Wrap up the year

 

We have been blessed with another great year and have spent the end of it with as much outside time as we could.  There have been gifts and travel; shooting and racing; climbing an building and all around smiles and fun.  Our tribe of six headed back to EC for a rendavous of the clans.  The Iowa 5 and Holmen 5 clans all packed into the house of the EC2.  Much like jello, when it comes to family there is always room for more.  Grandpa had the kids outside for firebuilding and even the youngest were given a box of matches and a bundle of dry tinder from the basement to build there fires.  Some of the older kids used their fires, which were nursed on and off throughout the weekend, to heat up cans of soup for dinner.  The EC2 had also established bowling teams so we headed to the lanes, put up the bumpers and out of the eighteen of us I think the high score was about 147.  Frome there we headed to Action City, for laser tag and gocart races.  Two elders were dressed up as Mr. and Mrs. Claus while playing laser tage, while debating the ethics of shooting the jolly elf, his fair madien shot me in the back. Ho, Ho, Ho.  Cliimbing walls and bumper cars and myriad arcade games helped to wear off the chocolate calories of the holiday. With a sizable snow storm hitting the eastern side of the state, our stay was extended an extra day. Ella was under the weather but I took the other three for a short romp down along the frog pond from my days of youth.  Merrick was able to use his new tool set as soon as we got home and the kitchen chairs have never been tighter. We came home to fresh snow and beautiful weather, so we hit the sledding hill and the busted out the skis for the first time all year.  Skiing was a bit taxing but everyone was smiling as Sophia and Merrick used thier new skis.  Having forgotten the water bottle on the counter at home we were "forced' to hit the A&W for some frosty mugs and fresh fries before heading back home.  Having not thrown away the futon box, the kids quickly repurposed it into a basement fort.  This might come in handy as the temperatures drop and nerf gun action rises....indoors.

A Quick Catch Up

 The snow is here and the temps are in the upper teens.  This is good because now we have a reason to play outside.  Not quite enough to ski but hoping to get in some sledding this evening.  Merrick had friend over on Friday and Sophia was off sledding with a friend--they grow up so fast. Shoveling is still a novelty and the kids are dragging the driveway snow into the backyard to create a hill for sledding.  Initially this hill was in the middle of the driveway, it had to be moved but I gave them credit for a good idea, just not the location.  Sophia spent some time last night augmenting her ugly sweater for Christmas, the original version just needed some extra love!  So she knitted red and green yarn through out the black sweater.  Merrick shoveled the patio, and I had to chuckle over his continued obsession with shoveling, he has always loved to shovel.  The tree is complete and I think the shopping is done, this week we are going to try and sneak over to the Botanical gardens for a nighttime walk amongst the light displays. Then we will pack up our ugly sweaters and head to EC for the gathering of tribes.

Winter Wonderland time

Winter is here in full swing so let the hall decking, baking and singing commence!  The weather has been unseasonable cold but we just add another layer and smile now that the snow is here as well.  For a week or so it was just cold with no snow.  We have spent some time huddled up in gymnasiums and auditoriums with the kids singing their Christmas songs.  Sophia was beautiful and right in the front row of her choir concert while Merrick was dancing up a storm on center stage of his.  Bashful isn't a gene that they possess.  Hunkered in and out of the wind we are playing some mad games of poker and teaching Grace the strategies of chess. The four of them filled the kitchen with sugar and flour as we heated the house by sugar cookie baking.

Legends of the Fall

 Just the boys on Friday night, as Sophia was off at birthday slumber party, splashing in a the waves of a hotel pool.  Bruiser and I headed south to watch Grace and Ella perform in "Fiddler on the Roof."  We discussed the meaning of the play on the way down and soon, in Merrick's world, everything was a foolish as a fiddler on the roof.  Pointing out the absurdity that surrounds us, quickly wore him out and I had to wake him up to go into the Theater. The morning found us rested and raking leaves before heading off to his soccer game.  I had to clean the gutters alone, but the weekend long process of raking leaves certainly found him by my side as he often had to check the depth of the piles, while hollering "Cannon Ball."  Soccer is now a split shift on Saturdays with Sophia not playing until 1ish.  We had some lunch in between and raked a little more then headed back over to the play a bit. Where Merrick promptly crushed his finger in the door for a second time in as many weeks.  Then ran around like a banshee until he fell down the stairs. Sophia scored a goal and the level of play in this league is certainly a step above what she has been accustomed too.  I am looking forward to watching both her skills and mental growth of these new challenges.  Sophia ran the lawn mower as Merrick and I continued to finish the leaves in the back yard in the late afternoon light that so quickly dies this time of year.  We finished off the evening with a solid poker game and plenty of laughs. The front yard wasn't finished until Sunday morning, with the kids still sleeping.  We did make it out into the woods for some small game hunting before the Packer traffic crushed the city.  We found a scrape line from a small buck as well as a porcupine living in a hollow tree. Sophia pounded on the tree and then shrieked, jumped and hid under my left arm when the porcupine readjusted itself inside the tree with audible scuffling.  The kids took turns driving down the dirt roads and I getting pretty good at that as well.  Sunday afternoon was spent getting the house cleaned up and making it ready for our favorite thespians coming up for a late dinner.  Both a good end to a busy weekend as well as relaxing start to a new week.

