Wisconsin Dells - Day One

Our first full day in Wisconsin Dells was plenty of fun for The Spence Family. A very unique, popular must see tourist attraction in the area is a duck boat ride so we went to experience the duck ride first hand. There are several companies which offer the ride, but today we went to the Dells Army Ducks for a one hour land and water tour. This is a guided tour which takes you on a cruise on Lake Delton, The Wisconsin River and which also makes two amphibious landings. This area is known for their 14,000 year old rock formations specially named Twin Ink Stand, Upside Down Heart, and a Wedding Bell..hence the shape of the rock formations.

The ride began on land and eventually we made a splash into Lake Delton. We were dressed in anticipation that we may get very wet entering the water, however we did stay completely dry. After cruising the lake we made our first amphibious landing until making another splash entrance into the Wisconsin River. This is where we saw all the beautiful, one of a kind rock formations. It was a great outing to begin our vacation and most of all Kyle really enjoyed cruising along in the duck.

One of the many duck boats

Kyle enjoying the ride

The Wisconsin River

Rock Formation

Another Rock Formation This is a private residence along Lake Delton. It actually belongs to the person who owns one of the large water parks in the area...very impressive Kyle and Mommy flying the army helicopter while waiting for our duck tour to begin.

Kyle driving the army jeep.

After our tour it was time for lunch. We drove around for a short while in the downtown Wisconsin Dells area to find a lunch spot. We came across the perfect little restaurant for this New Orleans girl...Taste of New Orleans - Authentic Cajun Cuisine. The food was very good and we definitely plan to go back another day for lunch or dinner. We did speak with the owner of the restaurant, who is originally from New Orleans. It was really interesting to speak to someone from my home town especially since we are all the way up in Wisconsin.

After lunch we came back to our condo so Kyle could take his afternoon nap, while John and I spent time in the four season room overlooking the pool and Lake Delton with the screen door open enjoying the breeze and listening to the waterfall...very peaceful and relaxing. This evening we drove around to explore the area and locate places we would like to go later in the week. It certainly is a huge tourist trap so we want to make sure and fit in as many fun filled activities as possible. Stay tuned for further detail about our vacation! Until then...have a great week!

Greetings From The Dells

Saturday morning The Spence Family headed on vacation. Origianally, we planned to make a stop on the way and arrive in Wisconsin Dells on Sunday. We were making such good progress and Kyle was cooperating so we decided to continue driving and arrived this evening. This was such a great decision...so we could get settled, unpacked, and shop for supplies for our condo. We are staying at The Wilderness On The Lake in a two bedroom condo overlooking Lake Delton...beautiful! The condo is great, fully equipped kitchen, washer/dryer and is huge... it may be a little big for our little family of three, but it is nice to have the space separate from Kyle. We are deciding what our itinerary will be for the week and what fun adventures we would like to explore in The Dells....so many activities to choose from! Stay tuned for details of our week filled with family fun!

Vacation Plans

In just a few weeks, The Spence Family is headed to Wisconsin Dells. We are looking forward to a nice week long break full of fun and relaxation. Wisconsin Dells is a popular destination because of the many water parks in the area, but we aren't going for the waterpark adventure. We have already taken a mini vacation earlier in the summer to The Great Wolf Lodge Waterpark in Kansas City. There are so many other attractions to keep the three of us entertained that we probably won't even have time to visit a waterpark.

We will be staying at the Wilderness Hotel, a 600 acre resort, in a two bedroom condo overlooking Lake Delton. A few of the attractions we are planning to see and do are: the circus world museum, a deer park, wildlife park, theme/amusement park, and duck boat ride. Since we will be traveling during the off season we are hoping the area won't be overly crowded. The weather should be perfect, with day time temperatures averaging in the seventies and night temperatures averaging in the fifties and sixties. Since it is a little over seven hours from St. Louis we will be driving. We will be stopping along the way the first night, so we won't be overly tired once we arrive in Wisconsin Dells. We will, however, drive straight home.

I do feel somewhat guilty since Kyle will be absent from school for several days while we are on vacation. Unfortunately, with John's work schedule during the summer months, he wasn't able to take very much time off. Within the coming weeks, we will be busy preparing for our adventure and I promise to have a recap of our fun family vacation to Wisconsin Dells!

