Head West Young Man

July 2nd we loaded up the truck and started the family vacation out west. We had a lay over and Birthday party for Sophia in Eau Claire and then pushed on to Souix Falls. I original plan was to camp in Yellowstone but after we took a look at the driving distances and the car time that the kids would need to endure we settled on camping in the Big Horn Mountains just outside of Buffalo Wyoming. Still a lot of driving. We got into Souix Falls well after midnight and were back on the road and on our way to Rapid City the next morning. We settled into the hotel and then headed out for a round of Mini golf. Each of us got a legitimate hole in one before we cut the round short due to a massive burst of rain that left us wet and a double rainbow over a neighboring Wal-Mart. We had supper at a microbrewery fashioned from an old fire station in a cool down town setting in Rapid City. The kids had a desert firetruck that required them to do all of the assembly while Lisa and I split a cake roll the size of small child. A little swimming back at the hotel and headed to Mt. Rushmore the next morning. It was very cool to be at Rushmore on the Forth of July. We also had an hour cave tour at Rushmore caves on our way out of Rapid City. Spent a large amount of the day on the road again and were impressed with the apparent poverty and expanse of western SD and WY. Started to see some pronghorn as we headed into the Big Horn Mountains to camp at a newer campground called Tie-Hack. Mule Deer were wandering around the campground as we set up camp and we were greeted with Blue Lupin in full bloom. With the tent up we got back into the truck and drove to Sheridan (Big Horn Equestrian Center) to watch the fireworks against the mountains and managed to get very lost (luckily we had the GPS) when we left and traversed dirt roads I wouldn't have taken at noon let alone at midnight. It was again well after midnight when we crawled into the tent and awoke to drizzle and cool temperatures. I don't think the temperature every climbed above 50. We got a little hike in during the late morning and again saw some mule deer and rabbits. Lisa and Merrick slept in the afternoon and Sophia and I took a small hike again. We all headed down to a reservoir and found areas that still had large amounts of snow. We found elk duds but no elk or moose. We also headed up a pretty steep rock/gravel face only to come back down. Merrick was on my back and Lisa was holding on to Sophia's hand. It was more adventure than we had bargained for and the GPS said it was a 409 feet ascent only to come right back down. We had to go up on all fours so coming down was precarious to say the least. Packed up a lot of wet gear early the next morning and drove to the Bad lands for several hours of climbing and lunch and a hotel with much needed shower. The truck was packed and the kids basically slept in their clothes, as Lisa and I tossed them into the truck at 4 am to start a long drove to Shakopee. The early start allowed us to make several stops including a wonderful lunch layover with Punky and Ken. Actually the kids did some of the driving on this leg of the trip as we hit some of the dirt (minimum maintenance roads) of MN. As Sophia has started reading the Laura Ingells Wilder books we also stopped in Walnut Grove to tour one of many themed museums. Made it to Shokapee in the late afternoon and met up with Mark for some Pizza and beer as the kids played in the pool. The next morning we left for Valleyfair for what Lisa and I expected to be a three to four hour gig, eight hours later with the kids begging for more we left. Strangely both kids puked but not on the rides. Sophia puked the night before and Merrick during lunch while sitting on the tail gate. Lisa asked him why he puked and he just shrugged and said, "I don't know maybe I am sick." Met Mark again that night at a restaurant for a nice supper followed up with a couple of beers near the pool. With that the vacation was winding down as we tried the next day to hit the mall of america, but that was a short trip as Merrick was fried, a short visit in Eau Claire on the way back home followed by the unpacking and normal domestic chores that always await a vacationers return.

