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I used to think my dad was the WWF world wrestling champion.
My dad told me that when he was in high school, he was the state champion. All I heard was “wrestling champion”. I thought that he beat Hulk Hogan AND Andre the Giant, and I told all my friends so. How else could you be a wrestling champion, if you never wrestled Hulk Hogan?
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I used to think my dad knew everybody in the world.
I guess every little kid thinks things like that about their parents, but then again, my dad talks to anybody like he’s know them for 100 years. He would go in to buy milk and come back with the life story of everyone in the store. He still does this now; if anything, it’s worse. So after the 50th time or so you see some random person walking around and your dad just happens to know that his wife died 4 years ago and his oldest kid lives in Texas, where he runs a successful underwater basket weaving business, you have to either accept the fact that he knows everybody, or you have to acknowledge that he’s psychic. He’s not though, he gets his information the old fashion way: by talking your ear off. (Something I would never do, for the record)
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I used to think I knew all there was to know about fashion.
I’ll wait for anybody who knows me to stop laughing. I remember being about 5 and giving my dad a lesson on how to look cool: Step one, you pick out socks with colored bands on top that matched your shorts. Step two, you pulled them up as high as they could go. Step three, walk around like the coolest cat in the neighborhood. Actually, that look probably was pretty cool in the ’80’s, so maybe I *did* know all there was to know about fashion back then. That would certainly have been the last time.
Month: July 2011
Holiday Weekend Wrapup
First off, happy belated 4th of July to everyone, and happy belated anniversary to Sara and I!
We continued the tradition we started last year, and headed up to Michigan for the 4th. We again stayed at Lisa and Orlan’s house, and Evie again had the time of her life. Sara and I had a good time too, but there’s something about watching your kid have a great time that just makes it impossible for you to not enjoy yourself. Evie loves playing with Kaycee, who never seems to get tired of playing with her (I hope…and if not, sorry Kaycee!). Randi, on the other hand, has to do practically nothing to gain her adoration.
Oliver was sort of terrified, sort of curious about their dogs. I would say he wasn’t as terrified as Evie used to be about them, because whenever they weren’t looking at him, he wanted to go investigate and keep an eye on them. So he was very interested in them. But if they showed an interest in him, he would run screaming and sobbing, as absolutely terrified as anybody could ever be about anything. 10 seconds later the dogs would be off somewhere else, and he’d be begging to get down again.
Evie warmed up to the dogs quite a bit. The turning point was after she got out of the pool and was shivering cold; “The dogs have very warm tongues!” After that she seemed to have no problem with the dogs at all, and she was only really scared of them when Oliver was getting a lot of attention for being scared of them. She even mentioned on the way home that she likes their warm tongues. This is a complete 180 reversal from her previous stance on dogs, which was that she wants no smooches from them under any circumstances.
We ended up at the lake both Sunday and Monday, which worked out good because there wouldn’t have been enough time on Monday alone to satisfy all of Evie’s lake demands. She had such a great time! We couldn’t keep her off the lake: if she wasn’t in the boat, she was on a tube. If she wasn’t on a tube, she was swimming in the water. This is all fairly surprising, since she freaks out if any water gets on her face or head (especially ears!). So I’m kind of impressed that she enjoyed the water so much.
Oliver thinks the boat is a magical sleeping machine. 3 rides on the boat, 3 naps. Every time, he was out almost as soon as we pulled away from the dock. He was sort of obsessed with the lake, and keeping him from running over and diving in was sort of a full time job. He did take some breaks to play in the wading pool, where he mostly enjoyed watching the water drip out of his swimming trunks.
Evie also insisted that Aunt Pat take her for a ride on the “other boat” (a.k.a. the wave runner). She enjoyed that just as much, taking the driver’s seat. She has no problem being in charge of driving either of the boats. The only mishap was that one time her hat blew off into the lake, but they were able to retrieve it before it sunk.
We spent a lot of time “tubing”, or foolishly being whipped around at high speeds behind a boat on a flimsy inter tube. Evie thought it was the best thing ever, even though the boat was going as slow as it was physically able to go while she was on there. Even Sara went, which really surprised me. That was probably the highlight of the weekend for me. It seemed somewhat out of character, but she was grinning her head in two the entire time, and it seemed like she was really enjoying herself. That makes me happy. 🙂
As for myself, I tried tubing as well. What I learned was that tubing is not for whiners. Well, guess what? It’s my blog and I can whine about whatever I want to. Tubing is harrrrrd! My arms huuuurt!
