The Blue Angels Flyover

The Blue Angels flyover at the Air Force Memorial – Arlington, VA.

We heard about a possible flyover of the US Navy’s Blue Angels on the radio this afternoon and decided to try and find a nice place on the river to catch the show and take some pictures. They don’t normally advertise when they plan on flying over the Washington Metro area and I guess you can probably understand why that is, but this time they did. As a mater of fact, they gave so much advance warning that when we got to the Air Force Memorial, which is where we decided to try and watch the show, it was pretty much already packed with would-be spectators.

The information on the radio was that they where going to be doing flyovers at Reagan National Airport for a photo shoot and that one of the trainer planes would be taking photos as they flew over Washington, DC. I think it was for a “Fly Navy” advertising campaign or something like that, but who really knows. Instead of flying down the river in line with the DCA landing flight path they actually flew across the river from Washington into Arlington… through the DCA flight path and almost directly over the Air Force Memorial where we were set up to watch. WOW, what a great sight! They only made two passes, but it was enough time for me to snap off some awesome photos with my Nikon D7100 and 70-200mm f/2.8G FX VRII Zoom Lens. Enjoy the photos!
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Bermuda Family Retreat Part-2

Sea Glass Beach at Alexandra Battery Park – St. George’s Parish, Bermuda

Here is the second installment of pictures from our recent family trip to beautiful Bermuda. There are a lot of photos in this set from our excursion to Alexandra Battery Park for Julies sea glass collecting adventure. I also had a chance to capture Dylan being himself in the small surf at the sea glass beach without fear of him being pulled away by the currents. We finished off the afternoon with lunch and pool time at the beach club and then a golf cart ride home for dinner and a nice quite evening. I’ll post some videos from our trip later after I have a chance to edit them.
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Dylan’s Biking Camp Adventures

Dylan and his orange 16″ Custom Mongoose Duster bike – Arlington, VA.

We sent Dylan to a local biking camp this summer as one of his summer activities and he totally loved it. We started Dylan out on a push/balance bike when he was very young, so the transition to a peddle bike last year was very quick and easy. He didn’t want training wheels at all during the transition, stating that they only got in the way. This spring we put him on one size larger peddle bike and he has turned out to be an outstanding rider for a five year old. As a matter of fact, the very first day of his two week biking camp, the director moved him from the beginners class to the advanced class with the bigger kids and told us he was way too good to be in his age level group. That same day he and his new class went on a group ride from Arlington to DC (about 6 to 7 miles round trip!) Since then we have taken him on bike rides of over 10 miles. This boy loves to bike!! Here are some photos of this summers biking fun.
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A Bermuda Vacation Part-1

Dylan and Uncle Mike on top of Tucker’s Point Tower – Tucker’s Point Club, Bermuda

We didn’t plan a lot of travel this summer, but our annual spring and fall trips to Bermuda are a given. We decided to wait until Dylan was out of school to make our first trip, so it would be June this year. A little closer to summer than normal for us, it would still turn out to be a nice week weather wise. This year we invited my brother Mike to join us for the week and (needing a vacation badly) he excepted! We had a great week of sight seeing, boating, golfing, snorkeling, a beach barbecue, a ‘winch dunking’, a tour of the Crystal Caves and tons of fun at the beach club and swimming pools. Mike and I got to play a couple rounds of golf and we took Dylan to Castle Island for his first experience at snorkeling on the reef. He did great for a 5 year old in open water! We look forward to taking Uncle Mike back with us again in the future… he was a huge help and a lot of fun for Dylan to hang out with.
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Boating Season Begins!

“Enjoying a beautiful day rafted-up at the Belmont Bay party cove with Friends”

I am happy to announce that boating season for our family has officially begun. I had to spend a little more time this spring getting the boat ready due to the harsher than average winter, but all went well and we are ready for what looks to be a great summer of boating. More photos and videos to follow.
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Dylan 2014

This has been a fun year to be a father and to see my little man grow. He has learned to communicate, to reason and to ask questions that sometimes I have to think twice about answering. He has become a world traveler and brought both tears of joy and frustration to my eyes. But no matter what has happened or what the future holds for he and I… I wouldn’t change a thing!! This is a small collection of photos taken over this past year of my totally awesome and handsome son… Dylan!
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Dinosaur’s Live!!

Today we took Dylan downtown to the DC National Armory for a weekend event featuring… yep, you guessed it, Dinosaurs!! Dylan saw a commercial for the event on television and told us that we had to go. He made it sound like it was a life or death situation… “Dad, there are live dinosaurs there!!” Well we caved in like most parents do and headed down to see what all the fuss was about. I have to admit, it was fun and the robotic dinosaurs were as real as I would ever want them to be, but the lines for the bouncy rides/houses where unreal! Dylan had the most fun out of all of us, but next time I think I will skip work and take him in the middle of the day to avoid the lines.
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Bermuda Family Vacation Part-2

“Ray and Barbara outside The Point Restaurant before dinner” – Tucker’s Point Hotel & Spa, Bermuda.

Here are some more photos from our annual end of summer family trip to Bermuda. I have to thank my father for taking and sharing a lot of the photos in this post… it’s hard to take photos of your son and be in them at the same time! Thanks again Dad and I hope you and Mom, as well as Bruce and Ann, had a wonderful time staying with us for the week. Hope we can do it again soon!!
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Bermuda Family Vacation Part-1

“Looking out over Tucker’s Point private beach” – Tucker’s Point Beach Club, Bermuda.

We changed things up a little for our annual end of summer Bermuda trip this year. My parents, even they travel a lot, have never been to Bermuda, so Julie and I thought it would be nice to have them accompany us and Dylan for a week of fun in the sun. What made this trip even better was having Julie’s parents there at the same time so Dylan could enjoy all the grand parents at once. I think everyone had a very nice time and the grand parents got to enjoy some very special quality time with their favorite grand son… Dylan.
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Our Summer Euro Trip – Bunratty Castle

The Bunratty Castle & Folk Park – Bunratty, County Clare, Ireland

After leaving Ashford Castle we traveled South with the rest of the Bedford Clan to County Clare, where we would spend one night at Bunratty Castle Hotel before driving back to Dublin for our flight home. We had a chance to tour the old castle before it closed and then enjoyed a traditional Irish medieval dinner at the Bunratty Castle Estates. There was great food, entertainment and even some traditional Irish dancing to round out the evening. I will try to post a couple of videos later when I have time to edit them.
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