is a ride call Soarin. It is the number one attraction at Disneyworld. When we got off the boat ride, we went to check out Soarin. The wait was almost an hour and a half to get on the ride, so we got our FAST PASSES for a return trip for 7:30 that evening. We were all very excited about this.

As we left The Land, Christopher spotted Nemo. Ok, next up.....Nemo's adventure.

Uhh, talk about indigestion....

The Nemo ride was pretty fascinating. While you ride along a track seated in giant Clam shells, they somehow project the character images from the movie Nemo into a live aquarium setting. Simply Cool. After the ride was over, we walked through the aquarium, as it surrounded you from all sides. We were all fascinated.

Twilight was starting, and it seemed like we had just gotten there. If you are not familiar with Epcot Park, it has areas devoted to the culture of Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Morocco, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Each of these areas is built in the architecture of that particular country and the shops and restaurants are staffed by citizens of these countries.  It is all part of Disney's Cultural Representative Program.

When you visit each country within the park, you actually get a real feel of what it would be like to visit the actual location. I was super excited about this, so we headed to that part of the park. On our way, I took a picture of the park as the sun was setting. I was quite beautiful.

It was getting late and we were getting hungry, so we decided to eat in Mexico. There are a number of different restaurants to choose from, but we wanted a nice sit down dinner, so we picked La Hacienda de San Ángel. It was a beautiful restaurant, that overlooked the lake in the center of the park. The food was very good, and the custom made Margaritas were out of this world.

Dinner took a while, and after getting back outside, we realized that there was no way that we were going to be able to visit each country and take in the atmosphere properly.  Like i stated earlier, you really could spend at least a whole day just visiting the countries in the park.

After looking at my watch, I realized that the FAST PASSES that we got earlier for the ride Soarin were going to be available for use in about 45 minutes. That would give us just enough time to walk through each country on our way back to The Land. I would have loved to experience each country the correct way, but that will have to wait until next visit. Here is a few pictures that I took while we were making our way over to Soarin.

We made it back to The Land, and made our way to the ride. Keep in mind, this is the number one attraction at Disney, including all of the parks.

Soarin is a simulation that has you hang gliding over various terrains and scenery. None of us really knew what to expect, but with it being a simulation and not an actual "moving" ride, I thought "how scary could it be".

We used our FAST PASSES to jump to the front of the line, and waited for our turn. Now, I hope I don't bore you, but I am going to spend quite a bit of time describing the experience, for it was one of the coolest things I have ever done. I was blown away by this ride.

After you walk into the giant room, the first thing you notice is the enormous 80 ft tall OMNIMAX screen. It looks like someone took a giant egg, and cracked it in half. You then make your way over to the seats. It was at this time that Aidan and I both realized, that this particular "simulation" was going to lift you off the ground about 30-40 ft or so, and insert you into the half egg screen.  Ummm......what?  I was able to control my dislike of heights, and tell myself that I would be strapped in, so there is nothing to worry about. Aidan however, was having a much more difficult time reaching this conclusion. He was not a happy camper, until one of the ladies that was working the ride came over and spoke to him. After that he did fine.

As the ride begins, like I said, the chairs that you are seated in, are lifted up by huge hydraulics, and you are literally inserted into this large concave screen. It is the only thing that you can see all around you. The simulation starts, and it is quite startling. Even though you are not "moving", you have absolutely no way of telling that. Your senses do not allow it. As far as your mind and body are concerned, you are actually hang gliding.

The screen fills with a 48 frame per second, IMAX HD film that starts with you gliding over the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh my God! Like I said, I have never been a huge fan of heights, and now I was hang gliding over San Francisco Bay. It was terrifying at first. In every direction you look....up, down, right, left, you see exactly what you would be seeing if you were flying. Not only that, each scene that you experience, you also experience what ever the scene depicts. You feel the breeze in your hair, each shift in direction is simulated by the chair you are sitting in, and the wind direction change. When you fly over the Ventura orange blossom fields, you smell orange blossoms. When you fly over the evergreen forest, you smell the evergreens. It was GLORIOUS!

When the ride ended, I had genuine remorse. I wanted it to go on, and on. Wow. That ride only lasted 5 minutes, but I will remember that experience for the rest of my life. It was that incredible and intense.

It was now closing time at the park. Each night at Epcot the day is ended with a fireworks, laser and water fountains show called IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. It is timed to a musical score and done over the Lagoon in the middle of the park. It was a sight to behold. Like I said earlier, my phone does not take very good pictures at night, so please forgive the blurriness.

