A nearly three month recap

It was early May when I hit the publish button on the last post and it has been a whirl-wind since then.  We had a wedding, and a birthday, we packed and we unpacked, the kids have various team events and today gives enough pause for a little updating.  We are finding some time now to get back to doing what we love to do.  We have hiked to two waterfalls, that given the mid-summer lack of rain are really just cliffs, but still pretty.  We have not let the warning signs deter our hikes to get better views and have usually added a nice picnic to the tour as well.  There has been a plenty of ice cream trips and I think in at least each of the neighboring counties.  Spent some time back in EC to watch the Blue Angles and have a rendevous with the clans.  The kids camped in the front yard and spent plenty of time splashing about and running through the woods.  Grandprize even outfitted each of them with appropriately themed sunglasses, aviators.  There was a kite fest in town which is always fun to watch and Ella and Amy were able to try their hands at the trick kites with four line controls.  Sophia had her 12th birthday in the new house and her and Ella made a cake to celebrate the day.  Ella took fifth with her softball team and now only gymnastics and soccer are left, but those teams are about done too and we are changing our plans towards camping.  The kids are getting some reading done during the vacation and have a time sheet from the library with little goals along the way for various minutes markers.  One of the rewards is a trip to Texas Roadhouse complete with a mechanical bull...so that will be fun!

Summer Appears

The weekend started off with a solid party for Ella's 11th birthday, she had a few friends sleep over and they went to bed relatively early.  The early bed time is likely because Amy wore them out at the water park and after refueling their bodies the drifted off to sleep.  We were also able to enjoy the sun with a little rollerblading and the long smooth trail is certainly helping the confidence. Saturday was spent getting the house in order for another showing and the yard is really looking nice.  Saturday was a lazy afternoon hitting balls at the softball diamond and ending with some smore's around the camp fire. Sunday we hit the trail again, but not before watching Sophia's gymnastic team tryout.  She hasn't found out yet if she made it, but I was certainly impressed with her ability and think she has a good chance...in my biased opinion.

Busy times and bunches of fun

 

The last post had us sledding but now, spring is upon us now with temperatures teasing 70 degrees, daffodils and crocus fully in bloom and the magnolia tree starting to show it glory.  Clearly it has been a while since the last update, but not for lack of items to update about but rather it has just been that busy.  Amy even mentioned a few days ago, "do you remember when we used to do stuff?"  Much of our time has been spent on preperations for the big move, but we have still sneaked off a few times to show our faces to the world of entertainment.  We spent an evening at the circus, complete with elephants and dancing horses. tightrope walkers and acrobats.  It was a great show!  We also found time to head to the Oshkosh mueseum to see the lego exhibit.  The artists ability to create with the colored blocks was amazing and well worth the trip.  There has been an Easter egg hunt and all the egg dying that goes along with it, baskets were hid and eventually found in coat closets and showers,  foil wrappers littered the house and the ears have all long since been gnawed off of each rabbit.  We have had three birthdays in the family and a handful more scattered throughout the immediate family.  I awoke to a kitchen decorated by elvish girls during the night.  Grace and Merrick both celebrated another year with a new doll and a new bike respectively.  Showing the house for prospective buyers has required us to vacate to neighborhood parks and even tried our hand at kite flying.  The wind was swirling and attempting to keep four kids' kites in the air might require a more consistent breeze in both direction and speed.  We have wandered around on the woodland trails abit as well, Osprey point has become a nice close excursion and provides plenty to find.  The spring sports of soccer and softball are closing in rapidly and with the wedding, honeymoon, moving out, moving in and all else that will go with a new house I can't imagine our scheduling will get any easier.  Life of course is what happens while making other plans, so we will continue to plan and reflect on the life that exists between all of the calendar reminders!

