My So Called Life

Mackinac “Familymoon”

/ Shane / 3 Comments

After the wedding was over, we took off on our “familymoon”. Rather than take a honeymoon, the newlyweds opted to take their entire family on vacation with them. This worked out really well, because each set of kids had never really met the other, so this provided us a chance to get to know each other.

The kids were surprisingly good on the way up. It was a long drive, but it was no problem. They slept, played, ate, and didn’t scream too much. What more could you ask for?

Now obviously the thing about Mackinac Island is that there are no cars allowed. This means you spend a lot of time riding your bike. Before we left, Sara ran into someone at the park who happened to have one of those bike trailers that you attach to your bike to pull your kids. They let us borrow it, which was totally awesome, because we don’t really know them, and the trailers cost $40 a day to rent on the island!

So we did a lot of bike riding around the island. I calculated that pulled that trailer around for about 23 miles. When you’re riding on a flat path, such as around the outside of the island, you don’t notice it much. But when you’re going up an enormous hill, such as anywhere other than around the outside of the island, it feels like you are towing a giant anchor.

It was fun getting to know everybody. In particular, Evie just absolutely loved her new friend Makenna. Evie always has fun hanging out with slightly older girls. Makenna, on the other hand, just absolutely loved her new friend Oliver. This set up a sort of a rivalry between the two of them. All of a sudden, Evie was very keen that Oliver understand he was HER sister. This worked out semi-well for Oliver. Suddenly everybody wanted to share their food with him, take him for walks, etc. On the other hand, they also wanted to pick him up by the neck and smother him to death.

We did about everything we possibly could have done in the 4 days we were there. We hit up Fort Mackinac, the ORIGINAL butterfly house (twice actually), took a horse-drawn carriage tour, and toured the Governor’s mansion. The Governor’s mansion was free, but sort of lame. You only go through about 3 rooms, and you don’t really see much. We went early and there was no line, but by the time we left the line was pretty long. It probably wouldn’t have been worth waiting in the line. Evie worked really, really hard to sit still and get a butterfly to land on her at the butterfly house, and it paid off. We went to a free museum run by city residents (the name escapes me) which was actually kind of cool. The lady there lived on the island all her life and she was happy to talk about the history of the island. The place was pretty empty, but I would recommend that one.

One of the things that I thought worked really well was that everybody came together to eat dinner every night. This was one of my favorite parts of the day, and really the only time we were all together. I think that if we didn’t plan that out ahead of time, probably we never would have all gotten together as a group.

The food overall was sort of meh. It was expensive, but only average. I would say the best place by far was the Yankee Rebel; I think I had the best pot roast of my life. Oliver tried his first ice cream cone, and, needless to say, he liked it. I mean, first off, he likes all food. Second off, it’s ice cream!

We also took a ghost tour, and I have to say, this was one of my favorite parts of the trip. In general I like that sort of thing, but it was fun to go with family and everything. It wasn’t really scary, per say, but it was a lot of fun. Especially since some of the best ghosts were centered on the place where we were staying, or places we have stayed before.

This time, we were staying at Mission Point Resort. While our room was sort of perfect (bedroom on one side and sitting room on the other, which meant that we had a separate place to go and play cards after the kids were in bed), I wouldn’t recommend staying there. In addition to some customer service issues that we had, it is also really far away from downtown. I felt like we spent a lot of time walking back and forth to the hotel. Several times I thought, “Oh man, I forgot my jacket! Oh well, it’s too far to go back.”

Obviously we had to get fudge since we were at the fudge capitol of the world. I have to say, the fudge was sort of a letdown! Perhaps my tastes are changing as I get older, or maybe we didn’t go to the right fudge shop (there are only 1,000 to choose from), but I think I like the fudge that Sara makes better than what we bought. It was more sweet than flavorful (specifically the chocolate wasn’t all that chocolate-y), and it was creamier in the center than I like. Don’t get me wrong though, we polished off that fudge no problem!

I always like to play the “high/low” game with Evie, where I ask her what her favorite and least favorite parts of the day/trip/what-have-you were. One day I asked her about this, and she told me her “worst favorite” part of the day was, “when daddy called the pirates soldiers” and her “best favorite” part was, “the pirates”. It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about, but then I eventually figured out that there were some animatronic soldiers at Fort Mackinac, and she apparently thought they were pirates. (In her defense, they were dressed sort of fancy, like pirates, and also it would have been a lot cooler if they were pirates.) This stuck with her so much, that she said me calling the pirates soldiers was her “worst favorite” part of the trip!