The crew looked on with amazement.

After the fireworks were finished, we made our way back to the bus, and headed home to villa for a good night's sleep. We were all pretty exhausted, and had not trouble sleeping.

We woke up Monday morning a little depressed. It was time to go back home. 3 days were simply not enough time to experience all of the wonders that the parks had to offer. Next time, we will stay longer.  I snapped one last picture before we left our villa.  Here is Lori, showing off all of the BLING she earned running her races.

We had a good breakfast and took the bus to the airport. After a short wait, we boarded our flight, and we were on our way home. Everything going well until an hour into the flight, Christopher woke up and said..."mommy, I do feel so.....RALPH!!" Yep, it happened that fast, with no time to find one of the wonderful bags that the carriers are so nice to supply.   It was all over Christopher. Lori, being the wonderful mom she is, handled it like a champ. She got him all cleaned up, and the rest of the now stinky flight was uneventful.

We landed, picked up our luggage, and got home around 3:30pm on Monday afternoon. It was a fun trip, but way too short. We will remedy that the next time.

William

The Happiest Place On Earth

Saturday started bight and early for some, and dark and "oh my God why is that alarm clock going off" early for others. I guess I should say "other" as it pertains to our household. No way in the world I would wake the boys up at 3:00am. Let me tell you, that would be a whole other dimension of grumpiness. No it was Lori who had lost her mind, as she had to get up that early in order to catch a bus and be at the half marathon starting line by 4:30am. Like I said the other day.......complete nuts!

Lori was dressed and out the door by 3:15am, and on her way to running nirvana. I went back to sleep, and dreamed that I was running too. You want to know the sad thing about that? I believe I was more tired from dreaming about running 13.1 miles than Lori was from actually running it.

I got the boys up around 8:00am, and we waited patiently for Lori to get home from her race. By 9:00am, Lori was already home from her 13.1 mile journey, and ready to continue the day's adventure.

Our first order of business was to get some food in us. I certainly did not want Lori to say hi to RALPH again today. We decided to eat breakfast at the resort's restaurant call Olivia's. The food and service were really good, and most importantly, our hypoglycemic protection was at defcon 1.

Today's family adventure would start with another trip to the ESPN Sports Complex. The boys, along with 4000 other kids, were running the Mickey Mile. We stopped by the pavilion again, and I was able to catch Lori being congratulated for her half marathon completion. I asked her to raise her arms in victory, and low an behold she grew another set that came out of her ears. Who knew.   Wow, Disney really is a magical place.

I told the kids that we they would have to run fast during their race, and before you knew it, Snow White's gang was in hot pursuit. Don't worry, Christopher was keeping an eye on them.

We got to the starting area, and the boys had their games faces on. South Side Johnny Cool was ready.....

and after some last minute stretching......Christopher was too.

One last hug from their coach.....

and the boys were ready. On your mark.......get set......GO!

While Lori ran with Christopher, I made my way to the finish line to get some pictures. 10 minutes later, Aidan came running down the track. You can see him in the back, wearing green.

Here he is racing for the strong finish.

Two minutes later....here comes Christopher and Momma.

Christopher too had a strong finish.

Our Champions!!!!!

After the race, it was time, to visit the happiest place on earth. Yep, that's right, Disney's Magical Kingdom. What a special place. It's hard to describe the wonderful feeling you get as a parent the first time your kids lay their eyes on the castle.

I get a little choked up just thinking about the ooohs and ahhhs coming from their mouths. That life long memory is worth the hefty price of admission by itself.

There are so many things to see and do at the park, and so little time. Shops, rides, shows, and restaurants everywhere you look.

We started our journey at Stitch's Great Escape. It was great fun, and Christopher was now hooked. From then on, he wanted Stitch everything.

We wanted to ride another roller coaster, so off to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This ride was busy, so we got in line and waited......and waited.......and waited.......and " hey Christopher are you having fun in line"?

"How about you Aidan"?

If we would have gotten pictures of Lori and me, our faces would have looked just about the same. The coaster was really fun, but it was the longest wait we had for any ride, and we quickly figured out how to use the FAST PASS service after that.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the park, riding rides, shopping, and eating various and numerous unhealthy delicious things. As darkness fell, just after leaving the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride, we stopped to witness the truly spectacular Parade of Lights. I'm sorry that my camera phone does not do these floats justice. It's just not made to take pictures at night. Hopefully, even with the blurriness, you will be able to sense how visually wonderful this spectacle was.

