Miami Hockey Camp

Yesterday we picked up Andrew from the Miami University Redhawks Hockey School in Oxford, OH. He spent the full week (5 nights) there with his buddy Patrick. They had four on-ice skating sessions each day, plus a lot of off-ice stuff like classroom instruction, swimming, conditioning, etc. Miami has an excellent college hockey program, and the facilities there were phenomenal. Before we packed his stuff up to come home, we were able to watch a final scrimmage with Andrew's "red" Bantam team playing the "black" Bantam team. Andrew looked really good, and he played aggressive which was nice to see. On the way home, Andrew feel asleep from exhaustion. All-in-all, it seemed like a great hockey camp. Here are the highlights.

Summer Vacation Picture Recap

Since we are known to take a lot of pictures on our vacations, we generally do a video recap of some of the pictures that were taken along the way. So here is our closing Hollywood Four summer vacation highlight reel ... in pictures.

World's Largest General Store in 2 Minutes

As I mentioned in my post this morning, on one of our last day's of vacation we stopped at the Country Junction: The World's Largest General Store. Here is a bonus clip of the kids walking through the entire store in 2 minutes.

Summer Vacation Days 7-8

Our last couple days of vacation were spent in traveling to Harrisburg and Altoona, PA for minor league baseball games. On our way, we stopped at Country Junction: The World's Largest General Store. This was an interesting stop, to stay the least. That evening we attended a Harrisburg Senators game on City Island which was a very cool stadium. Unfortunately, we only made it through 3 innings before the game was rain postponed. The next day we were going to hike the 1,000 Steps Hiking Trail, but it was too rainy. So, after killing some time, we finished the day off at the Altoona Curve baseball game. This was another gem of a stadium, but again we were only able to enjoy 4 innings before more rain. So, we drove home last night and that ended our summer Hollywood Four vacation.

Summer Vacation Day 6

For day 6 of our Hollywood Four vacation, we planned on going to a big, local waterpark. However, I forgot to pre-purchase the tickets online and the price at the gate was too expensive (plus the place was a mad house). So we decided to take another hike down Indian Trail on Camelback Mountain. Despite this being less than 2 miles, in the 90+ degree weather, we were hot and drenched with sweat. So we headed for Sand Spring Lake in Hickory State Park for a refreshing swim at this "off-the-beaten-path" beach. It was a short swim, however, as the storm clouds began to roll in. So we left the beach and checked out the very cool Boulder Field in the park before we left (it was an endless field of boulders). To finish off our night, we had a huge pizza dinner at Trattoria's 903. On the way back to our room, we stopped at the Jim Thorpe memorial park to learn a little about the person to which this town is named. As a nightcap, we watched a family movie together (Smurfs).

Summer Vacation Day 5

On day 5 of our Hollywood Four vacation, we enjoyed a nice, hearty breakfast at the Broadway Grill and Pub then headed out for a 5 mile hike along the Glen Onoko Falls Trail in the Lehigh Gorge State Park. This turned out to be an awesome 3+ hour hike, with a lot of scenic payoffs along the way. The highlight video below captures many of the cool waterfalls we saw (keeping Andrew and Abby refreshed along the way). After our hike, we went to Mauch Chunk Lake for a quick dip to cool off from the 90 degree temperatures. After that we returned to our hotel to clean up before enjoying a nice dinner at Molly McGuire's Grille & Pub. For our nightcap, we played some cards and enjoyed a family Movie (Tin Tin) in our spacious hotel suite.

Summer Vacation Day 4

On the fourth day of our Hollywood Four vacation, we did some hiking in the Lehigh Gorge State Park along the Lehigh River. The trails were not challenging, but there were some nice waterfalls and views. Then we checked into nice little hotel called The Inn at Jim Thorpe where we have a large, one-bedroom suite with a queen sofa for the kids. The suite has been renovated and is very nice. It will be serving as our base of operations the next few days as we do more exploring. We also enjoyed a nice meal at the Inn's restaurant called the Broadway Grill and Pub.