Bull Shoals Family Vacation (day 4 & 5)

Destiny and Abby Bull Shoals 2015Day four of our family vacation was one for the books. Earlier in the week a few of the guys went out and put together this amazing water slide. It was suppose to be over 50 feet but ended up being 30 feet because of how high the water level was. Using a water pump we got the water flowing down the slide and that is when the fun began. Using the GoPro I was able to capture some pretty cool footage going down the slide. My niece took it with her as well as my wife. Alex is still too little to go down the slide and Abby was just a little too scared to try it out. My niece however was a trooper and was having a blast sliding into the lake.

It will be interesting to find out next year if the slide is still there or if the core of engineers will tear it down. Several years ago we hung a zip line between two cliffs and would zip line between them and drop off into the water. They shut down our fun pretty quickly that year. That’s okay though, we still had a lot of fun.

Day five of our vacation was a slow one. We woke up later in the day because of a very active night. Pretty much a lot of the same. Swimming, riding the wet bike, and having fun. Check out the video below to see our fun from day four & five and click here to see day 1 & 2, and here for day 3!

Day Four

Day Five

Bull Shoals Family Vacation (day 3)

Uncle Mike and AlexDay three of our family vacation was a lot of fun. I had attempted to fly a kite with my GoPro attached but it never took off like I expected. Maybe next year we will have a drone or some helium balloons to send the GoPro up into the sky. Day three had more swimming and riding the wet bike. There was some turtle spotting! I did my best to capture the little guy on camera. Alex even had a chance to ride the motorcycle with his Uncle Mike. He absolutely loved every second of it. At first he cried when we put the helmet on him (safety first!) but once the engine was started his face lite up like a firework. Enjoy the video below and watch out for day four and five!

If you haven’t checked out day one and two click here!

 

Bull Shoals Family Vacation 2015 (Day 1 & 2)

Every year we go on vacation. This year we went to Bull Shoals lake. It is a favorite spot of ours (we go almost every year) and it always is a good time. I go a bunch of GoPro footage and have been putting together a few videos of our trip. Typically we stay at the Holiday Shores Resort. It is a nice little resort that has some nice cozy cabins. We had a large group with us and took over 5 cabins, and they were all right next to each other, so spending time together was great. We setup a fire pit during the evenings while the kids were in bed.

In the video below you will see day 1 and day 2. We arrived on day 1 so there was just some minor swimming. Day 2 had much more swimming along with some riding the wet bike. This is just the first post in a several post series about our vacation this year.

If you want to see our trip from last year click here for part one and here for part two.

Celebrate Half Christmas in St. Louis

When I started this blog I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, and when I started getting emails from other dads saying they liked what I wrote, I knew that I was going down the right path. One of the first emails I received was from St. Louis native Ryan Nusbickel. He wanted to give me a shout out to let me know that he enjoyed my blog. He also was kind enough to send me two children’s books that he had written and illustrated. I have been sitting on these books waiting for the right time to post about them… Since today is Half Christmas it seemed like the perfect time to write about one of them in particular.

stlnightbeforechristmasThe St. Louis Night Before Christmas is a fantastic story that takes you on a journey through all of the great locations found in our area. The illustrations are hilarious and fit the theme of the book perfectly. As you can imagine the story is in the style of The Night Before Christmas poem written by Clement Clarke Moore. The rhyming and imagery make this a must own story for anyone familiar with the St. Louis area. Plus it’s not expensive!

My kids thought this book was great. According to my daughter, Santa and her are currently BFF’s, so if she says this is seriously entertaining, then why miss out for another year?

So do yourself a favor this Half Christmas and pick up this excellent book. Ryan’s website is StLouisChildrensBooks.com and NusbickelBooks.com. Either link will take you to the same place. Don’t want to order online? His book is also available in select retail locations. Check out the list here!

“The St. Louis Night Before Christmas is #1 Selling Children’s Book in St Louis For the 2014 Holiday Season” – The St. Louis Post Dispatch