Archive for the Category »vacation «

Top Ten Things You Need For A Family Vacation Roadtrip That is Extreem on the Mileage

August

We take a lot of family trips in the Suburban! I know, SUVs are not so popular these days, but our family of 6 who drives on long road trips is very thankful for the space!! I thought I would share the things that we bring along that I think make it possible for us to drive thousands of miles. So here they are in order of what came to my mind first:

1. Igloo full of drinks, and lunch stuff. This should be placed in the car where you can open it as you are driving. You could place it next to one of the kids and deem them the Igloo King or Queen!

2. A box or bag or something full of snacks. Throw in a roll of paper towels, some wet wipes and a knife for extra easy sandwich making.

3. A bag of small sports equipment. When our kids were younger we took a beach ball that we could blow up at each rest stop. We look for a Rest Stop to have one meal a day, either lunch or dinner. Brian and the kids play some active game, this year it was baseball, while I make sandwiches and the best on-the-road meal I can come up with from my igloo and food storage bin. Some of our treasured memories of vacation have even happened at these rest stops!

4. Stop by the library and stock up on books and DVDs. Be sure to pack half of them in hiding and pull them out for the return trip! It works great! (of course you should have a portable or built in DVD player with headphones for each child…but watch videos in moderation or attitudes go bad even faster when the movies are turned off)

5. The Redflix app for your phone. When moral is down we head to the nearest RedBox, aided in locating it from our app, and present a newish movie to watch. We go back and forth on our trips from a movie to two hours of interactive car stuff. We travel hours and hours in the car so the movies help bring a break for everyone.

6. The Hotels.com app for your phone. On our way to Texas we spend one or two nights in a hotel. Having this app helps us find a place to stay while we are driving. Sometimes you really do not know how far you are going to make it in a day so easy hotel reservations are a good thing. We are able to see hotel prices and amenities, as well as ratings. Great tool!

7. Parenting seminar downloaded or CDs (we got ours at the church library). While the kids are watching a movie it is time for Brian and I to talk over life stuff, plan better parenting, be inspired, or listen to a good novel together.

8. A good novel downloaded or on CD (church library once again). Grab a good novel to read aloud as a family as well.

9. A good supply of workbooks from a dollar store. I love Five Below! I can always find good workbooks in the summer time and cheap markers to fill my kids car bags with.

10. The patience and perseverance of Job! No kidding! These long trips are not for the faint of heart, you have to have some gut to push through the family break down moments…because they do come, and sometimes they come BIG.

Hope the tricks we have learned are helpful if you have a road trip coming up. I would love to know any tricks that work well for your family, so I can steal them and glean the benefits! Happy traveling!

I need to add a number 11!

11. Take your husband to WalMart and let him pick a car toy or surprise. This year Brian got Flarp (noise putty), you know what I am talking about right? He said, and I quote “this will be hours of entertainment”, and it was! Brian and I got it out in the car without the kids knowing anything about it and Brian started making the noises. He and I were laughing so hard we both had tears in our eyes. Once the kids figured stuff out they did not stop playing with the two cans we bought till the putty had dried out. Good times! Husbands have great ideas!! Don’t forget to ask them

Category: Family Life, Just for fun, Mandy, vacation Leave a Comment

I am an extravert and I am OK with that

August

written by:mandy | Leave a Comment

Home, it is a great place to return to! We arrived home after a 17 day vacation tour of Texas that included 4,008 miles in the car! We live in Pennsylvania, which is over 1400 miles from one of our Grandparents homes. The majority of our family is dotted all over Texas and it is a big state. After driving to see them as well as good friends from years past (about 1200 miles) we have the 1400 mile return trip. Why would anyone drag a family of 6 through 4008 miles of Suburban driving? We love people, family and friends who we do not see often, that is why!

Eleven years ago the Lord lead us to Pennsylvania, a wonderful move for our family. We came here as a family of three and while here the Lord has added three “moore” to our numbers We love Pennsylvania, it is home! But it does not change the fact that our roots are Texan and our family lives in that big old Lone Star State. We try to make trips back once a year or something close to it.

