Kicking Around The End of Summer and the Beginning of Fall

"School days,
School days,
These are Golden Rule days,..."

I'm not sure this is true or ever was true, at least not in my lifetime. But nonetheless the summer has again passed by and school is upon us. As usual there were more plans for things to accomplish during the summer than were were actually accomplished. Somehow the fates, the weather, and an incredibly annoying case of stubbornness conspired against us. Which isn't to say that the summer wasn't busy. Indeed for Sam and Abby this summer may be the greatest summer they ever experience.

Sam again played T-Ball this year and, unlike last year, showed remarkable improvement. His throwing motion was much improved and he was very enthusiastic about moving to the ball in the field--sometimes overly so. If and when he decides to swing the bat with some authority, he'll be a really good hitter. In the back yard and off to the side, he would swing pretty hard, but when he was actually at the plate not so much. Still he managed quite a few hits on balls pitched to him. (I should explain that in this league the kids were given so many pitches from their coach and if still unsuccessful the tee was brought out for them to hit off of.)

Abby wasn't involved in sports this summer--indeed I think her sporting career may be over. Yet she had an incredibly busy summer. Abby went to 3 camps this summer, one for horseback riding (thanks to mama and papaw), a girl-scout day camp (which Sam also attended), and an overnight camp that as it turned out wasn't as advertised. In between she was mostly at friend's houses or they were at ours. So she was busy. What we didn't get accomplished was getting her comfortable on her bike. In the Spring she had an accident on her bicycle and since then has refused to even think about riding. The odd part is that it's the easy part of riding a bike, steering, that's causing her the most problems.

Cindy's summer was filled with Girl Scout activities, library programs, and babysitting. She's taking over the role as leader of Abby's Girl Scout troop and thus was busy preparing for the upcoming year. She also applied to be a substitute teacher at Sammy's school, that is after the school district lost her initial application to be a library aide, and after she was told that all the lunch lady positions had been filled, pun intended. I suppose in a way this worked out for the best since I think she'll be happier as a Kindergarten and first-grade sub and the money is likely better.

As for me, I finally got a huge monkey off my back by passing my general exam. Of course that brings on a HUGER (I don't care that huger is not a word) monkey with the dissertation. Of course I think I would have been happier had I been allowed to skip the classes and the general exam and gone straight to the dissertation. At the end of the day, when I'm applying for jobs my worth will be judged by it and not by the fact that I got an A in Cost-Benefit Analysis. However, as of now I don't have a topic in mind, and that's kind of a big omission. To otherwise occupy my time I'm coaching Sammy's soccer team this fall. So far so good, but we haven't had any games yet.

The end of Winter/Beginning of Spring

Winter is thankfully drawing down to a close and spring is erupting, and with that a girl's attention finally turns to what's been on the boy's mind the whole time--baseball.

For the most part Winter was fairly uneventful. For the first time in 4 years neither Abby nor Sammy took ice-skating lessons and neither seemed to miss them too much, if it all. Last year Sammy took lessons and we thought did fairly well, or at least as well as most of the other kids in his class. But the instructors felt otherwise and suggested that he repeat the section for a third time. We declined. If he hadn't made sufficient progress through 2 sessions to advance to the next level then putting him into a third seemed like a waste of time and money.

So that left the Winter relatively schedule free, which wasn't the worst thing. Abby and Cindy busied themselves with Girl Scout activities which seem to never end and which they both seem to enjoy immensely. Currently they are heavy into planning for an overnight "camping" trip in April. I say "camping" because they will be staying in a lodge with beds, running water, electricity, and mattresses. It will however be at a Girl Scout Camp and they fully intend to cook some meals/snacks over an open fire and engage in outdoor activities. Still I think the Normandy invasion required less planning.

Sam has been pretty much open this winter. He's still too young for Cub Scouts (which he will greatly enjoy once he's old enough) and now occupies himself himself with all sorts of things, but none the same from day to day. He's very much into a stream of consciousness type of existence that can be both entertaining and frustrating.