Show Us Your Life - Honeymoon

Today on Kelly's Korner is Show Us Your Life - Honeymoon. We had an absolutely fantastic honeymoon in St. Croix...The US Virgin Islands. We stayed at The Carambola Beach Resort with our room just steps away from the beautiful beach. The first day of our stay we planned our activities and excursions for the week. We saw plenty of great attractions on the island, had wonderful meals, and plenty of rest and relaxtion on the beach.

We toured the Cruzan Rum Factory, visited the Botanical Gardens, toured a plantation, watched Forth of July Fireworks, went horse back riding, went snorkeling (which I hated), had a wonderful private dinner on the beach and lived it up at the resort. We also took a Sea Plane ride to the island of St. Thomas...what a wonderful experience! While in St. Thomas we traveled by tram to Paradise Point. Paradise Point provides a beutiful view of the island. One of the main attractions in St. Thomas is the shopping which we did plenty of while on the island. One day we took a ferry ride to the island of St. John. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to spend on the island, but we were still very happy to have a small glimpse of this little slice of paradise.

We do have two funny stories which took place on our honeymoon. The majority of the locals on the island don't speak English very well so at times there was a bit of a communication gap. We had a cab ride scheduled to drive us to board the sea plane to St. Thomas. Obviously, there was a communication problem because the cab driver took us to the local hospital instead....LOL! Another funny story which took place was...One day I had a one hour massage scheduled. While I was being pampered, my husband took a cab ride to the local K-Mart to purchase Cruzan Rum for us to bring home. Everyone told us the rum was much less expensive at K-Mart than the rum factory. Obviously, not the most romantic activity we did on our honeymoon!

We have so many pictures from our honeymoon, however not many are scanned on the computer. Unfortunately, we didn't own a digital camera in 2003 so the picture quality isn't the best. These pictures are just a small glimpse into our fantastic honeymoon. We would LOVE to go back one day. Looking back through our album brought back so many great memories. Life certainly has changed since then...mostly for the better...Thanks to Kyle, our three year old son!

Dinner for Two on the Beach!

St. Thomas

Whim Plantation Carambola Beach Resort Paradise Point...St. Thomas

Relaxing at the resort

Dinner at The Waves in St. Croix

Great Wolf Lodge Vacation - Recap Two

Recap Two from our mini-vacation will focus on eating, which of course is our favorite activity to do on vacation! Our first night (Friday night), we ate in the Critter Cafe which is the restaurant inside the Great Wolf Lodge. We also ate breakfast there each morning, a "must" for us on vacation. Saturday night we ventured to the outdoor mall area close by the lodge and ate dinner at one of the many restaurants. We attempted to eat at several restaurants, but the wait was too long. We finally decided to try the T-Rex Cafe and it was the best decision. We did have to wait to be seated for dinner, but Kyle was throughly entertained, traveling into a prehistoric adventure. He was in awe of the life size animated dinasaurs throughout the establishment. We were seated for dinner close to a dinasour display which kept Kyle content during our meal. Another cool thing about the T-Rex Cafe was every half an hour they would have a meteor shower...the lights would dim/flash and you would hear the sound of thunder. We would love for a T-Rex Cafe to open in the St. Louis area....what a magical adventure for kids of all ages!

View from our table at dinner

Wooly Mammoth display Dinasour display

Prehistoric dinasour

Kyle is all smiles at dinner

Sunday night we drove over to Kansas City, MO. to eat dinner at Houston's Restaurant in the Country Club Plaza area of town. Houston's is one of my favorite restaurants so it was mandatory we eat there since we were so close by. The food is always top notch and the spinach/artichoke dip is delicious. We took a nice stroll through the Plaza area after dinner, but didn't stay too long so we could get back to the lodge to visit the waterpark one last time.

Below are a couple of photos taken outside of Houston's restaurant. I promise that I was actually on the vacation, but unfortuntaly, I didn't make my way into any of the pictures. Although, it's more imporant to document Kyle's fun times on the vacation!

Great Wolf Lodge Vacation - Recap One

We returned Monday afternoon from our mini-vacation to The Great Wolf Lodge. It was a nice relaxing getaway from our real world. As I mentioned in my previous post, Kyle wasn't very excited about the water park. As the vacation continued, he became more and more comfortable...partly because we made him do things he didn't necessarily want to do. We took him down the tube slides several times and also put him down the toddler slides. He always would fuss going up to the slide, but once he was on the slide he would light up with a big smile. He seemed very content lounging on the inter tube with Mommy and Daddy on the lazy river. This was probably our favorite activity in the water park...floating around and around without a care in the world.

