Solstice and New Growth

The Solitice has come and gone along with Christmas and while the days are getting longer we are taking some time between the holidays for slow evenings and afternoon naps. It is a good time of year to replenish, reconnect, reflect and recharge. Santa was pleased I am sure to find a batch of fresh baked sugar cookies shaped like planes, butterflies and little angels driving cars. The weather has been a beautiful curse, with temperatures hovering in the high thirties and low forties it has been great to be outside, but without the snow, little to do. We have tentative plans for a hike tomorrow and maybe finish it off with pretzels the size of our heads and some rootbeer at Titletown, today however is going to be some swimming and a trip to the dentist. Sugar plums come with consequences. The kids were not for want during the Christmas holiday that extended almost a week. The embarrassment of riches reached a new level this year when I found a whole bag of gifts in the truck the day after I thought the gift opening was over. The kids and I discussed several times how important it is to have and to remember that their are people out there that love us and are thinking about us even when we are having bad days and temporarily forget about the support we have. The temperatures yesterday were low enough to take a marsh hike in a nearby park. We played on the open ice sections and beat some paths through 12-15 foot tall reed canary grasses. It was cool enough that we needed some hot coco to warm up our bellies and we headed down to a coffee shop. We sipped our coco and played some chess on the monster chess board. Without the snow the Santa gifts of Cross-country skis and ice-fishing gear are of little value, but will be fun when the eventual snow comes. We have been playing a lot of nerf gun battles and both the kids have taken great pleasure in assassin type shots to my face from across the room. Merrick has also become quite good at actually stealing my gun if I set it down to dry dishes or change loads of laundry. So much for the armed society is a polite society philosophy. Although their slides and back bends have reached almost Matrix-like quality. Snow of no snow it is of course the time with the kids and the lessons they teach that are the most important. Merrick did get a new bag of green army men and as Sophia and him were setting up the battle field Merrick took dibs on the good guys, Sophia looked at him and said "Don't you get it yet? There are no good guys or bad guys just two groups with different ideas." She does scare me sometimes with her flashes of maturity, and a level of maturity that some will never reach. Merrick keeps me grounded; he did get a new 'puck' of hair product for Christmas and in hindsight I should have helped him the first time he used it. He was happy and he still has about half of it left--yikes! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, best of luck on recharging and sticking to resolutions for the better.

Daylight challenged

The days are about as short as they can get, and it appears that we have been packing them so full that I have had little time for updating. We have been sneaking in late season brussel sprout harvests and prepping for the upcoming Christmas holiday. We are spending time with several indoor activities, such as hockey and soccer for Merrick and Girl Scout bake offs, bowling and Gymnastics for Sophia. We have spent some time outdoors although the activities are a little more limited as we wait for snow and ice to go along with the temperatures. We did get the Christmas tree put up and decorated right after the Thanksgiving day holiday. Merrick only broke a single ball, but made sure to secure all the others. We also made it back to EC several times including once for a wedding dance in which the kids danced all night long and Sophia even had a solid hand in starting a conga line. To challenge mother nature we do don the head lamps in the evenings and head out for night hikes around the neighborhood. The kids play shadow tag and run around in general which is of course the idea to burn some energy all over the neighbor's lawns rather than the living room. This night games are not without consequence, as Merrick's forehead and nose show some 'curb marks." Sophia and I, however have convinced him that his horn is coming in and the blood is really just from the horn tip, like a unicorn. We told him most 5 year old boys start getting their horns, but they fall off when they are teenagers, and being that he is the biggest in his class he is likely to get his before the other boys. I figured he had a pretty good sense of our jest when he just looked at me and said that he can't wait for Mitch to get his wings, like a big dragon.
A couple of other funny kid moments: We are reading Dragon's Tooth in the evening and with Merrick already asleep on my lab and Sophia close behind, the second armed character entered the story with a four-barrelled pistol. To which Sophia raised her head and with the voice of a 28 year old asked me "What is with men and their guns." Earlier in the month, Merrick and I were about finished making supper and Sophia was playing upstairs. I asked Merrick to go get Sophia for supper. With me still at the stove, I hear him hollering at the bottom of the stairs, "No Sophia, no more sex!" then he said it again, "No, I said no more sex!" I was obviously completely confused as to what was taking place and when I went into the living room he hollered it yet again. I asked what is going on? and he replied, "I told her no more sex" still bewildered I improvised with "Huh?" Merrick then said "I told her to come down and eat, but she said just a sec, so I told her no more secs!, right dad there are no more secs, right?" Laughing all to myself and the complete and fortunate bewilderment of both children we had a wonderful taco supper.