When the weather breaks we're going to try geocaching. Geocaching is akin to a scavenger/treasure hunt in which folks with a handheld GPS plug in the coordinates of a cache and then traipse off through the woods or wherever to find it. Looking on-line we were somewhat surprised at the vast number of geocaches to be found within a few miles of our house and indeed within a few miles of house and/or within a few miles of pretty much everywhere we go. In a sense it's kind of creepy. But that aside it seems like it should be a lot of fun and a good way to get everyone out of the house this spring.

And getting out of the house will be important since neither kid will be playing soccer this spring. It's hard for me to admit but sports just don't appear to be her thing. She never really caught on to the concept of competing at least on the field, and certainly she doesn't like running in the least. I'm at least hoping that she will ride her bike more now that she has that mastered. (For those that don't know Abby was pretty stubborn about learning to ride and really only did so because I told her that Sam was very close to being able to ride a 2 wheeler--which he is.)

Sam is another matter. He's going to play T-Ball this Spring and though the games won't start until May, they will conflict with soccer. He and I threw a ball the other day with some success. He can somewhat throw and was starting to understand what the glove was for. His biggest issue is that he can't decide whether he wants to be a lefty or a righty, which is kind of a big deal.

As for me I'm taking my general exams right now and hope to have the second question wrapped up in a week or two and then onto the third question and then the oral exam--whooo boy.

Catching Up

Ok, I've not been good about keeping this up. I admit it. I'd promise to be more faithful in keeping it up, but who am I fooling? Anyway, since the last update here are the major highlights and lowlight of the past couple months.

• For several years now our peditrician has been worried about Abby's urine samples. Her samples continually showed high levels of calcium, so finally she recommended that Abby be tested at Children's Hopsital here in Columbus and to make a long story short, Abby has a condition known as hypercalcuria--basically her body isn't processing calcium correctly. It's not too threatening, but we have to monitor her intake of certain foods to make sure she doesn't take in too many oxalates, lest she develop kidney stones. What oxalates have to do with calcium isn't clear to me, but nonetheless Abby is not supposed to have much chocolate, peanut butter, and berries, and a whole slew of other foods are healthy. Poor kid.
• Both Abby and Sammy are playing soccer--well in Abby's case playing. Sam's experience is basically a weekly soccer clinic, which isn't too bad a way to be introduced to the game. He's learning the basics of the game in a fail safe environment. He's learning dribbling, kicking, and even juggling in a fairly fun way. It's pretty neat though I'm not sure why we had to pay $75 for the experience. Nonetheless it's a much better introduction to the game than Abby had. As for Abby, she's actually having a pretty decent season. She finally got her first goal and then followed it the next day with another. She's shown more aggression on the field and more willingness to be part of the action. So overall it's been a good season for her.
• School is going well. Except for handwriting, Abby got very good grades on her interim report card. Why handwriting is graded is beyond me, and since most likely most of her later work will be completed electronically I'm not all that concerned. Actually I wouldn't be that concerned even if that weren't the case. Sam is in pre-school 3 days a week and enjoying it a lot. He even remembers the name of his friends there which is a big improvement from last year.
• Cindy's babysitting days came to an end in August. dag....
• As for me, my generals have been finally nailed down somewhat. This winter, Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be taking 3 take home exams on Higher Ed finance, Needs Assessment, and Hierarchical Linear Modeling.

Other thoughts:

• Those calling for Terrell Pryor's benching are being WAY too hasty. It's pretty evident that he does have the tools to be a successful quarterback. That said he needs to start playing better in a hurry.
• The ads both for and against State Issue 3 are horribly disingenuous. Those coming to take jobs in the proposed casinos will be, de facto, Ohioans since they will be paying Ohio taxes. That said the proposal will NOT create 34,000 jobs. The construction jobs "created" by the proposal are temporary, meaning that the only permanent jobs "created" by the proposal are the 15,000 jobs in the casinos. However, there is some debate whether those jobs are created or merely taken from other entertainment venues.

Remember that time I caught a turtle?

One aspect of the rather mild weather we've enjoyed this summer is that, well, everything has been rather mild. Which in and of itself hasn't been too bad--we've been able to run the A/C less than usual, we've needed to water the lawn and plants less, and certainly we've been able to spend more time outside than usual. However, if you happen to be a 7 year-old girl or a 4 year-old boy cooler than usual temperatures means less chance of swimming. If you don't like swimming or water all that much, then it's no big deal. If you happen to be Sammy or Abby and you're at a lake with a great beach then cool temperatures and frequent rain can prove to be something of a challenge, especially when the power goes out.

