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!

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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.

Beaches and bonfires

The weather has again been great and we are spending some time outside as usual. I did have the kids out in the Oconto again as a friend of mine had to sight in a new gun. It was also a good chance for the kids to try shooting the SKS. This is not an ideal training gun and was done with the utmost of caution. They both got to shoot it one time, albeit that we left the bayonet in. Merrick smacked the wooden stick of the target just below the target itself and the sent the target swirling about 10 feet in the air. It was pretty cool, and the guy I was with concurred in true guy fashion, "that was cool." We hit Bay Beach again with some friends and as always had a great time. Still didn't get on the big roller coaster but plenty of other rides that go in circles. Thursday night we spent around the campfire and had some smores. Although Sophia is about to get plenty of this as she heads off to camp next Sunday. We finished up our smores and then hung out on the blue blanket and read old travel/outdoor stories from the journal. This has become one of the more pleasurable past times of the summer, and the kids seem to equally enjoy the stories they are in as well as the ones that occurred long before they were here.

4, 8, .22

Proud day for dad, when the kids were quite young, Merrick only a year, I bought small combo youth guns for them, .22 caliber and 20 gauge. Small framed with a lot of safety features, I thought these little break actions would be great learning and teaching guns. Today was the day we took them out to the woods. After working through all of the safety aspects including checking the barrel for debris, in true Barney Fife fashion, the kids individually were given their bullet. We were shooting at a small spinning target, that suffered very little damage today, but as we swatted away horseflies and mosquitoes Sophia did manage to put a little hurt on the plastic gopher targets. Her face lit up when she made the middle gopher do spinning back flips. Merrick was farther off, but not much. With his gun registering nearly 20% of his weight, I thought he did very well. It was nearly an hour on "the range" but I don't think either of them shot more than eight times. As I had suspected, a great teaching and learning combo.

Shark week

Sophia was making her own videos today and one of them began with her saying that her family was pretty active and they didn't watch much TV. I took this as a positive sign and a realistic representation of our day to day lives. That being said this week is Shark week and it has reached almost holiday status complete with the yearly shark week hats. This year I was a little closer to having greeting cards sent out to the family with the kids in their toothed hats and smiles. In the spirit of Shark week we have been spending plenty of time in and on the water. The kids are making great use of their snorkgoogles (Merrick's phrase) in the round rubber beach and each of them is getting quite good at holding their breath under water as they continue to challenge each other. We are also trying to spend some time on top of the water and in the canoe. We drove a little ways to Krohn's lake which had enough panfish to keep us entertained as we paddled around the 20 some acre spring feed glacial pond. Sophia out fished both of us boys hauling in 3 and letting twice that many get away. Merrick and several bobbers gasping for air but was unable to cordinate the hook setting with the reeling in order to land any lunch. We also made it back to the library for story time, the first return in almost two years, since Merrick punched the hungry caterpillar thrice on our last visit. We met Merrick's friend there and he came back to our house for a few hours. Today was a big day for Mitch as his cage was cleaned and redecorated but the real highlight was the new stilts. Instead of tossing or burning an old head board footboard combination I turned it into a pair of stilts for Merrick. Soon to be followed by a set for Sophia. If you look close you may notice that Merrick's are actually solid walnut stilts, painted but still walnut. Trust me the helmets were not my idea but the Sophia's.