Red Plate Weekend

Another busy weekend has come and gone following a pretty common pattern of events, common but comfortable. The three of us sneaked out on Friday evening for some open skating and Merrick pushed the chair around the rink for an hour and worked as much on his form as his confidence. Sophia mean while was off knocking down high school boys, as two skaters were trying to avoid her in the corner, but she had the angle on them. She dumped them as they tried to avoid her and then she just skated away. Saturday was soccer for Merrick and then a quick jaunt across town for a Girl Scout Make and Bake badge event. Merrick did well at indoor soccer and although he cracked skulls with one of his friends, he rebounded in time to finish the drills. Merrick and I did the grocery shopping while Sophia was baking and then it was back home for a quick lunch and the domestic duties. Merrick and I cleaned the gutters and got the yard raked up. The kids helped with the raking, at least until they had a pile large enough to jump in. Sophia continued to play with the neighbor girl as well as call another friend over which eventually turned into a sleep over. We did end up having a pretty good game of poker with all four of the kids playing and me generally loosing. Sunday was a morning filled with last minute fashion shows and various games before the sleep over ended. This did give Merrick and I enough time to bottle up several gallons of Cyzer. We did do some shopping for dress clothes for an upcoming wedding and I was again reminded of how open a Dad's wallet will get for his daughter's dresses. Merrick gets a single hanger--boy in a bag type of clothing. With Sophia I was just happy I was able to appease her within a single store--did make for a good lesson in double standards. The afternoon was rainy but that was fine considering we all needed a nap and some downtime. After our recharge it was off to Hockey again and Merrick is doing really well and enjoying it, although he was a little confused by the other players taking his puck. We worked on jersey jacking after practice so we will see what Wednesday's practice brings. I gave him the red plate for his hockey efforts. As always just a great weekend.

Halloween Just keeps giving

Merrick started his Halloween season last week with a party at his school and the season just kept coming for almost another week. Friday we sneaked out and watch some deer after work/school and then prepped our guts for a weekend of junk food by starting out with movies and take out pizza. Saturday morning was some domestic chores and getting ready for the big Zoo Boo. Merrick and I did some grocery shopping only to find out that we would not be getting away from mindless begging quite so easily. Festival was filled with children in full costume, I was unaware of this so Merrick was dressed as The Merrick, but they gave him a bag and by the end of my list he had racked up more goodies than I had. He even slung his bag over his shoulder on the way to the truck to carry it out like a Sherpa. Mid afternoon we headed over to the big zoo to trick or treat with all of the animals. Merrick was dressed as Captain America this time and Sophia donned her Ghoul outfit. Her outfit coincidentally looked an awful lot like the swamp thing that was wandering around the penguins pool. After the candy gathering it was off to some friends house for pizza and play time for the kids. Sunday was the kind of day that makes you happy you own a couch, the wind was blowing stank all day and the intermittent rain meant that we spent a good deal of time in doors. In the early afternoon we did head over to the YMCA for some wetness of a warmer variety and hit the water slides and splashed around in the pool until our eyes were red from the chlorine. We did get out a little and tried to shoot the bow and arrows, but it turned out that the kids were too small for the draw length so it is shelved for another year. Monday of course is the big gig and we pounded the neighborhood for candy by the pound. We did meet up with some of Sophia's friends from the neighborhood but then it was back home to count up the loot. Merrick has gotten very good and packing up to about 8 suckers in his mouth at a single time--very efficient.