Vacation 2009 started off innocuously enough. For the second year in a row we rented a cabin at Pike Lake State Park in south central Ohio. As you may recall we went there for vacation last year and had a great time, and could have, and maybe should have, stayed for a day or 2 more. So when we made our reservations in March we decided to stay an extra night in order to maximize our fun. In hindsight that was a good move.

After making the trek down route 23 through Chillicothe and over route 50 to Bainbridge we arrived at Pike Lake under very sunny skies. Our cabin wasn't ready yet, so we ventured over to the lake so the kids and I could go swimming while Cindy sat on the beach and waited on word that we could move our stuff in. Those who read this blog may remember that in June the water was cold; the condition hadn't much improved much in the intervening 2 months. I felt somewhat like George Costanza but the kids were (like in June) blithely unconcerned about the water temperature. For about an hour they splashed, swam, had water fights, and built sand castles and sand forts, each complete with a moat. They were a bit perturbed when we got the ok to go into the cabin.

The cabin itself was pretty much the same as it was the previous year, which is good since it was the exact same cabin. We quickly moved our stuff in and I set about the task of building a fire in the grill that came with the cottage for our dinner. As I was gathering twigs and wood (lighter fluid is for wimps!) one of our neighbors from the cabin nearby came over to invite us to the campfire they were going to have that night. Evidently his wife, their family and a slew of her friends from her days at Miami and their families gather annually, or at least semi-annually, for a reunion. This year they decided on Pike Lake which was interesting because none of them had ever been to the park before.

So that night after Abby and I went fishing (we got several bites but didn't catch anything) and Sammy's impromptu nap, we gathered up some twigs and firewood and went over to the communal firering in the cabin area. It was a little awkward since, technically, it wasn't supposed to be our fire, but it was getting late and the kids REALLY wanted to roast marshmallows. So off we went to the firering where I set out to build a pretty big fire. Luckily, our new friends didn't mind too much and my new found buddy (who's name I can't recall) even helped build it. After about 20 minutes we had a pretty good size blaze going which eventually settled down into some smoldering coals perfect for roasting marshmallows. Abby set about to roasting the perfect one, Sam set about to burning a goodly number of them, and a generally good time was had by all. The only damper on the evening were the 8 year-old boys, who for reasons unknown, kept trying to make the fire bigger but wound up putting it out, several times. grrrrr....

The next morning was cold and a bit wet, so we opted to go canoeing. On our previous trip the kids decided that they didn't care much for pedal boating, but they really liked “paddling” a canoe—though their definition of paddling and mine are somewhat different. For the most part the excursion was uneventful. We did see a number of turtles sunning themselves little realizing one of them would eventually become Sam's mortal enemy.

Shortly after canoeing rain set in and forced us inside our cabin. After lunch the rain came down harder pretty much ruling out any trip to the beach. To pass the time away we decided to bake a dump cake. For those not familiar a dump cake is one of the true delights of camping cooking, and consists of pie filling topped with yellow cake mix and butter. You can also add pecans or walnuts to the topping if you like. Traditionally this dish is made in a Dutch oven and placed in a camp fire for about 1/2 hour to an hour. Not having a Dutch oven nor a viable campfire (we were inside and it was raining) we baked ours in the oven.

The kids watched Finding Nemo while the concoction baked, but unfortunately they couldn't finish the movie because shortly after we pulled the dump cake from the oven the power went out. You may, or may not, recall that the power also went out on us last year. Unlike last year when the power went out this time it was too cold and rainy to venture down to the lake to pass the time away. So until the rain let-up we read books, played games, and did various other things to pass the time away.

Eventually the rain subsided a bit so we went fishing again, this time with a bit more success. While Abby, much to her dismay, still didn't catch anything, Sam, as is always the case seemingly, caught what I believe was a small pike. It was no bigger than my palm, but when I went to remove the hook, I saw it had a couple rows of teeth. Sam was quite pleased with himself and for the last several weeks has asked "Remember that fish with teeth I caught?" Abby, poor thing, was getting quite frustrated with fishing.