I was thinking that this vacation of ours would probably be an introvert’s nightmare! We went from one social occasion to another, visiting with people each day. And I loved it! I guess I am an extravert for sure! It is amazing how the Lord makes us uniquely different. We are even different in the ways we relax and re-coop. Give me a room full of family and friends who will sit and talk deeply about heart issues as well as laugh and joke along the way, and I am ready to go.

I hope you are grabbing a family vacation this summer, and that it is tailored just right for your personality.

PS Check back tomorrow for my top ten things you need for a family vacation road trip

Category: Family Life, good friends, Mandy, Pennsylvania Life, vacation Tags: family, roadtrip, travel Leave a Comment

Moore Memorable Moments of 2009

December

written by:brian | One Comment

Today is the last day of 2009 and with that comes the desire to take a moment to reflect back on the treasured events of this past year. We are thankful for the Lord’s many blessings! He is always so faithful to provide for our needs and bless us with delights along the way. Even the difficult times are a blessing from Him, since they cause us to draw even closer to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here are a few of our memory highlights of 2009:

Brian

Bed & Breakfast weekend getaway gift given to Mandy and I from students in the ministry
Summer vacationing in the Adirondacks for the first time…being blessed with an incredible campsite
Speaking the full message from 2 Peter for the Calvary Church main service the day after my birthday
24 hour Junior & Senior guys wilderness retreat this past November. The outdoors is a great place for getting to know others and growing deeper with God.
Getting a bow and arrows, something that I have wanted to get for years…now to keep practicing and learn hunting to get my first deer (hopefully a 2010 highlight!)

Mandy

Watching Addie play soccer! That girl just headed the ball GOAL!!!
Hearing Emma tell all about her day at school. She is so animated in her stories and just loves her teacher Mr. Gillis who is SOOOO funny
LISTENING to Isabelle bloom! This last year has brought more and more words from our sweet Isabelle. It has been a delight to hear her sing her first songs and begin to make jokes and tease. She is changing so much right before our eyes. As the Lord gives her the gift of speech we are getting to see more of her personality and the special way God has made her.
Learning what a backhoe is and how cool trash trucks are! Having a two year old boy is wonderful!
Teaching at Study & Share, the woman’s Bible Study @ Calvary Church, in the spring. Leading a Bible study in my home with four other mom’s.

Addie

Family vacation in the Adirondacks! Bike riding and Kayaking
Going to High Point Summer Camp
Starting fourth grade!
Playing U10 girls soccer and winning 2nd place trophy.
Nancy Drew Mystery Books
Playing softball for the first time & pitching

Emma

Going to Woodcrest Summer Camp
Fishing on vacation
Having Uncle Mike and Aunt Kristi here for Thanksgiving
Starting the second grade!

Isabelle

Fancy Nancy books and horses!
Being in Mrs. Long and Mrs. Hiatt’s five day preschool class.
SINGING!

Owen

Watching fire works on the Fourth @ Long’s Park
Riding with Daddy and Andy in the Trash Truck!
making friends! Morgyn, Judd, Jake, Thomas…

You can check out our 2009 photo highlights in our gallery. (click here to go straight to the slide show)

We look forward to the new year and all the wonderful blessing the Lord will bring along the way! In a few days we will be writing about what God has directed us to focus on in 2010 and what some of our goals are.

Category: Addie, Brian, Emma, Family Life, fishing, Isabelle, Mandy, Owen, vacation Tags: 2009 Review, Addie, Brian, Emma, family, highlights, Isabelle, Mandy, Owen One Comment

Summer Tour Part 5 (Euless, TX)

September

written by:mandy | One Comment

Every year we say we wish we could spend many many days in the Dallas area, and there are several reasons for this! We have some great treasured friendships there that we would love to spend a lengthy time with. It always seems we are there for less than 24 hours and get to see only a few. Someday it may be different. One of our treasured Dallas friends (whose friendship goes back to high school for both Brian and I) are the Risleys!! We stayed at their house is Euless and soaked up all we could of being together with them for such a short time. It was GREAT!

The Risley’s took us out on their boat and Brian got to ski. Addie really wanted to and started trying to get up when the weather turned stormy and we had to call it a day It would have been super to get to see her skiing…it will have to be another time!!
Moore family floating w/o owen
Brian skis
Addie attempts sking

The girls enjoyed playing with Katie and even left her a scavenger hunt in the house to follow and have fun with to find treasures of pictures they had made her.