Wisdom and Warrior

Many collective hours where logged in determining the kids' names. Names to represent personalities that had yet to develop. Sophia was from Wisdom and Merrick from Warrior at time the names are so appropriate in how they behave that I have to question the existence of predetermination at other times not so much. We gutted pumpkins this weekend in the annual pagan ritual of Halloween, and by we I really mean Sophia and I. Merrick, aka Warrior, it seems did not have the stomach for pumpkin innerds. He told me that the pumpkin stank and then proceeded to evacuate his own stomach not once but twice before just standing up and handing me his gutting spoon. If it wasn't for his excessive abuse of every other inanimate object that his Y chromosome can rail against I would have to question my own wisdom in a name such as warrior. That being said we had a great, read busy, weekend. Surrounded by bright sunshine, multiple friends and even a surprise visit from the grandparents. Friday night was laid back and we were able to hang out on the living room floor munching popcorn and reading a short story called the Panther about a shape shifting old women. The kids really had a great discussion about the book and we ended up doing it again on Sunday night with a Bradbury story called "All summer in a Day." I was really very pleased at the questions both kids asked and the level of empathy they showed for the characters. Saturday morning was mostly filled with general domestic duties before we headed south for a brew session and the kids set up a Mario cart marathon on Wii and then returned home in time for a visit from Bob and Nancy. We were able to head over and watch the deer at the compost heap in town and nobody was disappointed in the massive head dresses of the 15-20 bucks that showed up to munch on piles of garden refuse. The hours between were easily filled with the kids' new tricks since seeing the grandparents last. There was Sophia's kitchen gymnastics of handstands directly into the splits and Merrick's pill swallowing ability, and with my ears still ringing there was apparently an ample amount of harmonica playing. Sophia also spent a great deal of time lobbying grandpa with her well worn copy of an American Girls catalog. Sunday we needed to make another run to the apple orchard although we found that most of the eating apples were long gone from the trees. We did pick up some red delicious for baking and were able to get those peeled/sliced and frozen for later in the winter. Sophia also learned the word ironic as she quickly determined that as far as eating Red Delicious is a misnomer. A short visit from some more friends in the afternoon was then followed by an all out baking spree that found Sophia in charge of making bread sticks from scratch and me cranking out some fresh pasta for solidly filling meal. Tonight is a faced paced evening as Monday's tend to be as we push through homework and run off to the Y for Sophia's gymnastics. This Monday should have a few more smiles as Sophia's new leotard showed up in the mail for her today.

Snack Cornacopia

Another beautiful week on the lakeshore, as we slowly transition from one season to the other. Wednesday night we started off what would become a pretty serious trend in snacking by heading down to the Farmer's market for some rootbeer and kettle corn. The nights are darkening early, but we needed to get brewing supplies and the allure of rootbeer on the street and live music was too much for the three of us to overcome. Friday night we put those brewing supplies to good use and invited several friends over to help. The kids ran around like crazy and polished off popcorn, pop and multiple bags of chocolate candies as they played variations of tag until well after the sun went down. By the time it was over Sophia had parlayed the brew into a sleep over for one of her friends, so after clean up it was time to wrangle out the cots and bags and set up the movies. The kids didn't stay awake long. Saturday morning was brisk with fall clearly in the air, but a solid pancake eating competition had everyone ready to hit the day. We headed over to another music/fall fest and listened to some great tunes while playing in the bouncy house and various game tosses. The kids played in the corn maze and fire trucks and spent a good deal of time petting the various livestock on display. Although I suspect that the baby rabbits stole the show even above the hamburgers and hot apple sauce topping on ice-cream. The kids were having belly fulls of laughs hiding on my while in the corn maze. They seemed to lose their sense of humor when I hid on them however. The looks on their faces were honest fear. Sophia even convinced me that she needed a fluorescent pink hair extension in her hair. Must have been the open air music or the smell of over priced pumpkin chi in the air, but I caved. Not a major social scheduling shock, but Sophia had a birthday party to attend later in the day so Merrick and I were able to take care of some of the domestic chores. Saturday evening the kids and I were spent and everyone was lights out by about 8:30. We meet Sunday morning with a smile and headed out to the woods to hunt for partridge and although we didn't see any, it was sure beautiful in the woods, with the trees at about 30-40% of peak color. No birds but we did manage to sneak in some snacks. We cleaned up when we got home and then dragged the rockets we built Thursday night out to the launch field. The launch had went so well a couple of weeks ago we upped our engines considerably. We should not have done this. Even after we planned for the wind we out shot our large field considerably. Merrick's rocket was the first (and only) launch of the day. It was last seen drifting well over the freeway and just to the left of an incoming cessna. There are no pictures of this event and we will never speak of it again. Sophia and I winterized the camper and made some minor repairs to the truck before everyone settled in front of the Packer's game with solid quantities of snacks. Hard to have a better fall weekend than that.

