Category: Family Links

I guess it’s official. Lianne and I are suburban homesteaders. What does that mean? It means we’re moving toward a simpler, more self sustaining lifestyle. We’re expanding our garden, planting fruit trees and bushes, composting, collecting rain water, and learning to harvest honey from my dad’s bee hives in our backyard. For some proof, here’s our garden photo album for 2010. We’ve made a decent amount of progress since our first 9′ square garden plot back in 2007, and we’ve got many more plans in store. I was thinking about some of our future plans recently and that great human question started rolling around in my mind. Why? Why are we so into this? Continue reading Suburban Homesteading

March 1 – 4, 2010
Disney Photo Gallery

Here’s a brief summary of our 4 day Disney World trip. My wife and I, her parents, and our 3 kids, ages 11, 7, and 6, all went to Disney World the first week of March, 2010. We left at 3:30am on Sunday, February 28th, drove straight through and made it in exactly 12 hours. It was a long trip, but at least the kids got to rest some. It worked out well. We got there just in time for check-in at the Caribbean Beach Resort and were able to spend some time that afternoon and evening checking the place out.

Tips and Lessons Learned:
– We made good use of the “Extra Magic Hours” that Disney Resort patrons get on specific days.
– Fast pass is nice. You can use it past the expiration time on the pass, but not before. One person can’t slip into the park early and get fast passes for everyone. Every person has to have entered the park that day in order to get a fast pass.
– Early March, during the week, was a great time to go. The weather was a little chilly but not bad. The crowds were extremely light. No waits.
– The Shades of Green is the place to buy grocery type items. If you have a contractor or military ID, head over there and get normal prices on milk, etc.
– Buffet lunches are the best deal for food. Each park has one buffet style restaurant which is around $20 for lunch. We reserved late lunches around 1:30 and didn’t eat the rest of the day at the park.
Continue reading Walt Disney World Florida

There is no denying the fact that boys and girls are different. Ava enjoys her share of “boy” things, probably because of her two brothers, but on this night the contrast between our kids was easy to see.

Jaron and Davin wrestle in the background while Ava sings and dances for the camera.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXiyepWUwz0

We had a super busy start to Summer 2007.  Here’s a video preview:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm0onoGlKpY

Every kid has to do this at least once, right?

Obviously Lianne wasn’t home when this happened, otherwise how would I have had time to grab the camera and take a few pictures before rescuing him?

Jaron and Ava said a couple of cute things recently that I though were worth writing down. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there for either of them, so this is a 2nd hand recounting. It really is neat to see the world through your kids’ eyes. They have a totally different perspective on technology, and on what’s important.

Jaron, our 7 year old son, started up a conversation with my wife the other day. He wanted to know if she’d ever used “one of those things where the paper comes out.” Continue reading Kids Say the Darndest Things

Davin, our youngest, is 20 months old, and we’ve got a gate up at the entrance to the kitchen so he doesn’t ransack the pantry. A few weeks ago we were getting ready for dinner and Davin comes up to the gate and yells. We figured he wanted to get over the gate, but he’s a smart kid and is capable of asking for what he wants in pleasant terms. Continue reading Battle of Wills

Well, we’ve just started the new year off and amidst all the Top 10, Top 25, and Top 100 shows on VH1, E!, and MSNBC, we decided to make our own Top 10 list. So brace yourselves for “Bryan and Lianne’s Top 10 Most Memorable Events From 2004”. These are 10 things that happened to our little family that seem like a big deal to us. For more about the goings on Bryan and Lianne’s world, feel free to check out our weblog and photo gallery at http://bryanandlianne.name/
Continue reading 2004 Year in Review