Of course, Evie being Evie, her other favorite part of the trip was seeing Skull Cave (too bad they don’t have any guillotines on the island). Her sitting next to the sign was the picture she wanted to take to school and show everybody when we got back. Apparently she even told them the whole story about the guy hiding in there and finding all the bones. Ah, kids will be kids!

So, all in all, this was a great trip and we had a really good time. I wish we could have spent even longer on the island (and we even stayed one day longer than we intended to!). To all my “new siblings” (should any of you read this now that we are Facebook friends), you’re a really nice bunch of people and we enjoyed getting to know you. Evie is already making plans to fly to Colorado for a play date.

One thing I should mention is that we really missed having Nathan on the island with us. I’m sure he was bummed about not being able to go, but we definitely felt your absence bro. You would have really completed the trip.

The Wedding

/ Shane / 1 Comment

As you most likely are aware, my mom got married the other day.

Everything went off without a hitch (at least as far as I am aware). The ceremony went beautifully and the reception was fun (and well attended!). It was a little hot, but very manageable (in other words, not as hot as our wedding).

Oliver caught a nap on the floor in a room before the ceremony, since we couldn’t find the nursery. We had to wake him up just a few minutes before the ceremony to finish getting him ready. He spent most of the time playing in the back with Uncle John, which was fine, because we had our hands full.

Evie was a flower girl, and she was very excited. She did an excellent job, spreading the petals evenly and dumping the remainder of her basket at the end of the aisle. She even decided to clean up after herself, picking up the petals on the procession out. However, her favorite part was the nail polish she got to wear (and is still wearing).

I walked my mom down the aisle, but that was the easy part. The hard part was being the parent of a flower girl, which is a very stressful occupation! We were sitting in the first row, which was perhaps a little too close to the action. This meant that whenever Evie decided to be a part of something, she could get there before I could stop her. If she decided to stand with the bridesmaids, she stood with the bridesmaids. If she decided to walk up for a better view of the rings, she did it. The rest of the time she was just antsy, and we tried to keep her occupied.

All Oliver had to do was look cute, which he did as well as anyone. He had a black suit and bow tie, with a blue checked shirt and light blue Converse All Star shoes. He had a grand time exploring everywhere and dancing the night away. He was pretty wore out by the end of the night (Evie too!)

The reception was a lot of fun. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to anybody because I felt like I was always chasing after one kid or another. In addition to family, I saw a lot of my mom’s friends who I haven’t seen in many years. Instead of a cake, they had a dessert table full of some really wonderful desserts. This is a really good idea, but on the other hand, it is tempting to take too many! Alas, before I knew it, it was time to take the kids home for bed. It always comes too soon! It sounds like the party continued long into the night, even after the reception was over.

Thanks to Dan and Allie for letting us stay at their house! We didn’t get much of a chance to hang out, but we were glad to have friends in town so that the out-of-towners could stay with my mom.

Fiction Podcasts Part II – The Rest

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Continuing on with the great “best of” audio podcast lists from Diabolical Plots, I’m now going to delve into the smaller, or less well known audio podcasts. As is often the case with things like this, these ones are definitely diamonds in the rough and deserve some coverage!

Drabble Cast – Horror-ish? (best of lists here and here)

Drabble Cast bills itself as “strange stories by strange authors for strange listeners (such as yourself)”. Well, I must be strange, because I think this is my favorite of all of the podcasts (and I’m not even through the whole list yet)! I don’t know if it is because these stories are even shorter (the longest pieces are “flash fiction”, and there is also a “drabble” (a story of exactly 100 words) and “twit-fic” (a story of exactly 100 characters). I can usually finish an episode of each leg of my commute. You can check out some of my favorites, such as Teddy Bears and Tea Parties (NOT as nice as it sounds! Very creepy!), or the science-fictional Mongoose (part I, partII). Note that this podcast is very produced, almost more like a radio drama than a simple reading of a story. At first this was distracting to me, but after I got used to it, I kind of liked it.