Dallas … to be continued on some other tour

Category: Family Life, good friends, vacation One Comment

Summer Tour Part 4 (Rockport fishing,etc)

August

written by:brian | One Comment

One of the fun things that I was able to do in Rockport was do some night fishing. Since the kids were all in bed, each night I went out to the end of the pier and set out a few rods with various baits and waited. Well, not just waiting, one night I enjoyed talking to Mandy who was out there with me and the other nights I spent talking with God about life and family. Actually I usually wasn’t alone because a Blue Heron would land on our pier and sneak up behind me to see if he could get a bit of my bait or waiting for a catch.
It was a wonderful time, but I didn’t catch anything worth keeping UNTIL the last night. I didn’t ever take a watch out with me and time was not a concern, so I didn’t know how late it had gotten, but…later I figured out that it was at about 1:45a.m. that one of my rods started twitching, so I picked it up and let the line out a bit…waited…and then set the hook for the catch! This was extra fun because this reel was an old little zebco closed faced reel on a smaller pole…no matter what the drag was set at the fish kept pulling it out while I was trying to real it in. It ended up being a gafftop catfish, 22 in, 3lbs. SO everybody was asleep and it had been YEARS since I had cleaned a catfish. But I got my knife and went at it…took me awhile, but got some good fillets! Then I checked on what time it was and saw that it was 2:20 a.m. so I went to pull in the other rods, got to the end of the pier and saw another one of my lines going off in to the darkness. So I picked up the rod and began to reel in what was another gafftop catfish, slightly smaller that the one before, but a keeper with some good meat. (the second catch is the one pictured above, for a picture of the first one, click here) I decided that it was too late for me to try cleaning another fish, put it in a floating buoy thing and went to bed, leaving another baited line still out in the bay.
In the morning I checked the other line and it was wrapped around a post on the pier and snapped off, so I guess if I would have just stayed out all night I could have caught another! But then what good would I had been to drive to Dallas the next day?? Grandad and James helped me clean the fish that next morning and I got to tell everyone my fish stories from the night before! I don’t get to fish very often, so it was great fun for me!!

Category: Brian, Family Life, fishing, vacation One Comment

Summer Tour Part 3 (Rockport, TX)

August

written by:mandy | One Comment

Our next destination was Rockport, Texas where my Mom and sister (and family) live as well as where my Grandparents have a bay house. I have such fond memories of weekends at Rockport from growing up! I can remember fishing with the family either sitting beside Grandma Bell during the day half way down the pier, or sitting all the way at the end in the dark night hours fishing and talking with family members. I always enjoy my time at the bay house, and this year was no exception! My niece Swan was celebrating her third birthday so we were able to have a big family party with all sorts of fun things thrown in such as swimming in the bay, chalupas (YUMM!), blow up kiddie pools, beach chairs, tents, balloons, cake and Blue Bell ice cream!

We had brought our kayak on the trip and were able to get it out in the bay. Brian took the five cousins for a ride in the kayak and got to see porpoises! He quickly paddled toward them to get closer which made a few people on the shore nervous but delighted he and the five girls! It was at the end of this day that Emma delivered her precious quote “I wish this day would never end!” It was a great day!

The night before we were to leave Grandma Bell said that no one asked her but she would have gone kayaking if she had been asked! So you guessed it Brian took her out the next morning! And Grams decided that was a good idea and took him up on the chance as well. “Grandma Kayaking!”

Owen started a nasty habit of waking over and over in the night while we were doing all our travels this summer. And then he has established 6:30 am as the time to be done with sleeping. So while at the bay I took him out on the deck several mornings at 6:30 wishing I was still sleeping, but discovered something wonderful.
Each time I took him out in my sleepy state I would sit and rock him and the two of us would listen to the sea gulls, ducks, geese and other birds as they began their day. We could look out and see the fish jumping and watch a duck family waddle around. If you have to start the day earlier than you want I can’t think of a better way than ‘sit’n on the deck of the bay waisting time’ eavesdropping in as creation awakens.