Evie composed a song for me, totally on her own. It went like this:
Happy Father’s Day to you!
That’s all the things that you do!
and I love you!
For the rest, I’ll let the pictures do the talking:
Quote Monday is foolish
Me: “Ugh, that was foolish of me.”
Sara: “I’m sorry.”
Me: “No, I’m sorry. What are you sorry for?”
Sara: “I’m sorry you’re so foolish.”
Evie: “Does this say ‘jaguar’?”
::stunned silence::
Sara: “Well, it’s close, it says Jaqua.”
Evie was reading the name on some real estate sign. I wasn’t aware that she really knew the word jaguar, much less knew how to read it (or read anything).
Me, goofing around with Evie: “Mommy, who was the first one to fall asleep?”
Sara: “I don’t know, but I know who is annoying me most right now…”
Evie: “She means me! That means me!”
Me: “He’s trying to give you a smooch. I think it’s a thank you smooch for being such a good sister.”
::Later::
Me: “I think Oliver has a poo-poo diaper.”
Evie: “That’s his way of saying thank you for being such a good daddy!”
30 Days of “Gettin’ Older”
In honor of his birthday, my uncle Scott posted a series of “Gettin’ Older” status updates on Facebook. I am collecting them here for your enjoyment:
Day 1 – I sometimes accidentally refer to my iPod as my Walkman….
Day 2 – Professional Athletes are younger than me. RETIRED professional athletes are younger than me.
Day 3 – Bifocals are WAY cooler than I thought they would be.
Day 4 – A night out overindulging is less likely to involve alcohol with friends, and more likely to involve Ted Drewes frozen custard with the kids.
Day 5 – Sleeping through the night is rare. Sleeping through a movie is probable.
Day 6 – I don’t care for the term “mid-life”; I prefer “Halftime”. Still a lot of game left to play…I’ll grow up at the 2 minute warning….
Day 7 – No better reminder that you’re getting older than when the young lady who’s cutting your hair asks, “Would you like me to trim your eyebrows?”
Day 8 – “Classic Rock” has a much different playlist than it did 20 years ago. (Imagine that!) Yes, kids, someday you’ll be listening to the “Way Back Machine” and hear the early song stylings of Justin Bieber!
Day 9 – I can go online, get the latest updates, check several different websites, but it’s not the same…I still like starting the day reading the newspaper.
Day 10 – Women have to deal with Hot Flashes. For men, it’s more like a slow, warm decay, something akin to composting, and unfortunately, sharing similar odors at times.
Day 11 – I look pretty silly when I try to dance. That is not neccesarily an age thing, but now it is accompanied by the very real threat of physical injury, and emotional damage to those watching.
Day 12 – I’m not slowing down;I’m just very selective about how I choose to burn calories.
Day 13 – “With age comes wisdom.” Right on schedule with the former, feeling a little cheated on the latter….
Day 14 – I can remember back when grownups didn’t wear jeans and tennis shoes
Day 15 – I finally can say things like, “When I was a kid…”, “Back in my day…”, and “Gosh, that’s loud!” without trying to be humorous. Sadly, the indifferent response is still the same.
Day 16 – I am torn between how sore I am when I wake up in the morning, and being grateful that I don’t feel any worse.
Day 17 – Caffeine runs a fine line between helpful and harmful. It may get my motor running, but nowadays runs the real risk of blowing a gasket.
Day 18 – Life is a journey, and you need to appreciate the ride.
But this older V-8 needs a lot of maintenance, and gas prices just keep going up.
Day 19 – The trick is to grow old gracefully. Where does “kicking and screaming” fit into that equation?
Day 20 – It’s hard for me to fathom sometimes, but the Bicentennial was 35 years ago! Still have some mementos…
Day 21 – Doing yardwork counts as exercize. Doing laundry counts as exercize. Standing up from a chair without a spotter counts as exercize.
Day 22 – There are a lot of things I cannot do any longer. But that’s okay; I’m having a hard time remembering why I wanted to do them in the first place!
Day 23 – Your conversation topics seem to revolve around a repetitive list: the weather, what you ate the previous day, the way younger people dress, how late the neighbors stayed up, that dry patch of skin on your elbow…(feel free to add to this list. My friends want me to find some new topics….)
