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

Christmas with small children is an event.

This year we were blessed to be joined by my childhood friend Aaron for Christmas. After a packed Christmas eve service at church we came home and had dinner, read The Night Before Christmas and then the kids were tucked into bed.

Once the kids were asleep we migrated truckloads of gifts from their hiding places to under the tree. On Christmas morning we enjoyed coma hot chocolate, monkey bread, and lots and lots of presents! Alex had so much fun and was even overwhelmed by the sheer volume of gifts. Kate was still a little young to get excited about the day but next year should be really fun! Thank you all for the gifts and the unending generosity. We wish you and yours a very happy holiday.

We’ve spent the last week getting some much needed work completed at the house.

Tonight we had some good friends over to celebrate NYE and now we are waiting for the ball to drop in New York City.

Since this is the turn of the decade I thought it fitting to briefly reminisce over the past ten years. Ten years ago I graduated from High School in the class of 2000. That same year I went to college and met the love of my life. The next year (2001) I proposed to Erin and the day after that we lived through the 9/11 attacks. In 2002 we were married. In 2004 I graduated from UCF and Erin and I made the big move to Pennsylvania. In 2006 we were blessed with the birth of our daughter Alexandra. In 2008 I graduated from Penn State University with my Master’s degree and we were blessed with our second daughter Katharine. In 2009 Alex started preschool.

Its amazing if you think about it. In ten years time I went from a high school student to a married man with 2 wonderful kids and two college degrees. I can only look back and thank our wonderful God for all the blessings he has bestowed on us and I can look forward into the next decade hopeful, optimistic and excited to see what is in store for our family. What does your story look like. Think about it…

As for most of the Northeastern United States, we are in the middle of a huge snow storm. Its been snowing all day today and is expected to continue through the evening with snow totals between 12 and 20 inches. If its to the higher side this would be the biggest storm we’ve ever had and would easily top the snow totals for last year put together.

Luckily it is the weekend so we had no places to be. Additionally, I am done with work until the new year (getting a much needed break) so there will be no further commitments into next week. So we are doing our best to enjoy our time together and have some fun!

We bundled up this afternoon and spent some time outside in the snow. Kate lasted a good ten minutes and Alex was hard to get to come back inside. She was having a blast running around in the white stuff.

And here is a short video of our adventure:

I also uploaded some additional pictures all the way back to October. We have some of the girls at the beach, some pictures from my California trip, and of course all our snow photos. Check them out at our photo page.

Happy Anniversary

Monday will mark our seven year anniversary! Its amazing how time flies. It hasn’t seemed that long but in the same it has seemed so much longer. Some wonderful friends of ours have offered to watch the girls so we can go out and celebrate. We will be hitting up this place in Old Town Philadelphia called Cuba Libre, an awesome Cuban restaurant. Erin, thanks for seven years. I love you!

From our family to yours we want to wish all of you the very happiest of thanksgivings.

There has been a lot of uncertainty in our family schedule these past months. Earlier this month I traveled out to the California Central Coast to start the launch campaign for the hypersonic vehicle I have been working on for the last 18 months. Due to a problem with the launch vehicle we were forced to once again slip our launch date and this brought us home early.

It has been hard to make any definitive plans in our lives for the past months as it seems my entire schedule has been in flux. Since everything changed at the last minute we opted to make an 18 hour drive to Kansas City to be with Erin’s family. We left Saturday night and drove through the night arriving here Sunday morning.

We have just been hanging out and today we are getting ready to start cooking the feast.

We’ll be heading back to Phoenixville on Saturday (through the night again) so I can be ready to go back to work on Monday to complete some important testing.

Thankfulness

This being thanksgiving I thought it would be a good exercise for me to write down the reasons why I am thankful this year.