Slidding on water in all its Forms

We have all but given up on winter adventures.  We did sneak out a couple of weeks back to take advantage of a sunday morning snowfall of about 2 inches and do a little sledding.  Although the conditions were great for Grace and Ella and the hill was nicely populated it was still the only winter outing and has the possibility of being our first and last snow event of the year.  With that in mind Amy decided a trip to the Dells was in order and following her lead I couldn't have agreed more.  We set it up as a surprise, packing the kids gear the night before and loading the truck with out them knowing.  The plan was to get them home from school on Friday and under the guise of going out for dinner to just keep driving until we got to the water park.  That was the plan....late Friday morning Grace went home from school with a fever and "growly in the bowely"  We monitored her closely all afternoon and decided she was good enough to push on.  With everyone about to put on their jackets and leave for the weekend, Merrick puked all over the kitchen and then several additional wretches into the trash can.  Ten minutes later he said he felt alright and was jumping around so it was back to Plan A.  We were on the road nearly an hour before the kids started asking questions, they had seen the gear loaded in the back of the truck and thanks to the intrusive nature of Google's ad campaigns Ella had seen a couple of advertisements on the home computer for Mt. Olympus water parks...the little sleuths put it together that we weren't likely driving all the way to Oshkosh just for Culver's burger basket.  With a long but uneventful drive to the dells and a brief check in we donned our suits and headed to the green tubes of glee.  The air was hot, humid and heavily chlorinated.  It was exactly what we needed.  While the laughs were many the photos are few.  We road the Boa, Anaconda, Diamondback and the Cobra.  The cobra likely saw us least, but the others were crazy fast.  The Lazy river and the hot tub also saw a little attention from the kids.  We played in the park until it shut down for the night.  We had packed about 3 months worth of junk food and we did our best to plow through it all. We found a breakfast spot and filled up for another day of laughs.  We spent a few hours in the morning at the water park and then after lunch headed back to the indoor dry park.  The kids road a free fall ride about 20 times in a row and until the older two were told that they were on it long enough that they had grown too tall to ride.  I don't recall but it is possible that Amy and I dozed off on park bench.  They also spent some time in the foam ball area.  We hit a nice brew pub for dinner and then it was back to the water park.  We were pruny and chilled and ready to call it a day.  The room had acquired a unique smell that was exacerbated by the high temperatures and humidity, a less than subtle mixture of feet, junk food and processed junk food in a way that only little bellies can.  We hit the dry park once more before heading home near lunch time.  Just in case the kids might forget the trip, Amy also swung into the American Girl outlet on the way home and it was as if their collective heads were about to explode from pure bliss and endorphine overload.  Grace summed it up best as she was tucked in Sunday night, "I say all weekends are long, but this was the longest weekend ever!"

Skating, Snowmen and all Smiles

The ice rink was closed but we were not detered we strapped on wheeled skates and headed over to see Ms. Dollar at the Rola-Rena.  The line outside the roller rink on Friday night was cetainly nostalgic as five of us waited to get inside.  Ella was at school and sleep over, but the rest of us where ready for skating!  It was a total hoot, Amy and I had to spit out our gum at the door...Ms. Dollar, a certified skate instructor, wouldnt allow such things on her floors and with good reason.  My skates had no stoppers and insurance wouldn't allow them to be used either so I would have to rent another pair.  Also it turned out that insurance wouldn't allow coats to be on the backs of chairs but lockers were provided at a small fee.  Merrick flew around the rink on a knife's edge of being in control and totally out of it.  I caught up with Sophia and asked her if She had friends here her look was enough to signal yes and but I still had to verbalize the question that I already knew the answer too....'should I leave you alone?"  Grace was finding her feet and told Amy that she didn't know why the floor had to be so hard.  She was very glad it was Friday night so that she wouldn't have to go to school with her legs all bruised.  There were scooter races as well as a birthday sing along lap for someone.  We had to all line up, based on sex, along the wall while others skated by and choose whom they would skate with.  Amy picked me and Merrick was picked five and half times (he said the song ended so he only counted the last girl as half).  Sophia scored a lap or two and we couldn't quite convince Grace to pick a boy from the presented options.  Sweated up and wore out it was time to head to the bar.  He ate a couple of pretzels the size of our heads at Titletown and chugged quarts of rootbeer while watching Friday night fights.  The kids got into the fight and quickly chose a pugalist to root for.  Saturday was gymnastics day for Grace and the rest of us headed to TR to bring Ella home.  The kids giggled all the way home about the movie she had watched during the sleep over.  Merrick headed out with a friend for an afternoon of open gym/parcour and the Sophia had a friend over to the house for a while, wich increased the population of American Girl Dolls in the house.  The girls did find some time to get outside, with dish washing gloves on their hands, to build some snow people.  The temps were really warm and the snow was really quite wet but as it melted the minnows from last week were exposed and apparently made wonderful eyes for one of the snow people.  Science Saturday!!  The evening required some testing and use of the PHOEC model the kids use in school.  The Problem was oreo double stuff vs. original.   We were quite impressed as they took notes on the various qualities of the cookies and made insightful conclusions based on the evidence they had collected. They even added ways to increase their research.....mint oreos, halloween oreos, vanilla oreos....The sugar and transfat loading of Saturday was the perfect base for Sundays trip to the donought shop. All in all another wonderful weekend with plenty of smiles.