After the parade was over, we were tired, hungry and happy. We took a bus back to the resort, stopped by the To Go restaurant that was on the property, and we were back in our room eating dinner by 9:00pm. We all went to bed about an hour later with smiles on our faces, and magic in our hearts.

To be continued............

William

Where The Magic Begins

Well, after too much reading and learning, along with lots and lots of "potty words" being shouted in frustration, the main computer is back and better than ever. Woo Hoo!!!!!

Word to the wise.......always.....always.....have a backup for your main hard drive. Trust me on this one. You will thank me later.

As promised, now that HAL is back online, I can update you on our recent excursion to sunny Florida. Because this post will be huge, I will break it up over several days.

Lori, being the lunatic that she is, decided that running a half marathon or a full marathon just wasn't challenging enough for her. Instead, she got the bright idea that running a half marathon on one day, and a full marathon the next day would be.......fun. Yea....you read that right....fun. Ummm.....Ok. Anyway, she heard from a friend of mine that Walt Disney World of all places offered such a challenge. The race is call the Goofy Challenge. I can't for the life of think of why.

The Goofy Challenge takes place on a Saturday (13.1 miles) and Sunday (26.2 miles). This year it was held on Jan 12th and 13th.

One would think that it would be difficult to find enough deranged individuals to justify a challenge of this type. Oh...no, no, no, no. Let me tell you.......the loonies crawl out of the woodwork for this weekend. They come from all over the world to take part in this masochistic ritual. The park had 35,000-40,000 runners participating in the half marathon, and 25,000 participating in the full marathon. Of those, approximately 10,000 decided to participate in the Goofy Challenge. I know...unbelievable right?

Our trip started on Thursday afternoon. The kids got out of school, and we immediately left for the airport. Our flight was on time, and surprisingly good. The kids were entertained with the abundance of electronic devices that were stowed in our backpacks, along with sugary treats. As any parent of young children can attest, a trouble free trip is a Godsend and a rarity.

After arriving at Orlando's airport around 8:45pm, we soon found our Magic Express Disney Bus to take us to our resort - Old Key West Disney. If you are not familiar with this resort, as you might have guessed, it has the look and feel of.....wait for it......Key West, Florida. It is a really beautiful property, and after arriving, we discovered that our villa was fantastic. We got to bed at a decent hour, and dreamed of the great adventures that would start the next morning.

After waking up on Friday morning, and looking out the window, I just had to get a picture. Ahh....this is where I learned of my first "mess up". "Hmmm.....honey...where is the camera"? Oops! I forgot to pack it. #$%^@#$ Oh well, my Samsung Galaxy III takes pretty good pictures, so I used it to document the entire trip. Here is my first shot, a view from our patio - beautiful.

Our morning started a bit later that we anticipated, but with kids, that is the norm. We were supposed to get breakfast, and then head over the Disney's ESPN World Wide Sports Complex to pick up the race packets for Lori and the kids. No, the kids were not running the Goofy Challenge, but we did register them for the Mickey Mile. It's a kid's race that earns them a shirt and most importantly a race medal. Anyway, we arrived at the main bus stop late, and for some stupid reason (my suggestion...another oops) we decided to skip breakfast at that time, and head to the complex. Big Mistake!

You might not know this about Lori, but she gets hypoglycemic very easy. She needs her morning protein to maintain her beautiful demeanor (more on this later). I knew this, so my suggestion to skip breakfast was my second "mess up". Every thing was going well, and we were enjoying the neat complex,

and finding out where we needed to pick up the race packets. We found the right pavilion to get the initial packets, and Lori stood in line while I entertained the kids. Here is a picture of them patiently waiting from mom to return.

After picking up our packets, I figured it was time to go. Nope, I would be wrong.  Now we had to go across to the next pavilion to pick up the shirt and number packets. Oh OK...how bad could that be. Well............

Yep, that's the line to get into the next building. Uh oh. The first thing you should remember about this particular situation is what I wrote about earlier. Lori had not eaten breakfast, and we were now standing in a 500 foot line, in 80 degree weather, and 90% humidity. Not a good combination for Ms. "I need my protein". Well, as you might have guessed, it did not take long for Lori's head to start pounding, and her stomach to start doing summersaults.

The line was moving slowly, but not quite as slowly as Lori's ability to hold down the contents of her belly. After walking off by herself, she wasted no time in Christening the soccer field with some fertilizer. Needless to say, our trip to pick up the shirt packets, once inside the pavilion, was completed in record time.