Merrick's Very Busy Day

Yesterday was Sophia's Birthday, and rest assured she was treated like a queen, but it also turned out to be a very "busy" day for Merrick.
The weather here has been very rainy and although we were planning on going to an amusement park for Sophia's Birthday, we ended up going to the Children's Museum and on our way home we hit the mall. Sophia and Lisa wondered off to do some girl shopping and Merrick and I were going to head to Scheels. We didn't make it far when Merrick had to go to the bathroom. As we are coming out of the bathroom and heading down the long hallway back towards the mall a college-aged girl and her boyfriend are coming toward us. Merrick is wondering like a drunk in the dark as a three-year old will do. The older guy is trying to get out of Merrick's way, but when Merrick looks up and sees him there, Merrick just doubles up both fists and punches the guy in his nuts--yep two fists two testicles. I apologized to the guy, the girl was still covering her mouth in laughter and in true midwestern spirit the guy apologized back to me. Once in Scheels we headed to the bike section and there is a sweet tricycle, low rider style and it fits Merrick really well. Actually he can really motor on the thing. In his napless, birthday sugar induced mindset he takes off down the aisles leaves the bike department and drives over the putting green in the golf department before I can grab hold of him and the bike and get him headed back toward the bike department. Still on the bike he tears around the corner only to find a lady in the aisle--he politely hollers "Passing on your left" and shoots right by her. She was wearing a fancy bike jacket so she to understood the rules of the 'trail." But the best was yet to come after a supper at Sophia's favorite restaurant we loaded up the truck and headed out to the drive in. The kids were playing at the park under the big screen waiting for the sun to set. Merrick walked over the to the "Play at your Own Risk" sign dropped his pants to the ankles and pissed on the sign. Yep, apparently he is an antiestablishmentarianist to the core. I thought Lisa and I were in the clear because we were in the back of the truck--nobody knew who's kid was peeing in front of everyone. Sophia however wanted to make sure we knew what was going on making a bee line to us in all of her pink clothing and looking like a flare coming towards the truck. Merrick realized he was going to be ratted out wanted to get to the truck and start his defense campaign, so he started to pull up his pants on the run. So he starts chasing the pink flare over the grass berm, gravel, grass berm, gravel never really getting his pants up and never really slowing down as they both came right to the truck allowing everyone to know just who was in charge of these kids. The big puddle in the back ground, obviously there was another story there too--but really do you need to know more?

A weak review of the week

The first week of summer vacation is already in the books and we tried to keep the kids busy and edutained. Soccer was still in full swing and only last night concluded for the season. Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Bob made it over to see one of the last games and Grandma kept her streak alive and brought the rain. In fairness we took some rain ourselves to the air show when we went to see them (as well as a jet bus and the blue angles). Gymnastics started for Sophia and Merrick started swimming lessons again. Both sessions are at the same time freeing up some of our weeknight time. Merrick is the only boy in his class and given that it is at the downtown Y it is Merrick and the chicas. He has really taken to the class as well as shopping as it he likes to ride in the cart and look for the 'fancy girls." His little boy eyes really light up if we happen upon a pig-tailed girl. We also managed to get down to the WIAA state baseball tournament to watch Joel play. The weather was great, the stands looked like a family reunion and the game we watched, Joel's team was able to beat DePere and the umpire. Sophia just wanted to talk to grandma, and Merrick liked to hollar "it's outta here' for each foul ball. We headed to the game after a family photo shoot at a local park. Sophia eats up the camera and I am excited to get the pictures back. The photographer was doing a single pose of Merrick and asked him to "give me a big smile" so obligingly Merrick reached out his hand with writhing fingers and said "tickle, tickle." We found an excellent little ice cream shop about 3 or 4 miles from the house along the bike trail so we are able to ride the bikes down. Sophia's bike usually gets strapped to the back of the rickshaw for the return trip and her and Merrick have a cage match all the way one--but at least we are staying active and are outside. There have also been a lot of campfires at night, in part because I have wood that is rotting and needs to be burned and in part because so many of the nights have been just gorgeous. Plenty of smores to go around. We also were able to watch a beer bottle melt in the hot coals so the kids are getting some lessons on rheology and phase changes. We spent some time along the river fishing spawn sacks off the bottom, but there were no bites. Still in the early stages of potty training with Merrick so I pretty much let him pee where we are. He peed once on a tree near the river next to the bike trail and then again on the park sign. The park sign was also near a geocache that we found last year so the kids were able to revisit that treasure as well. As for the public peeing I figure he pees less than a German Shepard (the dog not the occupation) so we should be fine. We have already had two trips to the library again it is along the bike trail so that I get to count that as a double activity. The first day down there a kids program about the "Hungry Caterpillar" was taking place and a becostumed caterpillar was walking around. After Merrick punched him the second time I thought we should leave. Sophia has been enjoying reading chapter books and is staying up late to read them as well as hanging around in the hammock in the afternoons. Tried to go to a drive in but it was filled up--over 300 cars were already there more than 2 hours before the movie started. Saturday was also Sophia's party for her school friends. We went to a local version of chucky-cheeses (but edible pizza) great service, great fun -- pizza, games and ice cream. If every week is this busy I am going to need a vacation at the end of this vacation.

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.

