Heritage Happenstance

 

It has been another busy week and we are packing in plenty of summer fun into what is arguablly summer weather.  Monday night was Music on the green and the whole tribe was able to bike over to Heritage hill and spread a tarp on the late summer grass.  The kids ran around playing football, petting pigs and various versions of hide and tag.  We munched on some popcorn and sipped our drinks from the cooler that fit nicely on the back of the bike.  Grace had a sliver in her foot but with a little humours distraction and handy multi-tool she was quickly back in action.  Merrick lost another tooth and it became "toothfairy hell" when it occured to me that he was sleeping somewhere under a massive blanket fort that the kids had made, with their nearly matching sleeping bags it took nearly ten minutes of dimmly light sniper crawling to find where he was before I could even try to find where the bagged tooth had ended up.  We made it over to the Packers' training camp and watched the big guys play for awhile.  Also made our first trip of the summer down to the local swimming hole and spent a couple hours bobbing and jumping from the high dive.  Grace was at camp and Ella and Sophia stayed at home but Merrick guided Amy and I  on a fishing trip.  The gobies were gobbling up the worms off the bottom, but a nice couple gave us two more tins as they walked away.  Those worms were the only thing we caught that day.  Sophia and Merrick and I were also admitted back into Heritage hill for a kids free day.  We were able to make rope, watch the printing press and try our hand at the old fur traders cabin.  Merrick was able to tote the 12 lbs militia gun as well.  Seemingly, Merrick's legs were tired only after he saw the trolley in the distance.

Boot Lake Olympics

 


Boot Lake camping comes with an annual theme and this year it was the olympics, team "Hike School" showed  up in full force!  The games began with the torch processional around the campground.  The torches were actually cake cones filled with cheeto flames and really cool.  The relay event started off the events with a double lap around the campground loop, followed by variation on the biatholn that involved towering cans as well as a bago toss.  The final game was a popcorn relay in which just the kids had cups on their feet and had to carry the popcorn to an end goal and drop it in, the chipmunks loved this idea.  There was medals for the winners and laughs for everyone else.  The weather was great, cool and dry.  We still found plenty of time for the beach as well as tubing.  The kids build the required sand castles and found several frogs to swim with as well.  Merrick and Grace and I were able to sneak out early on morning and get a little fishing in and landed a decent rock bass.  The older two were planning for the aforementioned Olympics.  There is a candy store in town that is part of the traditional trips during Boot Lake so the kids all got five bucks to spend and to their credit ended with only a penny unspent.  The store had some great 'old school' candies so I made sure that everyone got some candy cigarettes and bubble gum cigs as well.  We lit the ends of the candy cigerattes and blew out the powdered sugar from the bubble gum ones, the kids and I thought it was a riot, the other parents maybe not so much.

Home and Gone again

We were home for a while this week and made time for some laundry and lawn cutting before we packed up our bags and headed north again this morning.  Sophia finished up her soccer season last night and will now continue to focus on gymnastics.  Merrick was able to join a big group playing 'doctor-doctor" a version of dodgeball while Sophia was flipping in the gym.  We also ran into our friend Craig and he gladly made his annual trek to the Zippin Pippin with us for a couple of runs on the old wooden thrill ride.  As the picture shows all the kids had pedicures done, yes all of them.  Sophia and Ella tried thier hands at making homemade ice-cream which turned out pretty well.  The kids are currently hovering around my shoulders and the car is packed, so the update is brief as it is already time to head to the Nicolet for the next couple of days!

Golfing away the time

Seems we hit a mid summer motif this week and an unexpected one at that, golf.  Not the standard white guy only type of golf but more of a hippie meets third world country mix of golf.  The week was off to a banner start when we hit our favored frisbee golf for a nine hole grudge match.  Having lost two discs last year I was happy to just complete the course and return with all the discs we came with.  We even swung into Taco John's after the round just to top off the day and replenish the salt we lost from sweet, we now have enough salt to last until the frisbees naturally decompose.  Sophia is still playing soccer and scored another goal this week.  It was a tough match as her team mostly went on vacation and there didn't have any subs.  Merrick was surprised by a rip stick, although he was obliviously in the car when I bought it.  It has been his main transpo all week and we even hit the bike trail with the new coaster board.  I sneaked off into the woods to get us some good hiking sticks and on our return we spent some time on the patio whittling the tender bark off of them and allowing them to dry in the cool summer air.  The end of the week brought us back to golf again, but of a 'hole' new variant.  We played a round of foot golf at the local links, and it was a riot.  You play with soccer balls on a normal course and aim for holes that are adjacent to the traditional greens.  We had water hazards, sand traps and like traditional golf I had to ask my partners to help me find my ball in the weeds.  Top that off with a little slip and slide action and it rounds up to another great week.

EC Rendezvous

It was a meeting of the tribes over the fourth and we all (minus H) gathered to share our knowledge in EC.  Ernie was the newest addition and certainly a hit, likely even ranking higher than the multiple ice cream breaks.  Grandprize had decided to create a campground in the 'back 40' to house all the clans and the kids spent most of the time running though the woods with various games of tag and cops/robbers.  There was plenty of stilt walking, ripsticking and soccer to augment any of the woods time.  We did head north a ways to check out a nice hike loop and dam system and as a bonus saw nesting osprey.  The walk was slowed a little to shoot the wrist rocket, but well worth the adventure.  The fireworks across the river were pretty good and added to them with some of our own.  We quickly determined how fun it was to turn our backs to the fireworks and shadow dance on the garge door with an amazing strobe effect.

Highlights from High Cliff

We are back home to check the mail, mow the lawn and switch out the gear in our bags.  It has been a rainy summer and there was some rain on our trip to High Cliff State Park as well, but alas, it didn't change our forecast for fun.  The hiking was great and we hit two of the main trails and longest in the park.  The rock features and sizable cravasses were enough to create plenty of hand holding opportunities.  The area was also a lime quarry for part of its history so there are large portions of flat dolomite the has now been aged to look like old macadame giving some areas of the trail a post apocolyptic feel...the circling vultures only added to the ambiance.  We spent some time at the beach which of course ended at the ice cream shop.  The winds on the big lake were producing some sizable waves for the kids to jump and play.  It rained two of the evenings, one of which forced us into the camper for the night, we read played games and still had plenty of laughs, the other wasn't too bad and we were still able to get out around the fire for roasting a peanut butter and chocolate concotion in the camp cookers.  The evenings also saw plenty of raccoon activity and mornings showed that they were also part goat without fear of walking on top of the car.  During the day it was the realm of the chipmunks.  Sophia and Ella spent the first night in the tent, but the forecasted storm found me encouraging them to grab some bunk space in the camper.  The days were spent hiking and the kids played games at the playground, including one that resembled some type of carnival midway for practicing their hawking techniques.  There were plenty of bike rides with, I believe only a single skinned knee.