Day 24 – I have no desire these days to visit Pamplona. I wonder what Hemingway would write about “sitting with the squirrels”.
Day 24 – There is a greater chance that I will lose track of where I am when I am counting. Sorry, Day 25….
Day 26 – I can still eat whatever I choose. It’s strictly coincidental that my choices are much more bland.
Day 27 – In order to stave off feeling older, I try to start my day being cheerful, upbeat, and friendly. The drawback is that nobody recognizes me….
Day 28 – Listening to music with my kids…
ME: This song is excellent! I used to love it when I was a kid!
CHRIS: Did they have music when you were a kid?
(He told that he meant “did we had iPods?” when I was a kid. Nice save, Little Buddy….)
Day 29 – I’m not alone
Day 30 – It doesn’t take a lot of talent to get older, though a little luck is involved.
Getting older is a privilege, not an entitlement. Roll with the process, and enjoy the time you have
Yard Sale
As soon as we got back from Mackinac, we basically turned around and got back in the car. For at least a year now, we have been going through everything we could possibly get rid of, and saving up all of our junk in our guest bedroom. So much so, that it was getting hard for people to stay in there.
Usually there is a big family rummage sale every year, but this is the first year we’ve sold stuff at my Uncle Lenny’s house. Lenny is about as close as you can come to a professional yard sale-r. He has a big barn with stuff that he collects all the time, and he can open it up at any time and start selling. So, with his stuff alone you’d have a pretty big sale, but then you add in all the stuff the rest of the family brings, and you’re in business.
The sale was huge, and we were so busy on both Saturday and Sunday, busier than I have ever been at a yard sale (and our family has a looong history of yard sales). We had about 4 tables for our stuff. I am proud to say, we made $172.50! Not too shabby for a bunch of junk that had an average price of about $0.25 (though we did sell a laptop for $80, half of which we owe to Anna).
We spent about $11 on other people’s junk, mostly on kids’ clothes. We eventually figured out that we bought things about once an hour; you would wander around and see something you hadn’t seen the first 10 times around, or you would decide not to buy something, but then after an hour of thinking about it you would change your mind.
Even with the stuff we bought though, we sold tons more stuff, so I don’t understand why our car seemed just as full going home as coming. My main goal was to unload junk (the money was just a bonus), so I wish we would have gotten rid of even more. However, it was good to get rid of what we did.
The main part is that it is nice to visit with everyone. Someone asked me, “You came here just for the yard sale?” We didn’t get to talk to many people at the wedding, so this was a little more low-key, and we had more of a chance to chat. And, of course, we always enjoy the chance to play cards at Grandma’s at night. (and Sara cleaned up at 3 and 13!)
My Uncle Lenny’s yard has always been something of an inspiration to me. He’s got some awesome fruit trees, a little pool with a waterfall and actual, flowering lily pads, and a nice little cozy yet open area off the back deck. However, this time I got to see an awesome new (to me) feature, which I never knew about before.
A large section of his yard is densely wooded, and through this area winds a series of paths. You enter through a trellis-framed door, and if you follow the main path, you wind almost 800 feet to the little cleared camping area in the back. On the way you pass through a spooky wooded section, a more open back section, and even come upon a pine-tree-fairy-ring. I cannot tell you how cool the whole thing is! I enjoyed the first trip through so much, I took a second trip. Oliver apparently found it relaxing as well, since he fell asleep on my head.
Evie and Oliver had a blast walking, playing with all the junk for sale, picking up and petting the kittens, listening to books with Aunt Kris, and did I mention there was a reindeer next door? They were just plumb wore out by all of it at the end of the day(s).
And really, I think we were all experiencing a little vacation fatigue by the time we got home. Our house is the biggest disaster zone on the planet. After returning from one vacation, we just sort of chucked everything we didn’t need to the side and loaded up for the next vacation. We have dishes and laundry stacked everywhere. We’ve made great strides since we’ve been home, but we still have so much more to do, my mind sort of boggles at the prospect.
Is there anything more exhausting than vacation??
Mackinac “Familymoon”
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.
Shane Halbach 