Fall camping

We spent a gorgeous weekend in the woods. We headed over to the deer camp woods late Friday afternoon and pulled at almost exactly the same time as the klan Bryan. The kids were way excited, Molly was Jazzed and the adults could barely contain themselves. We set up camp and the kids headed to the ridge to start building forts, cities and become wood tycoons. We jumped out of the vehicles and I asked Becky how long it was since she had been in 'this' woods. She said she was about Evan's age, I laughed at her joke and then shed a tear when I realized she was not kidding. Friday evening was pretty low key with general exploration around the campsite and a small fire. The kids played tag and tossed glow sticks around, before some smores around the campfire. The kids (and Becky) petered out early and Brad and I stayed up to watch the fire and protect camp from the demons in the forest. Saturday morning was cool and we hunkered around the campfire with coffee while the kids tested their aim with BB guns and Brad's old .22. We headed out for a hunting hike with everyone packing except Molly about 4 minutes before Grandpa and Grandma showed up in their new camper. Turns out Grandpa calls it a camper by Grandma thought it was more like a trunk--any rate we just missed them. So they hung around camp reading and tending the fire while we were off setting up blinds and generally hollering in the woods. Even amongst the noise Merrick was able to tote his BB gun and put a serious stalk on an oblivious chipmunk. The chipmunk eventually skampered away only to appear about 20 feet away, but it was still way cool to watch Merrick pussy foot through the crunchy fall leaves. Our hike pushed almost 3 hours of woods time for the littlest among us that is quite a feat and the were troopers. There was more fort building and running in the woods and plenty of BB gun plinking. Bob, myself and the kids headed across H to hunt and hike a little more and Grandpa let the kids shoot their BB guns at his hat that he hung on a branch--he also asked me to shoot it with the 20 gauge I was carrying--he spent the rest of the weekend in a well ventilated lid. Sophia got her first kill on the hike. After passing up a frog on the trail I allowed her to take a shot at the second one we saw, it was about a 15 foot shot and I wasn't expecting her to smoke it so precisely. She was way excited but we also talked about not shooting things just for sport and let several other ones go. When we returned Brad was awake and ready to shoot clay pigeons. The adults took their turns with the various gauges we had brought along and then the kids got into the action as well. Evan was able to run 6 in a row, with the new 20 gauge that Grandpa brought and Sophia too shot the 'big gun' a couple of time. I suspect that she is the most experienced shooter in terms of types of guns shot in her grade. The rain came after we went to bed and Sophia woke up about 1 in the morning and had to puke. There is a sad parental feeling holding your little girl in dark and rain while she pukes her guts out. Once I got her cleaned up in the camper she said she felt much better and thought maybe it was all the snacks, rootbeer and cartwheels--she is an intuitive girl. The rain continued into Sunday morning and we packed up in a light rain and headed home with everyone already thinking about the next time we can get back out there, and in the words of the kids, "Do some real camping."