Before Lori could get sick again, we heading for the air conditioned bus to take us back to the villa. Lori napped on the bus, and we were thankful that there were no more episodes before arriving at the villa.

By the time the bus dropped us off, Lori was in the middle of a full blown migraine. We got her back to the room where she ate and drank a little, and then she laid down for a nap. Animal Kingdom would have to wait.

Lori woke up around 3:00pm feeling much better. We got everything ready, and headed for our first trip to one on the Disney Parks. Animal Kingdom was first on our list, and the boys (and us too) were super excited.

After arriving at the park, we were amazed at all of the sights and sounds. The park is beautiful. Think of it as a huge zoo, with roller coasters and rides mixed in. At the center of the park is the "Tree of Life". It is a huge man made tree, with carving of animals all over it. I am ashamed to say that my picture of it is blurry, and does not do it justice.

There are so many things to do, and so many things to see, it's hard to take them all in. Beauty is everywhere.

The kids were having a ball.

The main attraction at the park is a roller coaster called Extreme Everest. It is incredible. While heading over to it, I snapped a couple of pictures of the ride.

The coaster was a blast. It took some coaxing to get Aidan to ride with me, but after it was over, he said he enjoyed it. Christopher on the other hand, needed no coaxing, and was having a ball riding in the car behind us with Momma. He is absolutely fearless.

We walked for miles and miles looking at all of the animals and enjoying the rides.

We finished up our trip to Animal Kingdom by taking a safari. We loaded in the huge truck, and off went to see Africa. We saw Hippos, and Nile Crocs.

The highlight of the safari was seeing a mother and baby elephant enjoying their natural habitat.

We left the park around 7:45 that evening, and headed to the Downtown Disney area.

Downtown Disney is a park that only has retail shops and restaurants. It is huge, and crowded. While we were heading to the restaurant, we stopped by the Lego Store. The Lego sculptures were incredible.

We decided to eat at Fulton's Crab House. It is a huge riverboat, and the food and service was really good. After eating and shopping, we headed home about 10:30pm. Christopher was asleep before the bus pulled out to go back to the villa. It took us no time at all to fall asleep once we got back to our villa. We all dreamed about what the next day had in store for us.

To be continued.....

William

Silence

If you are wondering why there have not been any recent updates, well.....this time you can't point the finger at me. The hard drive on our main computer has decided to have an unscheduled nap, and it is unusable right now. It has all of last week's Disney trip pictures, so I need to get it working again. As soon as I do, expect lots of pictures. William

Santa Strikes Again

Another year, another visit from the jolly fat man.  Wow, 2012 went by in a flash.

Christmas morning came bright and early this year.  We had boys in our room waking us up at 5:00am.  Yep, really stinking early considering that we hit the hay a little after 2:00am.  Nothing like 3 hours of sleep to prepare you for a full day of playing with two boys and all of their new toys.  Yipee!

Even with little sleep, you couldn't help but notice the glowing faces of Christopher and Aidan.  The excitement and smiles are worth every excruciating minute of Christmas shopping.  The sheer joy is intoxicating.

Santa must have spent most of the year blind and deaf.  I know this because he actually came to our house, and delivered wonderful presents to the boys.  There could be no other explanation.  Whatever the reason, the boys were elated that he stopped by.

Christopher got a brand new big boy bicycle from Santa!  He was really excited until he noticed the lack of training wheels.  "Uh oh......daddy......Santa forgot the training wheels".  Nope buddy, its time to ride like a big boy.

Aidan asked Santa for a new Skylanders Giants set, and he delivered exactly what he wanted.  

 

With the Santa gifts out of the way, it was time to start the wrapping paper carnage. Little hands were moving at such a feverish pace, I was worried about a fire starting from the friction. Here is Christopher showing off his new Cars II puzzle.

Oh no....this can't be good!

Plenty more gifts were unwrapped and enjoyed.  Too many, but that's the way it goes.  We all had a wonderful time, and each of us made out like bandits.  Lori did a great job picking out my gifts, and I am thankful every day that she is so wonderful.

I will leave you with one last picture of our two monkeys.  They keep us young, and really make us appreciate how lucky we are.

I hope 2013 brings happiness, and joy to each and everyone of you. 


William

Woosh!

I did something today that I have not done in 10+ years.  While most people will roll their eyes after reading the next part, and I can already hear Lori giggling as she reads it, I am still proud of the accomplishment.  Are you ready.........drum roll please..........