Look, in my defense, even though I wouldn’t consider myself old, I was at least twice as old as anybody who was out there tubing with me, and probably weigh twice as much as well. My arms are definitely not used to hauling that kind of weight around!
I was on the side of a 3 person tube, and I felt like I was practically falling off the tube to begin with. When we got out there and really started whipping around in the chop, I was holding myself on with sheer arm strength (what precious little I have) and will power. I can’t even count the number of times I thought to myself, “Oh, man, that’s it, I’m going off!” but I never did. At one point, towards the end, I slid almost all the way off the back of the tube. Orlan said he felt the boat slow down like he was dragging a big-fat-pasty-white anchor (those weren’t his exact words). I knew I had to pull myself back onto the tube, but my arms were so tired, I seriously considered just letting go. So maybe that final pull-up was when I pulled a muscle in my arm.
That night and the next day my right elbow was so sore that I had trouble shaving. They kept trying to get me to go again, but I’m telling you, I was physically unable. And I admit, I felt kind of silly complaining about it, since there were about 8 other people who went a lot more times than I did, and *they* weren’t complaining. I have to assume I was doing something wrong, though I’m not sure what. My arms are still sore today!
So that was pretty much it. I can only think of three things that were even remotely bad:
- There was a lot of construction both ways that added some significant time onto our trip,
- We bought hamburger buns from the bakery on Friday and they were moldy by Monday, so that was a big fat waste of money,
- My phone fell out of my pocket, and we left Lisa’s house without it. Luckily I realized this and we were able to stop by and get it on the way home (it was in between the couch cushions, under the giant stuffed frog of course)
If those are the only things that went wrong, then I think it was a fairly successful trip!
Quote Monday has a sweet tooth
Sara: “You have an eyelash on your nose. Did you know that some people say you can blow on it and make a wish?”
Evie: “No.”
::Evie blows eyelash off of Sara’s finger::
Sara: “What did you wish for?”
Evie: “A cake…and cupcakes…and candy rocks…and gold money that you can eat…and cherry dates.”
Sara: “These [overalls] would be very useful for working outside.”
Me: “Well, your pants wouldn’t fall down.”
Sara: “Yeah, and they’re covered with little pockets all over!”
Me: “But what would you put in the pockets?”
Sara: “Snacks!”
Later she commented: “Look, there’s a little loop to hold my water bottle!”
Me: “Did you learn any new games?
Evie: “Yeah! It’s called…steam engine?”
Sara: “Steam roller?”
Evie: “Yeah! I’m going to play that with mommy before bed instead of reading a book.”
Me: “Oh, is that so?”
Evie: “Well, I don’t know. We’ll see…”
Vanilla Coconut Ice Cream
The Reason:
Well, first off, do you really need a reason to make ice cream? I don’t. But I guess if I had to have a reason, just having a nice sunny day seemed reason enough.
The Journey:
Sara heard a rumor that you could make ice cream without any cow’s milk, so we wanted to give it a try. Instead of milk, you use coconut milk, which we happen to have around the house for various reasons.
We have a human-powered “ice cream ball” that can be used to make ice cream without the use of electricity. Basically, instead of having a motor-driven paddle which mixes the ice cream, you have to do the rolling/shaking/what have you yourself. We bought it thinking that we could take it camping with us and make ice cream around the campfire. However, that never actually came to pass, because usually when we are camping we are with a big group, so this little ball doesn’t really make enough ice cream.
For just our family, it makes just the right amount, and kids are a better source of energy than electricity anyway. It gives us an excuse to be outside on a nice day, followed by a nice cold treat.
The Verdict:
Excellent! I don’t think I’d want coconut ice cream every day, but it was a nice treat. The vanilla is an important part of it, since it tones down the coconut a little bit. This would be perfect to make when camping, because it is much easier to transfer canned coconut milk than regular cow’s milk that has to be refrigerated.
The Recipe:
Recipe from Go Dairy Free.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups coconut milk (full fat)
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
Stir the coconut milk and sugar together until the sugar is dissolved. Add the salt and vanilla and freeze in an electric or hand operated ice cream freezer.
Now begone! Before somebody drops a house on you!
This morning I had a bit of a rude awakening.
I was sleeping on the floor under Oliver’s crib. When he woke up, he decided to try and reach the enormous duplo house on the book shelf. He had…just…managed to reach it when *BOOM* he dropped it on my face, where it shattered into a million pieces (or 20).
There are probably worse ways to wake up than a duplo house exploding on your face from about 6 feet up, but not a lot.
Shane Halbach 