The Hessman Family

Well, Tandra and I spent 5 days in Manhattan early this December. What a fantastic trip. I would recommend it to anyone.

We stayed at the Crown Plaza at 49th and Broadway in Times Square, which put us in the middle of all the action. We did the usual tourist activities such as taking the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, the observation decks of The Empire State building and Rockefeller Plaza (30 Rock). The views were amazing, we went to the top of the Rockefeller building at night, it’s hard to describe looking down on all of New York City all lit up. We caught a Broadway show… “Wicked” at the Gershwin Theater… very entertaining.

We ate very well at some incredible pizza places such as Lombardi’s, and John’s Pizzeria, had some dogs at Gray’s Papaya, an incredible Italian dinner at Becco’s on restaurant row. The only unfortunate food choice we made was in China Town… blech! Poor service and poor food. Won’t make that mistake again. Don’t worry, walking 3 to 5 miles a day kept us hungry.

We also did some shopping, Tandra was excited to go into Tiffany’s, although we didn’t buy anything… weren’t in the mood for a second mortgage, we bought some nice coats at Macy’s. Being the largest department store in the world, Macy’s was simply amazing.. we probably didn’t see half the store even with all the time spent there.

It seemed everyone we met was a tourist, mostly from other parts of the world. Overall it was a great vacation and we can’t wait to go back, though 3 full days with 2 half days is about all we could handle, especially the stressful flights back, we were supposed to arrive in Wichita at 7pm, and didn’t get back until close to midnight due to weather delays and a missed flight in Chicago.

So go check out the pictures in the photo gallery! Hope you enjoy!

Ever since Hannah was a baby, we have made it a tradition to always attend the Independence Day parade here in Derby.  Hannah has a wonderful time, and always ends up with piles of candy… for her Father of course.  Kristin and Emma joined us, Kristins’ mother was visiting from Utah and was also there, unfortunately Jake is still deployed.

That evening everyone came over to our house for food and fireworks.  I smoked a brisket, grilled brats and hotdogs, everyone brought sides and what a feast it was.  Tandra made a couple of incredible deserts, an apple brown betty, and a peach custard tart… both served with ice cream.  Needless to say we were all stuffed.

That evening the whole cul-de-sac was out for fireworks, it was quite a show.  Hopefully next year we’ll have as good of a turn out.

In mid April, we took my parents to Williamsburg, VA as a 40th Anniversary present.  We spent a couple of days at Busch Gardens, an amusement park owned by Anheuser-Busch.  Hannah had a great time sharing rides with Grandpa, and I had a great time on a few of the roller-coasters, although I couldn’t bring myself to ride the Griffon… even my stomach has it’s limits.

Our next visit was to Colonial Williamsburg, they took the original town founded in the late 1600’s, and turned it into a museum/tourist attraction.  It was quite interesting, not only the original buildings, but also the detailed history of our colonial days leading up to the revolution.  All the major colonial cities, Yorktown, Jamestown, Williamsburg, Richmond, Alexandria, were all built along 3 rivers that drain into Chesapeake Bay.  The Potomac, The James, and the York rivers, they all have so much to see that we spent alot of time driving from place to place.  It was a wonderful trip, the evenings topped off with great food at many local restaurants.

After a week in Williamsburg, we drove my folks back to Richmond, where they and Hannah caught a plane back to Wichita.  Tandra and I went on to Alexandria for another week.  We stayed on the famous King Street in old town Alexandria.  About 12 blocks long, leading up to the Potomac, with some major revolutionary history.  We ate at a Tavern that George Washington frequented, at the same tavern’s second level we toured the room Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as president.  And the restaurants and night life along King St. was incredible.

We spent a few days in D.C. as well, visited the Natural History Museum, Air & Space, American History Museum, and took paddle boats out on the Potomac.  We spent a morning touring the capitol building, which is so immense and impressive… the dome alone is made of cast iron and weighs in at 8.9 million pounds.  Mount Vernon was spectacular, I never knew what a commanding view it has over the Potomac River.

Over all it was a fantastic trip, the area is so full of history and charm.  I would highly recommend it to anyone.  See some pictures of the trip at our Photo Gallery

We had an incredibly mild winter this year, with only one light snow… until this past weekend.  Starting Friday afternoon it began raining ice pellets.  A downpour of ice pellets.  It looked like we had at least 2-3 inches of pure ice on everything, finally saturday it changed to snow. And a blizzard it was!  The weather lasted until just after noon, then it was time for Hannah to head outside and have some fun in the snow.