October Awe

October has come and went and we stayed busy with the activity of the seasons.  There were teeth lost by both the kids, but not due to the sugar snacks of trick or treat spoils but rather just the natural aging of deciduous teeth.  Merrick had a red plate day, because he was selected to be a "Playground Pal" at school.  This is a very important job and required two days of training during his normal recess.  It is now his job, when he is wearing his official vest to make sure that none of the kids on the playground are lonely and ask them if they want to play.  He is also required to always say yes if someone asks him to play and amongst all of that work he has also been trained in conflict resolution to solve any squabbles that may occur.  This of course is cross-training as he is already often placed in charge of the bathroom, to make sure everybody "Does their job and then gets out."  He and I trick or treated in the rainy cold slog of the late October rains, but we outfitted him for warmth and dryness.  We put hand warmers in his gloves and the bagel bags over his socks were a nice compliment to the rain jacket hidden under his costume.  Sophia dressed up as a Ninja and was old enough to trick or treat with friends, alas her candy was safe.

We had two trips to the dentist, but I think there were three or four teeth lost between them and was starting to question why I should pay full price for a heads that have such few teeth.  One of the highlights was a good long hike in the Nicolet, now that it was open again.  Our tribe of six hiked back to a ski chalet and had a nice little picnic near Fanny Lake.  The weather was a bit brisk but really nice for the walk and the leaves were very near peak fall color.  Week night soccer has come to end and now Saturdays will be filled with split shift games with Merrick playing in the late morning and Sophia playing in the early afternoon.  With the time changes it will be more likely that we will have to incorporate night hikes for some activity. Headlights always add to the splendor of a good walk anyways.  With the pumpkins moved from the stoop to the garden, this weekend will continue the general yard clean up of fall as we switch gears for November.

Hay!!! Here comes Fall.

As the fields in the area sport their narrow strips of corn that we have laughingly begun to call "blond corn mazes," we have found ourselves hip deep in fall.  The mornings are crisp and the afternoons are still likely to find us in shorts.  We are filling our free time with local harvest festivals and hunting.  We filled up our bags last weekend at the apple orchard and are working our way through those delicious globes of summer.  We also  hit the local fall festivval and played in a pool of water, in which the kids were trapped inside of large balls of air.  They pretty much thought it rocked.  That was last weekend when the temps were pushing eighty in the sun, this weekend we were closer to fifty and rain.  Sophia had her first deer hunt and we spent two days knocking around the woods in the rain. We did see some deer but nothing that she could get a shot at, fortunately she packed plenty of snacks.

Hot and Hotter

This is the one hundred and fiftieth blog entry!!  What a nice little history to have of these two great kids.

As predicted as, the temperatures have sky rocketed as the school year has begun.  We are routinely pushing temps in upper eighties and low nineties. Fortunately the kids' schools are air conditioned, so as I loath putting pants on in the morning, they are packing sweatshirts.  At any rate we are still fitting in plenty of outside time around the 'nuisance' of school.  We spent some time last weekend hitting the late season thrift sales and scored some great masks that needed to worn all day long!  Soccer has started up again for both the kids.  Merrick is dominating his league play and picked up four goals last game including a large loop back towards his own goal to clear space and then and end to end run for the shot.--there really weren't any options for passing as the rest of the kids had agglutinated in a center mass.  Sophia's league is so sparse that Merrick was asked to play with the 11-14 year olds to round out the program.  His game is improving and watching the two of them makes it look like they are getting private lessons.  They both had a great work out and learned some great footwork, so I am looking forward to watching them continually develop their respective games.  Merrick was King for a Day at school during the first week and not only did he get a crown but all the other kids drew pictures for him, about him.  It was a pretty good ego stroke and good way to start the school year.  Sophia is happy to be off crutches, which frees up her hands to take hot lunch at school.  She is adjusting to the new building and friends very well.  She has an ice-cream social next week, and Merrick's was last night.  Good temps to gobble ice cream!  Merrick also spent some time working on his fire starting survival skills with a magnifying glass, while Sophia was off playing with a friend.  We found that his ear wax really helped get the fire started!  The coming week brings more soccer and weekend in the woods for some deer stand scouting for the upcoming youth hunt.  Hopefully those survival skills won't be needed, but good to know they have them.