After a ho-hum dinner that night, we went down to the nature center to see the naturalist give a program on snakes. (How many of you are aware that there are rattle snakes in Ohio?) During the presentation, which was well attended, the power came back much to everyone's relief.

That night there was another campfire at which Abby again sought to roast the perfect marshmallow, Sam sought to burn as many as he could, and 8 year-old boys killed a fire in order to "save" it. Our new friends were quite generous with the beer and wine brought with them as well the numerous other snacks and desserts. A good time was had by all.

The next day our new friends departed and all was fairly quiet. It was still too cold for swimming but the rain let up, so we went hiking and canoeing in the morning. Last year Abby and I took a trail that frankly should have come with a warning about its difficulty. It went up a hill, sometimes at a steep slope, and wasn't always clearly marked (the consequences of which Abby has not let me forget for the past year--you may infer that however you wish). This year we took a much easier path around the lake. For the most part she is a remarkably good hiker and I’d like to take her to the Hocking Hills sometime this fall. There was however one part of the path, that wasn't entirely suitable for Sam, so he and Cindy opted for another path.

After hiking and canoeing it still wasn't warm enough for swimming so we went fishing again, and this time Abby had more luck. She was able to land a fairly good sized bluegill which she referred to as a "whopper" and I won't dissuade her from that view. In the midst of her joy and relief Sam somehow managed to catch a snapping turtle. While fish are generally relieved to have hooks removed from their mouths, this particular turtle didn't want to let go. I'd get the hook partly out and the blasted thing would try to swallow it again! It was about a 5 minute struggle to get the hook out of it and at one point I started to wonder what turtle soup tastes like. Nonetheless, Sam found it quite amusing that he caught a turtle and kept asking "Remember that time I caught a turtle?"

The next day, which was our last, was a lot warmer and sunnier than the previous 2. After packing the van we checked out of the cabin and then Abby and I went canoeing again, while Cindy and Sam stayed on shore (Sam REALLY wanted to go fishing). Again Abby and I saw dozens of turtles one of whom I'd swear gave us a dirty look. After canoeing it was time for lunch and Sam and I went fishing again. We got lots of little bites and Sam did manage to catch a baby turtle, but no fish this time. After our fill of fishing we went over to the beach where the kids swam and played and had a lot of fun. In some regards this day was the cruelest of them all since it was our last. Above all else the kids like to swim and play in the water which we didn't get to do until the very last day in the park. But at least the kids got to do it which is better than not doing it all.

A few other odds and ends:

• Cell phones don't work in the park. I think they should advertise this fact more heavily.


• Every so often at the park you can hear sonic booms and see F-18's or F-22's flying overhead on training missions out of Wright Patt. That's pretty cool.


• I'm still amazed at the number of people who have tattoos and where they have them. In fact among the people at the beach I'd say Cindy and I were in the minority of men and women because we don't have any.

I'll add pictures later.

Catching Up

Wow, I've been bad keeping this thing updated lately.

In something of a quick update:

• Last month I took Sammy to Children's Hospital to have a doctor check out a potential "boy" problem. We suspected all was well, but his pediatrician wanted to make sure, and sure enough he was. On the one hand I appreciate the concern that the pediatrician had, but on the other hand, it cost us $25 to tell us what we already knew.
• Abby is doing well in school and is currently on Spring Break. I took a day off Monday and Abby and I went fishing at a local pond. Abby caught 2 crappie while I only caught 1--a fact that she keeps reminding me of. I'll post a picture of the second fish later.
• Cindy is again doing programs for the library this summer although not as many as in past years. Evidently, the budget for programming at the library isn't as generous as it has been in past years, so Cindy didn't get as many bookings.
• My generals have FINALLY been scheduled for this summer. I can honestly say this scares me more than anything short of kids, and possibly moreso than that. Still I've been at this so long, that for my sanity, and possibly everyone else's, I need to get this done and soon.
• We broke down and bought a new PC. One of the perks of working for a university is that the good folks at Dell will give you a pretty good discount on a system. We've had it now for about 2 weeks and it's so much better than the old one. I still want to add memory to it, but otherwise we're quite content with it.