Shake your Fist

It had been too many days inside and the sun was shining, so as Grace headed off to her first day of gymnastics Ella and I shook our fists at the -19 windchills and headed out to do some ice fishing.  The car was loaded up and he headed to the Machick, fishing reports had been lackluster and this was confirmed by a couple of guys at the bait shop.  We were undaunted and pushed on with a bucket full of minnows.  Ultimately, as Ella pointed out, we would only use two minnows.  We set up the shack and got the heater going.  Sitting around the holes with our jackets off, reading a lot, snacking often and chattinga  bit was a wonderful way to spend some winter hours.  Not being interupted by fish or havng to wash fish smell out of our clothing was ok by us.  The tip ups were getting buried in the snow and I had to becareful not to touch the metal parts as my wet hands would stick to those parts, but it was great inside the shack.  Tried to push a guy's truck at the boat landing, having tried to drive out and quickly getting stuck in the snow.  Ella and I walked.  The way home we skipped the A&W so Ella could keep her New Year's resolution of no fast food and we talked about was to improve the shake, like maybe a small radio or hanging our jackets on the auger.  We didn't catch any fish, but Ella seemed to enjoy herself and we talked about going out again so it seemed that we at least hooked something.

WInter Comes for the New Year

School has arrived to replace slow paced winter break that brought cold and snowless days.  The cold was enough, in the eyes of some, to delay schools a couple of mornings, but with yesterday's snow it now looks and feels like winter outside.  The kids are excited about the possibility of finally getting some sledding done.  The break was spent doing many holiday activities indoors.  The smell of baking cookies was common in the house and everyone got their fill of various sweet treats.  The kids each got a bunk bed for their American Girl dolls and with that Amy showed them all how to make tie blankets to keep their 'kids' warm.  I lost count of the number of hours that they were playing with these dolls but over the break it was likely more easy to measure it in complete days.  Santa scored an unexpected hit by dropping off a case of root-beer, showing yet again parents can never be sure exactly what will be the 'wow' gift of the season.  We did get out for two short hikes once on the oconto trails, wolf ridge and another time closer to home at Osprey point.  Wolf ridge provided a good place to nibble on the easy to identify wintergreen that is quite abundant.  Osprey point was better for deer sign given the prolificness of the urban herd.  The kids did up the new year with a wonderful party complete with helium balloons and multitudes of snacks.  They all made it up until midnight and I don't recall anyone being too cranky the next day, although I also seem to recall even Merrick sleeping to nearly ten in the morning.  The older girls spent their last day of vacation at the Y, for a parcour class.  This is basically urban gymnastics and is pretty cool to watch them jump and somersault all over a gymnasium scattered with boxes, ropes and balance beams as they played a final game of insane lava tag.