Rocketing through the Harvest Season

The end of summer has brought to us a bounty of harvest as the new school year starts for everyone. Merrick is officially a pre-schooler while Sophia has started 3rd grade. In our neck of the woods the beginning of fall really just signals that the roads are clear during any Packer's game. With Thursday being the season opener for the Packers, Sophia's classes ended about noon to prevent any traffic delays before the 8 pm game and Merrick spent most of the day tailgating at preschool with all of his friends. I think kids are born with jerseys on over here. We did find some time last weekend to get out for a hike along a nearby creek and although it was cool on Monday, it certainly has heated up again for this weekend. We continued to pull tomatoes and potatoes out of the garden and have frozen about ten pounds of tomatoes and filled a good part of a five gallon bucket with potatoes on Friday night, killing several voles as we moved around in the straw. Saturday was a fast paced day with a couple of thrift sales, in which Sophia scored a new book, as well as a trip to the meat market. The meat market trip was really for Merrick. He has been doing so well at eating slices of pepperoni cut from a whole stick that I thought we would take him to the 60 foot meat counter and try some spicy beef sticks. He ate about two or three bites before becoming satiated from the bovine delight. The highlight of Saturday morning was a trip to buy our first model rockets. We built them in the kitchen and then took them out to the soccer fields to launch them into space. It was pretty awesome and I think the kids are hooked. They have each spent a good amount of time perusing the mini-catalog that came with the rocket kits and are both talking big about the size and height of their next rockets. Merrick's second lift off actually peaked and started heading back down before the final engine burst to send the parachute out. The parachute didn't come out so instead the rocket just accelerated straight down and stuck into the ground about two inches--it was awesome. Merrick's Rocket was called the "FireHawk," but being a Green Bay kid he kept calling it the AJ Firehawk. We ended the day with a campfire and some smores in the back yard after a gourmet supper of little cesar's (intentionally in lowercase). Throughout the weekend, Mitch ate very well. The kids caught cicada for him, a summer goal of ours, as well as several crickets and grasshoppers. He has yet to finish off one of the large black crickets and as I type the cricket is slowly chirping out his own funeral tune. Sophia spent Sunday between our house and a friends and Merrick and I walked around the neighborhood chainsawing some of the down limbs from last week's storm to replenish for the fall campfires to come. It must have been a good weekend because I just had to roust Merrick from a sunny spot in the middle of the living room floor. He had nodded off without covers or pillow with plenty of Oreo drool to show his contentedness.

Starting the New with the Old

With the new school year close enough to hear we took a trip back in time and headed to Heritage Hill. We spent several hours there and ended the trip with a couple slices of Happy Joe's Pizza. It was a kid focused event on the Hill and many of the old buildings were showcasing games from the 1800's, including a rolling a hoop on the ground and trying to through corn cobs through it, and another in which you try to toss rocks into different sized hoops and of course the old favorite roll a hoop and beat it with a stick. Apparently there were no shortages of hoops during this period. The old trapers cabin was focusing on fire making using flint and steel. The kids thought this was way cool and when we got home we too made some char cloth on the grill and tried to start a fire the old way. We then moved up to a magnifying glass and by evening thought paper and a match should do the trick. As a side note the grill we used for making the char cloth was the same one that was used to make cookies and pizzas just a few days prior--becoming a very versatile patio tool. The growing season is showing her bounty and we are starting to harvest the hops around the yard. The kids always love to help out during the initial harvest, and by initial I mean about the first 15 minutes of a three week harvest. Sophia's hat was her choice, but I think it was based on functionality in the sun rather than a satirical protest towards me, although I could be wrong. Merrick also got a new haircut and the beautician, at his request, put so much product in his hair that he thought he should go to the mall. Only later did he decide that he shouldn't go to the mall because all the girls would think he was a rock and roller. Testosterone influenced Illusions of grandeur start so young. While on a walk after supper a pig-tailed girl with pink streamers on her bike came toward us with her mom, and shirtless, shoeless Merrick rolled back his shoulders and started strutting like a morning rooster. Being summer we did find some time to lounge in the hammock even though "we" snapped two of the sun-aged ropes another sign of summers approaching demise.