After spending several hours in the morning and early afternoon at the water park we would head back for some quiet, down time. Kyle rarely napped, but did spend time in the "Wolf Den" resting up for his next adventure...usually dinner, water park activities, story time, a dance party in the lobby, playing chase with his new friends outside or shopping at the nearby outdoor mall.

Unfortunately, we didn't take too many pictures because it was difficult to take pictures in the water or the camera was on the other end of the water park. I hope you enjoy the pictures that we did manage to take.

Kyle...The Bellboy Kyle's nesting place

Kyle is ready to leave the room

and have some fun Kyle in the Great Wolf Lodge Water park

Kyle exploring the outdoor pool

Kyle a little hesitant going down the toddler slide

This is actually A LOT of fun!

Kyle playing chase with his new friends...the ducks!

Getting Our Paws Wet

The Spence Family left this morning for a mini-vacation to The Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, KS. The Great Wolf Lodge is a huge indoor waterpark...a dream come true for anyone who LOVES the water! This is our second trip to the lodge so we knew exactly what to expect...fun, fun, and more fun! However, on the "fun scale" we would rate today as only a one out of three on the fun day scale. Kyle spent today getting his "feet wet", was overly tired from the drive, and since he didn't have an afternoon nap he wasn't in the best of moods to explore the waterpark. I'm sure tomorrow will be a better day since Kyle will be getting a great night sleep in the "Wolf Den".

Unfortunately, I failed to bring the cord adapter for the camera so I'm unable to download pictures while we are here. I'm sure everyone is extremely disappointed (Ha!), but beware for a picture overload once we return home. We are off to get a little sleep in hopes that we have "A Great Wolf Time" tomorrow. Good bye from Kansas City!

Home Sweet Home

After:

1,522.3 Miles Driven

28 hours, 44 minutes in the car

82.4 Gallons of Gas

WE ARE HOME!!!

We had such a fantastic time in New Orleans. I have posted a few details about our trip in previous posts and have several more to share in the coming days! Even though, our trip was fun, "there's no place like home".

St. Louis in New Orleans

Even though I now live in St. Louis, I can't seem to escape my "new" home while in my "old" home. John took my picture under the St. Louis street sign while we were in the French Quarter.

New Orleans French Quarter

Last night Poppie came over to our hotel and spent some quality time with Kyle while John and I went on a "date". John and I went to the French Quarter for dinner and we ate at The Gumbo Shop, one of John's favorites in New Orleans. We had a delicious dinner which consisted of...seafood gumbo, barbeque shrimp, crawfish etoufee (my entree), and a combination dinner with jambaylaya, shrimp creole, and crawfish etoufee (John's entree). The food was fabulous! The food is one thing I miss so much since moving from New Orleans. It was such a special treat to have some "true" New Orleans style food.

After dinner we walked around the French Quarter and headed to Pat O'Briens and also to the Cat's Meow, an extremely fun karoke bar, for a cocktail. We had such a nice, relaxing, "quiet" evening out on the town. Thanks so much to Poppie (my Dad) for watching Kyle!

John and I in the courtyard at Pat O's

Hello From Louisiana

Hello everyone...We are in New Orleans!!! Yeah...it's good to be back "home"...even if it's only for a few days! We left home Thursday morning, stayed the night in Mississippi, and arrived in New Orleans mid afternoon. We have plenty of fun times to look forward to this weekend and are very excited. I'm sure I will return to share the details and pictures of our Big Easy adventures.

Along our ten + hour drive we did stop several times to stretch our legs and take a little breather. Of course, at least one stop had to turn into a mini photo shoot of Kyle. Enjoy the pictures!

We Made The Newspaper

Our local county newspaper, The Journal, posts pictures each week to show where the paper has traveled. On our recent family vacation to Gatlinburg, TN./The Great Smoky Mountains we brought The Journal along. We took the above picture on the ski lift at Ober Gatlinburg, an amusement park and ski resort. A few weeks ago I sent the picture in for publication. We were excited to receive the paper this morning and found our picture was published front and center!