I ran (not jogged) 2 miles without stopping once! I know, I know, for most of you that is probably pretty anticlimactic, but for me.........well it's unbelievable. 

As I have said in other post, I have been stuck in a rut for quite a while.  Physically I was in the worst shape of my life.  About three months ago I started making a few changes to my diet.  Within the last three weeks I have really started working out regularly and eating right, and it is really paying off. 

I feel better physically that I have in 10 years.  Weight is down, stamina is up, and my view of myself is starting to be a positive one. 

I know 2 miles is just a small step for most, but for me it's a huge leap.  The sky is the limit.

Better look out......for the next time you're out there running, all you might hear from me is WHOOSH as I glide by.

William

Penitent

Far too many times I have lost my temper with my children, for what now seems like trivial things.  Nothing makes you reevaluate your commitment like a full serving of ice cold perspective.

Remember the important things in life, and love like there's no tomorrow.

William

Rest in peace little ones.

Vince Gill - Go Rest High On That Mountain

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Tis The Season

I really enjoy writing, but you wouldn't know it by my sorry effort over the last couple of years. It's shameful really. Although things could be better in Camelot right now (working hard on correcting that), I still have plenty of stories inside me that are itching to be told. I will do a better job of scratching that itch, and hopefully provide you with some witty prose while I'm at it.

 

Yesterday was spent perusing the local establishments in search of the season's best deals. Oh boy, Christmas Shopping!! 

 

Lori and I set out pretty early yesterday morning, hoping to conquer a monstrous gift list. The first stop....a quick trip to Costco. Ahh yes.....the proverbial "quick trip" to Costco. Let me ask you this...has anyone in the history of shopping trips to either Sam's or Costco ever been able to make a "quick trip"? Ummm......no. It never works that way. There is just too much stuff to ignore. Oh you try....everybody tries....but it never happens. Our "quick trip" lasted an hour. 

 

We left Costco loaded to the gills, and went home to unpack. After unloaded the car, it was off to THE MALL (insert maniacal laugh). Uhhh....you want to torture someone? You want to work every last nerve in someone's body? Send them to the mall during Christmas. What a beating. After "visiting" Dillards, Nordstoms, JCP and Macy's (which happed to be spread over every square inch of the mall) we headed.....no not home....oh no, no, no, no, no, ........we headed for Super Target. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!! Another 1hr of shopping. Woo Hoo!!!

 

We left Target at 2:40pm, after 6 total hours of shopping. You would think that one would be able to accomplish all they set out to do in that vast amount of time. Well....nope. Already been to Sam's, Lowes, and Kroger this morning, and today's beating has just started. Fa la la la la, la la la ugh..........

Tugging

17 years ago today, I meet the most wonderful person I have ever come in contact with. She was everything I ever dreamed of in a person. She was smart and beautiful, compassionate and strong, and I immediately fell in love. Most people search a lifetime and never find anything close to a perfect soul mate. I could not believe how lucky I had gotten. It took a while, and I still don't know how I did it, but I convinced that beautiful person to become my wife. It is the best thing (along with the birth of our children) that has ever happened in my life.

 

16 years ago today, I lost my father. Not a day goes by that I do not think about him. Oh how I wish he were still here. I would love for him to see his grandchildren. I would love for him to experience their innocence and fire. How invigorated he would be. I would love to ask him for advice, for I could sure use some right now. I miss our friendship. It is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life.

 

One day out of 365 that has such a bearing on my life. Difficult times, difficult day.

 

William

LIMBO

Sorry for the lack of blogs this year.  "Not So Fun Times In Camelot" probably wouldn't garner the same interest.  Hopefully things will change.

A Decade of Love

10 years ago today I was as happy as I have ever been in my life. Cloud nine, no doubt about it. I could not believe my luck, a true gift from God.

Here we are 10 years later, and Aidan's birth is still as fresh in my mind as if it happened today. I remember how scared I was when first heard him cry in the delivery room, and how I could not control my emotions. I remember looking at his mother, who had been in labor for so long, and thinking to myself how absolutely beautiful she was. Vivid pictures and feelings that I hope will remain just as fresh for the remainder of my life.

Aidan has molded himself into a fine young man. His mother and I have done a wonderful job with him if I do say so myself. Handsome, smart, polite, respectful, and courteous. Everything you could want in a child. We are very lucky.

10 years seems like a long time, but really, it isn't. Just a blip when you have kids. Squeeze them every day like it's your last, and remember what is important in life.

Happy Birthday Aidan...I love you.

William