Dog Days of Perfection

Slow transition back to having Sophia back in the house and she is equally slow in transitioning back to life in civilization. Overall she enjoyed camp and we are still spending the evenings with campfires and old stories, but now Sophia shares her camp stories and we sing some camp songs from the song book she brought back for me. Merrick still requires multiple hours of hockey a day and we are playing often. Merrick is quite focused and continually tells me that he is working on his stick flex so he can shoot faster, and then laughs when he smokes it past me. As the calendar year starts to draw to an end I realized I wasn't going to meet my flex plan spending and thought maybe Merrick should learn how to jump his bike. I should be cashing out on the flex plan in no time. It is actually a riot as he rides over the jump and then asks if he "got sweet air." We spent about four hours on Friday at the new 'bouncy' house in town with some friends and the kids had a riot, then everyone ended up back here for a little swimming. Sophia is working on hemp jewelry and we hit the hobby lobby to pick up some new beads for her to use on her anklets, bracelets, necklaces and key fobs. Weather has been great and Merrick and I picked a nice bunch of root crops from the garden, blue potatoes, fingerlings and carrots. I even got him to try a couple and but some hamburger in his mouth. Sunday morning found us on the river again, fishing with friends and then a brief stop at the park. We were also fortunate enough to watch the staging for a tractor parade and saw some really old machines that had been restored into near works of art. Sophia made some dough for all of our pizzas and the rest of the time was filled in with friends playing, bike rides and of course hockey time. Merrick easily talked me out of taking him for a run and instead suggested that ice cream was likely a better idea, as we near the dog days of summer I had to agree with him. The week started out with a surprise visit from Grandma Nancy arriving with both car candy and cheese. She spent most of the day with us balancing her attention between both of the kids and managed to sneak in a trip to the candy store as well. We rounded off the night with a trip to the watch a New Orleans style jazz band in the park with some friends. The kids ran around on the grass, near the band playing in a large gazebo, tossing frisbees and balls to each other. With the wide open spaces there was plenty of room for gymnastics but the tall grass and Queen Anne's Lace were tempting distraction as the kids made trails and collected caterpillars. It was quite dark as we pulled the bikes and rickshaw into the garage and with the crickets chirping we grabbed the flash lights and spent some time searching for some "Mitch Morsels." We polished off the EC cheese with some Ritz crackers and called it a day.

Lids Up!

v



With Sophia safely away at Y camp, Merrick and I have the run of the house and we are just hanging out and doing dude stuff. Yesterday we were able to head over to the Packers training camp for more than an hour. The stands were packed but we found a nice shaded place on the bleachers that was no more than 20 feet from the quarterbacks tossing balls to Finley. Then the recievers came down to do their drills, so great seats and great players to watch. Could even hear Driver giving Cobb advice on turning without slipping. Merrick sucked down a can of pop and used his Clay Matthews mask for a fan, and kept asking when they were going to score a touchdown. It had also been a little while since Mitch had been fed so we head to a nearby field and tried to score some grasshoppers. I think the grasshoppers have gotten much faster and less plentiful since I was a kid, and we caught exactly none. We did score just short of a dozen Asian beetles so Mitch had some sustenance. Every other waking minute of the day was spent playing driveway hockey. We played about "thousand Million" games of pig and I think we played about 6 or 7 hours of hockey. Merrick slept through the night but crawled in bed with me about 6am to chastise me for not getting up early to go fishing. I didn't respond quickly enough so he said he was going to look for his rollerblades. I suspect there is more hockey in store for today.