1. My God – What a wonderful God he is! Thank you God for saving me. Thank You for being my all and my everything. Thank you for forgiveness and provision. Thank you for being there in the bad times and good.
2. My Job – In a year of economic turmoil and heavy job losses I am thankful that I have been blessed with a good job. Despite the long hours this year, the unpredictable schedule, and the personal sacrifice this year of work has been rewarding and has helped me to grow professionally.
3. My Extended Family – Despite the craziness and chaos surrounding our extended family (you know who you are) we love you and know that you love us. We wish we could see all of you more frequently.
4. Our Friends – It can be incredibly difficult at times living so far away from all of our family. In those times we are forced to rely on our good friends to be our support structure. You are always here for us when we need you. We love you and miss you (its been forever since we’ve seen you guys!).
5. My Girls – What and handful they are! Never did I expect that children could light up a room like they do. Our days are surrounded with chaos and laughter all because of these two girls.
6. My Wife – Talk about mother of the year! Erin has been awesome this year! The burden has been on her this year. With my six and seven day work weeks and past and upcoming extended travel Erin has stepped up and taken point on raising our girls and keeping our home in order. It has been difficult on all of us and Erin has been wonderful. I love you and can’t imagine life without you.

First, let me take this moment to say Happy Birthday to my mom. It was good to see you last week. I know the time together was crazy but I know the kids had a great time!

Last week we hopped on a plane and flew down to good ole Orlando, Florida. What was the momentous occasion? My little sister got married! Alexandra was the flower girl and I played all the music during the processional.

Lets start by saying that flying with 2 kids is really difficult, especially since Kate is now on the move. You should have seen us trekking through the airport! We had 2 bags, 2 car-seats, a stroller, a guitar and 3 backpacks distributed between us. Security is always an event in these circumstances but we made it through. Kate turned into a crazy hyper girl once on the plane and the only thing to keep her calm and quiet? Food. Yup. We fed her snacks almost the whole flight, both ways! Of course the Avis rental counter was the farthest one from baggage claim so we had to drag all the aforementioned luggage all the way down. But we made it!

On Friday we took a drive to Daytona Beach as it was our only chance to get our feet in the sand the whole trip. The girls had a good time and I think that maybe Alexandra’s fear of water my be subsiding. Kate absolutely loved being in the water.

Friday night we had the rehearsal dinner followed by the wedding on Saturday It was nice to a lot of people we hadn’t seen in years. Much of my extended family I hadn’t seen since our wedding nearly 7 years ago. Everybody loved the girls.

Megan was a beautiful bride and the wedding went well. We all had a good time at the reception. Ryan, welcome to the family. I hope you know what you have gotten yourself into!!Alex had so much fun being the flower girls (except she didn’t drop her flowers). They all loved to dance at the reception and by the end of the day both girls were ready to pass out.

On Sunday we drove out to Leesburg to spend the day with Erin’s grandma. She was thrilled to spend time with the girls.

On Monday, after most of the guests had returned home, we got to hang out with just the family. It was nice to see Alex and her cousin Andrew playing together. They got along wonderfully. We got to meet cousin Emily for the first time who is six months younger than Kate and yet still the same size. We took the kids to Downtown Disney and had dinner at T-Rex. Alex was in heaven at the huge Disney store there and she got her picture with statues of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.

The weather was beautiful, perfect even, the whole time. That wasn’t the case back here in Philly where things were pretty nasty and cold. On Tuesday we made the trip back home (which was equally crazy).

Originally, I was supposed to leave for California today for my work trip. I received a call on Sunday morning saying that we had suffered a setback and would require more testing. So my trip was postponed for a few weeks and I get to spend this weekend with my family in peace and quiet. So Nice.

Ever since I played with my friend Chris’s DSLR camera a few years ago I have wanted one. Well Target clearance came through again and we were able to get one for a good deal. The pictures this thing takes are amazing! So all the shots from down and Florida were taken on this camera. We are still learning how to use it properly but we hope you enjoy the shots. As always, the whole set of pictures are up on our photos page and on Flickr.

I took this while experimenting with our new camera:

Kate in the bath!

This is Grandma with Kate and Emily:

Andrew and Alex at the lake:

Alex during the wedding:

The Bride and Groom

Bride and groom with the girls

Erin and Kate at Downtown Disney

Alex with Sleeping Beauty