Summer Arrives

We had the first really nice weekend of the summer. Lisa was out of town for a wedding so the kids and I had a long weekend that started on Thursday. Sophia played soccer on Thursday night and had a great move using a back spin that we had been working on in practice to evade a defender. While she had 3 goals I was even more impressed with her looking for and making some really nice passes to her teammates. She plays on a team with some long-legged girls that move like gazelles. Merrick acts as team mascot during these games and I have to keep the subs from playing with Merrick so they come in and get some game time. Friday was general domestic stuff such as watering the garden and cleaning of bedrooms, but we found time to get Merrick his new summer hair cut. I cut off about 4 inches of white hair--the kid is clearly chalkasian. Friday night was also when I put Merrick in undies and told him to use the toilet. He pretty much like going pee, even though sometimes he just runs outside to use a tree rather than use the toilet. He did spend a lot of time peeing in the back yard and then telling me about it. He stayed dry all weekend for me however, so we are off to a good start. We headed out early on Saturday morning for some treasure hunting at thrift sales and made some great finds including some Boxcar children books and a malt maker. We spent the late morning with me mowing the lawn and Merrick waiting very patiently for me to finish up the front yard so he could swim in the pool. I wasn't in the backyard too long before he was naked and splashing in the water. We made use of the malt maker every night that weekend. Saturday Sophia spent some time playing with the neighbor girl and then in the early evening we called up her friend and drove over the the soccer fields that have the full size nets, the kids played for a while, but the game quickly turned into various versions of tag. We did stay at the field long enough that even Merrick asked to go home. When we got home it was bubble baths for the both of them, unfortunately we were out of bubble bath--but in dad's world that just means you use dish soap. The kids came out with a nice lemony smell and no streaking. Actually Sophia figured if I was using dish soap that she should do some dishes--I had no counter argument so I tossed in the spaghetti pans from supper. She got them very clean but when Merrick took his bath he was upset that there were no dishes left for him to do. I let him wash my feet instead, this seemed to please him. Sunday Merrick and I bottled beer and changed oil in the truck while Sophia went with a friend to the Y to swim for a couple of hours. With Merrick napping and Sophia still swimming I was able to watch most of a playoff hockey game--great weather and good times--summer is hear.

A Mother of a Weekend

The weather was a little hit and miss this weekend, we awoke on Saturday morning to find patches of snow. Although the snow quickly melted it did force us indoors more than the kids and I prefer. Saturday morning was mostly filled with the general trappings of domestication and we cleaned and primped the ol' homestead. We did find some time to put a dollar in each of the kids pockets and try to find a garage sale that might harbor a treasure. With the cold and rain there was little competition but also few sales, so no treasures were found. With Merrick asleep, I did teach Sophia how to make some hemp/beaded jewelery. A putzy little project but one that kept us busy while Merrick drooled into his pillow. We also burned up a large portion of the day turning a 15 minute car trip into an hour and half jaunt around the greater GB area. The idea was to hit the neighborhood Target to get the finishing touches for Lisa's Mother's Day gift and then head across the river to the cooking store, in order to buy a malt maker. The amount of construction in the area has now made that nearly impossible. In the end we didn't make it to the cooking store and didn't get malts. Merrick also used this time to ramble on in the back seat. When I asked him what he was saying he just shouted out, "I am talking about the money, Baby!" later in the day in the store parking lot, he also thought this was an appropriate way to talk to the women parked next to us--"Hey baby." With Nostradamus like skills I figure nothing good could come from such language. We had a nice talk about using Sir and Mama, so that is how he addressed everyone from his shopping cart political stump as we walked through the store aisles. The good news is that I was so tired of driving that the planned trip to do some grocery shopping turned into videos and a take out pizza complete with a big bottle of root beer. I think the kids were ok with the decision. We flopped the futon mattress on the living room floor and dragged out the sleeping bags. The kids decided to just sleep on the floor and that was fine with me, until they also decided that 5:30 am was late enough to sleep on Sunday morning. Fortunately the coffee pot was set to go and the day was full of sun. We did get the grocery shopping out of the way early in the morning and also picked up the seeds for the garden this year. We headed out for a short hike through the wildlife sanctuary and were able to find two of the wolves sunning themselves. The kids also were able to play on the inside toys and thought the idea of two-headed turtle was to much of photo op to pass up. Sophia actually asked if I had my camera and when I told her no she asked about my phone--in her world not only has every phone always had a camera but everyone always has phone. Merrick and I planted the seeds in the garden and Sophia played with the neighbor girl. As the day starts to slow down, I am thinking we all need a nice NHL playoff game and some cheesy popcorn to coast us out of the weekend and into the next week.

Merrick's Birthday

Easter weekend coincided with Merrick's birthday this year so after a one day layover at home we repacked up our traveling clothes and headed back to EC. We did find time before our departure for Merrick to open and ride his new bike and to eat some ice cream cake. The holiday weekend made is nice for a large turn out albeit one more thing for everyone to do on an already busy weekend. The party was at the YMCA which was set up really nice for parties. The kids had fully use of 'ruckus room' with a zipline, climbing wall and jungle gym. There was also more swimming. Merrick was waterlogged and he asked to get out. There were pinatas to break and cupcakes to eat, and he was done with the pool idea. The next morning was Easter and the kids had several outdoor Easter egg hunts. I think the total candy count exceeded the normal Halloween haul. The weekend concluded a busy but enjoyable week of traveling and family; a lot of miles and a lot of smiles.