This was our last week in Texas. Heather did some playing in the rain and Kyle finished up his classes on the 26th. After taking a final he drove back up to Frisco. Jess’ parents offered to watch Heather so we could have a night out to celebrate our anniversary. We went to the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas. It’s a nice hotel. We walked to dinner at an Italian restaurant, Bellini’s, down the road which had good reviews. The outside could use some serious updating, but the inside was rather nice and the food was good.
On Saturday we saw “How to Train your Dragon 2.” I’ve been corrupted by my classes because I kept seeing the movie in light of how the characters portrayed various foreign policy strategies and how problems develop when those different strategies clash. The vikings initially want isolationism, Hiccup wants to practice liberal interventionism, the bad guy practices primacy, and the vikings are forced to adopt primacy to defend themselves. All of that is sub-text, not really the topic of the movie, of course, but these are ideas infused in our culture and media without even thinking about it. It’s interesting to have had it exposed so you can see it and how it influences the world around us.
That evening we went to dinner with Jess’ parents and the next day we were on our way home.
The second week was lots of hanging around. The cousins all had a blast playing together. You can see one of my notebooks in these pictures on the table. That was just half the reading for the deterrence class. Once I was back for the weekend we went to the Dallas Aquarium.
On the swings
Down the slide
The fall of the Berlin Wall memorial at the Bush Presidential Library
Heather liked the motorcycles
Playing with the hose
And here’s a video of Heather playing with the hose:
Jess and Heather spent this week (as most of the month) hanging out with family. Heather was able to meet grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. She had a blast with all of them after having a little time to warm up.
Heather playing with Papa
Heather lounging with Bubbie
Cousin Vivian
Cousins Vivian and Maddox
At the splash pad
The table of the cousins
Kyle picked up his rental car and drove down to College Station. The Lab invited me to participate in what they call the National Security Leadership Program. It’s a joint program with Texas A&M. Each year the Lab selects ~7 employees to participate in the program. During June, those employees go to Texas A&M to take two graduate courses in national security at the Bush School of Government and Public Service. Then we take another course during each of Fall and Winter via video conference.
The two classes during June covered nuclear deterrence and coercion theory, international relations theory, military strategy, history of U.S. intelligence programs, intelligence agency organization and tradecraft, and counter-intelligence operations. The intelligence/counter-intelligence course was taught by a retired Director of Counter-Intelligence at the CIA who spent his life under cover as a case officer working operations around the world. So he knew his material. Both classes were fascinating and enjoyable.
They were a lot of work though. The deterrence course had 4 books to read plus 100-250 pages of reading per night and two papers. The intelligence course had 3 books, but luckily minimal additional reading, as well as a paper and two exams. So I was very busy the entire month.
I was, however, able to drive back up to Frisco for the weekends to hang out with everyone and have a little fun.
The first weekend we went to the Perot Science Museum and celebrated my birthday.
Playing at the water table
Playing in the sand box
Making music with the giant xylophones
Cake!
Heather wanted to help
Playing Monopoly with Christopher, Chance, and Cameron (Left to right)
The Dickerson family had a reunion this year in Cedar City, UT. We stayed in the dorms at Southern Utah University and just happened to be there during the first stage of the Tour of Utah bicycle race which ended right in town and went past our apartments three times.
Throughout the trip I took over 900 pictures, so I did a lot of culling to get it down the 15 I’m using in this post, so don’t complain about too many pictures.
The reunion ran from August 4 through August 9. The 4th and 5th was just people arriving and wandering about doing whatever.
The Tour of Utah stuff on was the 6th. As the race wound its way through the mountains there was stuff going on downtown including a booth for the Shakespeare Festival with various costumes and props to try on. Heather fit perfectly in the jester’s hat.
The racers got into town in the late afternoon. Here’s the main group of racers coming down the road:
Here’s the crew that stayed up in the apartment watching on:
That evening a group of us went to watch Peter and the Starcatcher. It’s a retelling of the origin of Peter Pan. A little odd at times, but enjoyable.
On Wednesday, the 7th, we went to Frontier Homestead State Park where Heather sat on a horse (statue, obviously). It’s a bunch of old-timey machinery and buildings and stuff to look at.
That evening obligatory family fun & games were held, of course. Here’s Evan in his cowboy getup enjoying Bingo (run by Megan & Chad) after he won some honey-roasted peanuts:
Erin ran The Price is Right complete with Plinko, which Megan and Chad played:
On Thursday we took a horse- (and mule-) back ride through Bryce Canyon (thanks again Mike!). Mike’s mule was appropriately named “Porky” as he took every opportunity to graze at the side of the trail.
From left to right: Megan, Mollie, Jess, Mike, and Tina.Here we are at our rest stop. Left to right: Evan, Tina, Mike, Mollie, Megan, Chad, and Jess.
Jess had a blast. I have a bunch of pictures of her riding with a great big smile on her face.
Riding and taking pictures is easier said than done for someone with very little riding experience. We weren’t allowed to take anything with us except a camera, so I picked my 50-200mm zoom lens with a polarizer and hoped for the best. I probably should have taken the 18-55mm instead as with the 50mm widest angle I wasn’t able to get any grand panoramic shots, however with the 200mm telephoto I was able to get closer-up pictures of everyone else riding.
The biggest issue was trying to look through the viewfinder to take a shot with the horse bouncing around and me trying to hold on. To compensate, many of my pictures were taken Rambo-style just aiming in the general direction and hoping for the best.
Here’s my favorite picture of the few hundred I took while on the ride. I think it’s neat how clear the various layers of rock are across the hoodoos.
The next day was checkout so we all spent the morning trying to get packed up and out the door. After checking out we tried to take some family pictures.
Here’s the Dickerson grandchildren of 2011. Heather, born in October. Charlie, born in December. And Addie, born in August.
After family pictures we had a round of bowling to celebrate Evan’s birthday (with requisite cream-cheese pie).
From there the party broke up and went separate ways. We went up to Provo along with most of the rest for Will’s baptism on Saturday. After the baptism and lunch it was time to head home. Heather was starting to not feel well and didn’t much like adjusting to hotel rooms so we decided to drive straight through and just get home. So we got home at around 4:30am Sunday completely exhausted.
And if you don’t come home in the middle of the night completely exhausted then you’re not doing your family vacations right; at least that’s what my childhood memories suggest anyway.