StarShipSofa  – Science Fiction (best of list here)

This podcast can only be described as adorable. It is so clearly by the people, for the people and the host is such a nice guy, that you can’t help but love it. However, I would definitely not recommend this for everyone. It’s a lot more than just audio fiction. Although they do include at least one story in every episode, it’s more like one feature among many, instead of the main event. The very, very long episodes contain author interviews, genre news, genre history, upcoming book releases, etc. If you’re really into science fiction in general, then there is a lot to offer here. If you just want to hear some fiction, you’re probably better off with something else. But if you’re going to listen to any random episode, why not start off with the one containing the fantastic Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi (if this podcast has done nothing else for me, it has at least taught me how to pronounce Bacigalupi!)

Beneath Ceaseless Skies – Fantasy (best of list here)

Beneath Ceaseless Skies describes itself as “the best in literary adventure fantasy”. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant until I listened to some of the stories. It’s fantasy, but it’s sort of more unique fantasy. Again, we’re not talking about traditional sword and sorcery here. It’s more equivalent to high fantasy meets…strangeness or something. Sort of lyrical world building in a non-traditional setting. For example, check out Mamafield, a story from the point of view of a sentient plant, or Father’s Kill (what can I say, I’m just always a sucker for the dark ones!)

Cast Macabre – Horror (best of list here)

Maybe I’m running out of steam here, but I don’t have much to say about this one. The stories were good and I enjoyed all the ones I listened to. Definitely worth checking out.

Clarkesworld – Science Fiction and Fantasy (best of list here)

I haven’t actually listened to any of these yet, so I can’t say much about it. But there was a best of list, so I will make it there eventually.

Anybody else have any good fiction podcasts? Anybody listen to any of these and have some comments to share? Which were your favorites? Let us know in the comments!

And that’s when I knew…

/ Shane / 2 Comments

We were at a school function for Evie, and the kids were singing some songs.

Suddenly an old man tottered to his feet, swaying slowly in front of them. He looked like he was not a day over 200. His back was hunched, his limbs were gnarled. His few remaining hairs were white and wiry, and the top of his head was bald and shiny, long since given way to age spots. He could manage only a shuffling step or two, and looked like he was about to topple.

I clutched Sara’s arm. Was he going to die? Did he lurch to his feet because he was having a heart attack? Would he fall and shatter into a million brittle pieces?

His arm slowly lifted, and you could almost hear the joints creaking beneath the sleeves of his worn suit. Ever so slowly, he extended the arm and…snapped a quick picture with his iPhone.

That’s when Sara and I realized, we truly were the last people on earth without a smart phone.

Our Beautiful Book

/ Shane / Leave a comment

As some of you saw on Facebook, we recently made the most amazing souvenir of our family trip to Paris: a beautiful book.

You can see a preview of the entire book here.

We had found this website Blurb.com that is a self-publishing website (it allows you to make your own books) that a couple of people we know use to automatically make books out of their blog.

I thought this would be simple, since I already have a pretty specific breakdown of our Paris trip here on my blog. All I would have to do is suck this text in, add a bunch of images, and ship it off to the printer. So easy, in fact, that I figured I’d just do it on the sly and give it to Sara for mother’s day.

I downloaded the software from Blurb and put it all together. I took quite a bit more work than I was expecting, but I thought it would be well worth it. However, I was a little too nervous to actually order it without Sara seeing it, so I decided to show it to her before submitting it.

Boy am I glad that I did.

My original version was very text heavy, with only a few small pictures on each page. When all was said and done, we had put countless more hours in, and ended up around version 4 or so. The big difference from version to version was a much bigger focus on the pictures. I think my first version was around 40 pages, and I think we ended around 70 pages or so. I had originally used only the best of the best pictures, but I think we ended up using almost every picture we took. This makes for a much nicer memento obviously. And perhaps we were a little obsessive, going through it over and over, switching pictures, tweaking layouts, etc., but it was sooo worth it.

It turned out perfectly. It is absolutely gorgeous! It is without a doubt the best souvenir one could ever have from a trip like that.

Of course, if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right, so we sprang for all the extras: premium paper, printed on cover, etc. So it ended up being about $100, minus about $20 from a coupon code we found. So that is pretty pricey, but the book we got in return is absolutely priceless. Each day of our trip is a chapter, full of anecdotes, descriptions and beautiful, full-page pictures.

So, in summary, feel free to use Blurb for all your book making needs (their BookSmart software is pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it, although I should caution that their software has it’s own little…quirks now and again). If you want something to turn out nice, be prepared to put some time in.

And if you come to my house, I’m definitely going to be shoving this book in your face!