A formidable Memorial Day

A four-day weekend that had a whole months worth of fun packed into it. I was able to walk the kids to school on Friday as I was off but their schools were in session. Merrick and I walked Sophia about half way to school and then the three of us thought Sophia was old enough to walk the rest of the way by herself. Merrick and I continued on to his school, where in a short while I would wake him from his nap and head to the doctors office to check on his soon-to-be third ear infection in a little over a month. In the end he got stickers and we headed to the ice cream shop to have a couple of cones in the beautiful weather. We walked back down to pick up Sophia at a school and Lisa met us at the playground. I had actually burned my barefoot pretty good on the walk down so Lisa ran back to get the car and then we all headed to the ice cream shop for supper. This was going well until Merrick started spouting off about it being his second ice cream, ix-nay and loose lips sinking ships was lost on him but not the ladies--we were busted. Busted or not we still got ice cream. We grabbed a movie on the way home and the kids flopped on the futon matteress for a good old fashioned movie night. Saturday Sophia had yet another birthday party to go to, a pool party so we dropped her off and then the rest of us did a little domestic shopping and napping. Saturday night the Cup finals were on so we took the kids to the bar, the sucked down rootbeer and various deep fried things (including deep-fried raviolli) and played shuffle board while Lisa and I watched the first period of the game. Sunday morning we drove up to Pennisula State park to take in some picnicking and beach time. There was hoards of people and lot of 'chalkasians' that were nasty red from the early spring sun. The water temperature was way too cold for even the kids to swim (high fifties maybe) but standing in calf deep water and building sand castles was a pretty good way to spend the afternoon. We also found a pretty sweet dirt track with peddle cars for the kids to tear around on while Lisa was inside getting us some cherry strusel and water. We shopped a little in Fish Creek before heading south again, the kids napped on the way home with their new hats in their laps. We had a quick supper and then ran down to the DePere Days festival not too far from the house. Standard Fair stuff of bouncing palaces, funnel cakes and hillbillies--we found a grassy area to spread out our blanket and watch the sunset and eat a funnel cake that had beer spilled on it while we waited for the fireworks to start. It was Merrick's first fireworks and initially not a fan, but by the second artillary volley he was partaking in all of the ohhs and ahhs. The kids also each got a light saber (neon blue) on the way home, so with Merrick on my shoulders we danced through the drunken crowd while Yoda, aka Merrick, taunted each drunk with a light saber to the face. At any rate I made it out of there without getting punched in the nose and the kids were so tired that they even slept until after 6 on Monday morning. Monday we hit the bike trail and drove down to the parade and taught the kids that it was ok to take candy from strangers and play in the street sometimes. We met some of our friends at the parade and all ended up back at our house for a lunch off the grill and kids in sprinklers--that is about as Norman Rockwell as we can get. The plan for Monday night was to watch the second game of the Cup, but we needed to do some minor surgery on Sophia's ear as her earring back had been pushed into the whole and had the ear growing around it--pulled it out with a hemostat on one side and forceps on the other piled on the bacitracine and called it fixed. Like I said we tried to pack a month into four days.