Back at It

School has started and we packed the final week of vacation full of some school stuff and some family stuff.  We did head back to EC for a convention of the families.  Grandprize had a freshly built stage waiting for the kids and a pool filled with sun soaked water.  Merrick was in the water immediately and Jacob quickly added a bass to the pool as well.  We did head home before the holiday Monday to finish up the preparations for school, having stared earlier in the week with "meet the teacher" events.  Both the kids are in differing schools now with Sophia having moved up to a larger building.  I think it will be another great year for both of them, given the excitement both of their teachers showed.  Sophia is going to start the year on crutches, having smacked into a tree near a rope swing. Nothing broken, but badly bruised and will take a couple days to heal up.  Hopefully in time for the coming hunting season that we are all getting excited.  The peach tree also yield its fruit.  That isn't poetic license, we only produced a single peach again this year, but it was quite delicious; the squirrels having eaten the rest.  The two pears are still on their way and looking good.  The brownie pan with ice cream scoops on top was last Monday's dinner.  Forgot to pam the pan and eating them directly was the only way to get them out.

Our own private beach and million dollar views

We met Amy and the girls at Point Beach for some off road biking, picnicing and swimming.  The weather was beautiful.  It took two vehicles to get to our adventure today but we parked at a bike trail head about 3 miles from the beach and headed through the ridges and swales under the cool cedar canopy of late August.  It was an undulating terrain like the kids have never ridden before and their brakes did get a good work out.  Merrick did spin out and scrap up a knee pretty good but was able to shake it off with his tougher than nails attitude and we continued on to the way to the beach.  With a persistend 30 mile an hour breeze at the beach sand was everywhere.  But there were sandcastles and pits to be made and wading to be done in the  too-cold-for-adults temperature water.  Crystal blue skies and no one else on the beach for as far as we could see.  A private beach of such magnitude would be multimillion dollars but on this Monday it all ours for free.  We did play some football and chase some seagulls after our sandwich picnic, heavy on the sand,and after several hours we hit the trail and biked the 3 mile deep woods route back to our rubber armada.  We did swing by Washington House, the home of the Sundae, to partake in the cold confections and bovine lactations that make summer so grand before wrapping up the evening with a delicious taco meal and some reflection of how fortunate we are to have not one day like this but so many and so often.

Squinting Through the Dog Day Rays

 
The summer is quickly fleeting as we start to gather our school supplies, new shoes and pack a little extra fun into the few days remaining.  Our old rubber tramping friend called for a meeting at the Zipping Pippin, and we could not refuse.  It was his first time and the kids hate to miss ridding the wooden coaster.  We had three quick rides to get our blood moving on Saturday morning, well Merrick and my blood.  Sophia had already went for a run.  We then headed down town to see the Tall Ships.  The great sail clothed beasts were surrounded by a flotilla of kayaks swarming the river for an upclose look at these simple machines.  It was still not even noon and with the sun high in the sky and driving into our eyes we swung by another friends house to help him unload his moving truck of furniture and legos.  The kids were great helpers hauling the lighter boxes and totes and freeing up us adults to move the furniture.  We made it home in time for a brief rest and then cleaned the house for grill out with yet another old family of friends.  busy day indeed.  The kids splashed in the pool and tossed water balloons with occasional breaks to warm up reptiallian style on the over heated drive way.  The night was not late but the day was certainly full enough to completely satiate us.  With the new morning sun peaking through the windows we decided that we would load up the canoe and head out to a small inland lake for a little bobber fishing.  The kids caught some small blue gills and I had a long-distance release on a large mouth bass.  The final count was Merrick 2 and Sophia 1.  The breeze was blowing towards the landing so after we were fished out and our gear unloaded I let the kids take the canoe back out by themselves.  The handeled the 17 foot aluminum lady with great precision and I found myself smiling at them from the dock in the midday sun.  Our ride home required us to turn around and go back to a thrift sale that we almost passed, and lucky we did.  Sophia's eye was immediately drawn to a couple of porcelian dolls.  The man said they were his aunt's dolls and she had collected them her whole life until her death at 98.  He also said because Sophia was the only one to show in interest in the dolls all summer that she could have them.  With the new dolls under our arms and a few other treasures that we could not pass up we loaded up the car and started heading for home yet again, but it was a short trip and we were soon detoured by the custard shop and creamy heath flavor of the day.  The rest of the day is going to be filled with those quotidian tasks of domesticated life and Sophia has a friend on the way over to spend the night.  We have a few days left before the smells of new pencils and old desks fill our noses and we are busy making plans to keep them filled as well.