Travel Tips

Family is important without a doubt. This is my kids as well as my nephews and niceses all gathered for a party. It is nice to have your family around and for them to be so close in age. I grew up in the same type of situation and it was great always having some one to play with.

This is my four little ones. I do not know if they ever liked being called that but tough... that is what they are... my little ones. They are great kids and have always been that way. They are Teresa, Torrence, Daniel and Jenna. They range in age from 22 to 11.

As of a few weeks ago I now have a US Marine for a son. After spending 3 months in Basic training in San Diego and one month in Marine Combat Training at Camp Pendelton here in California he is now a Marine. Last week he went off to North Carolina to learn his trade for the Marines which should take about 3 months.

It was a very big step for him to do this and I am very proud of him. It will be hard on his mother and I with all that it going on in the world right now but I know he is doing what he wants to do and for that I can not fault him. That is what a parent is to do... support our children and guild them along the way.

This was taken long ago during happier days. We were living in Saudi Arabia and things were great. It was the first time in the kids life that we could live as a family and that I would be home each night... no travel and a solid place to call home for three years.

We spend many weeksnd on the beachs of the Red Sea camping and swimming and doing a little scuba diving.

It was the best time in our live.

Daniel and Jenna are the youngest ones and as we all know the younger ones always get away with everything. They were both born in Belgium (Teresa and Torrence were born in Germany) and had to learn French as they were in a French school for half the day and all of their friends only spoke French.

I asked them a few weeks ago if they remember any of the French they spoke so well and they told me no. Funny I keep catching them speaking to their older sister in French.

One of the best things and the worst things about the work I use to do was I traveled about 300 days a year. (no I was not a traveling salesman) and it afforded us to go on some great holidays around the world.

As you can see, Torrence is just way to cool to be seen wearing a jacket... man he was cold by the end of the day.

One of my best memories of family and my kids was the last christmas that they were able to see my Grandmother. We were living in Belgium at the time and I was a young airman in the US Air Force. Vacations and travel with the family did not happen offten as we were over seas. The kids would alwasy ask "When are we going to see GG?"

This was the last christmas that they did and it is one of those memories that I think will always be with me and them.

They grow up just way to fast. It feels like just yesterday that I took this picture of them all. It was a sunny but cold winter day in Belgium and we were gettign ready to go out and walk our new puppy"(Lacey).

Spend as much time with your little ones is all I can say as they do grow up way to fast.