Even after all that snow and ice, the temp climbed into the 50’s on Sunday, and almost all of it was gone.  By Monday it was in the mid sixties… unfortunately freaky weather is the norm in Kansas.  You never know what to wear one day to the next.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and thanks for stopping by.

For our anniversary this year, Tandra and I stayed a night at the The Castle Inn Riverside.  The castle is located in the Riverside area of Wichita, and was built in 1888.  It has been a bed & breakfast since 1994.

After our evening out to dinner and a movie, we returned to the dining room. The Proprietor had put out a lemon cake, a pumpkin spice cheesecake, and assorted drinks. Both desserts were quite good, if we had returned earlier in the evening we would have had hors d’oeuvres as well.

Our room was named “Mary, Queen of Scots”.  As usual at a B&B all the rooms are themed and named appropriately.  It was a beautiful room facing east in which the private balcony overlooked the Arkansas River and 11th St. bridge.  Due to the unusually warm weather, we decided to go for a walk along the river first thing in the morning.  We also climbed to the top of the turret, which gives a commanding view of the Wichita skyline.

Breakfast isn’t served until 9am, a little late if you ask me.  But it was worth the wait.  Breakfast is served in the Solarium, a small room made mostly of glass, it has four small 2 person tables and 1 small 4 person table.  It was very intimate and romantic.  Paula Lowry (the owner) prepared an amazing ham quiche, muffins and fruit cup.  The muffins were outstanding, but the award goes to the ham quiche.. if I weren’t a civil man I would have threatened bodily harm in order to get the recipe.  It was truly amazing, and made the entire stay that much better.

The Castle Inn Riverside is certainly worth the cost, and may well be worth returning on a yearly basis.  Thanks for reading!

So, here I was thinking it would be interesting to list 10 of what I consider to be not only “great” songs.  But songs that might be considered “epic”.  Not for any one particular reason, but for many.  Songs that you have to crank up, sing along with, or just listen in stunned silence at the melodic genius behind them.  Or maybe a combination of the music and the message (re: antiwar).

Although I was born as the Vietnam war was coming to an end, I find the music inspired by that period very hard to ignore.  It was difficult to only choose a couple from that time period.  I also wanted to stay away from the typical top 40 crap regurgitated in large quantities by the record companies, produced for the bubble gum chewing, air headed, ignorant masses.  (I’m looking at you Britney fans!).

I’m not listing these songs as a definitive top 10 of all time, no one can really do that.  These songs are what was on my mind at the time of this writing, I included them for various reasons only I could understand.  Some of these songs you will probably have never heard before, my taste in music covers the full spectrum, although I have tried to keep my list confined to one or 2 genres.  Mainly what I grew into as a teenager, as well as what I was exposed to by my parents… how else can you explain my love of Neil Diamond, Simon & Garfunkel and so forth.

I want people to add to this list, or say why a song shouldn’t be on the list.  I want input and opinion!  So please comment and see what we can come up with.  So here we go, My Top Ten Songs of All Time (in no particular order):

Queen – Fat Bottom Girls

Jim Croce – I Got A Name

Eric Clapton – Layla

Simon & Garfunkel – Sound of Silence

Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter

Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb

Iron Maiden – Hallowed Be Thy Name

Eagles – Hotel California

Bon Jovi – Wanted Dead or Alive

REO Speedwagon – Ridin’ The Storm Out

Saturday the 24th, we traveled to Tandra’s hometown of Blackwell, OK for her father’s 88th birthday bash! Robert was born in 1921, and is a native of Missouri.

The guests were of course Robert and Robinell, Tandra’s sister Melanie and her husband Rob, as well as friends of the family Chester, Vera, and Dr. Godley, myself and Tandra, Hannah too!

A lot of good food (too much as usual), everyone had a good time, especially the birthday boy.

Grampy & Hannah

Oldham Clan

Happy Birthday!

The new photo gallery is up and running.  So far I’ve got 3 albums in place.  Christmas, Halloween, and Disney World, all from 2008.  So go check it out, feel free to register and leave comments.  You can also bookmark the photo gallery seperate from this site if you’d like, or you can continue to access it through this blog.

Photo Gallery

Welcome to the new Hessman Family website!  I have taken down the old site as it was too time consuming to maintain.  The new site is in the form of a Blog, which makes it much easier to update and keep current.

I will use this site to post updates on the family, vacations, important events and so on.

Managing the blog appears a little daunting right now, but as I get better acquainted with it the site will improve, become more organized and easier to navigate.  Hopefully I’ll be able to improve it’s appearance somewhat.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for visiting!

Frank Hessman