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.

Is thing on?

Yes, it's been a long time since I udpated this so I thought I would put up a few odds and ends.

• Abby and Sammy are both in school and doing well. For Abby this wasn't much of an issue since she's been at it for a while, but we were sort of worried about Sam. But he seems to be having a grand time and even has a girlfriend, though he doesn't know her name or what she looks like. He does know that she sits at the Yellow table. So that's something....


• After last year's debacle, Abby is finally in Girl Scouts! You may recall that last year the Girl Scouts asked Cindy to help form a new troop since all other troops were at capacity. She tried to oblige but they wouldn't return her calls or emails. This year, there was an opening in an already established troop that Abby happily filled. And Cindy is one of the troop leaders! So far they both like it a lot.


• Cindy is still babysitting though not as much as last year. Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to get a raise next year (no one at OSU will) which means that most likely Cindy will need to return to work in the fall. I feel bad for her.

• Angel continues to confuse herself for a hound dog and/or a cat. She REALLY likes to sniff things when we walk, which is fine when the weather is warm, but really annoying now. She's also taken to napping and sleeping on the top of furniture. I'm not sure why.

• After years of threatening to do it, I'm now taking my general exam. I turned in my first question last week and have 2 more to answer. I'm hoping to get the next one shortly. If things go well I will be ABD in the spring.

• If you're curious I'm PO'd at Pryor et al for selling stuff that I would have valued much more highly in their position and at the NCAA for punishing them for what is a fairly common every day occurence. In the end it was their stuff they sold.

The Fish Whisperer

So over the weekend Sam caught 5 fish in about an hour and half and was upset that he got such a low number. The last time he went fishing he caught 8 in an hour.

Camping 2010

When I told the kids to gather fire wood, I never thought I needed to explain the necessity of gathering DRY firewood. Consider it a lesson learned and pretty much emblematic of how the experience went.

Abby, Sammy, and I left Saturday morning for the serenity of Pike Lake. Part of me wanted to go to Dillon State Park, close to Zanesville since it's relatively close to our house, but the kids really liked Pike so we opted to go there. The drive down was relatively uneventful until I realized that I left our camp chairs back in the garage. In packing up the van in the morning I had taken the chairs out to make moving things in a bit easier but had neglected to put them back in. Oooopppsssss.....

Chairless but undeterred we proceeded onward to Bainbridge where we unloaded our stuff, set up the tent, and check-in, and by we I mean I. While I worked the kids played in the creek behind our campsite which in hindsight was both a blessing and curse. After getting everything up and ready, I left the kids briefly to go pay for our site. Upon returning I found two somewhat water logged children. For reasons that still remain unclear they both managed to fall into the creek. Hooo boy......

And thus I took two already water logged children to the beach where they could get even more waterlogged. Somewhat to my surprise they both wanted to walk to the beach rather than drive, and at the time that seemed like a good idea. We got to the bathhouse at the beach and Sam and I went into the Men's side to change while Abby went into the Women's side. When Sam and I came out Abby announced that the top to bathing suit was missing. She went on a brief excursion to look for it, while Sam and I remained at the beach. Unfortunately for Abby she wasn't successful in finding the top, so she wore the shirt she wore to the beach as her top. Luckily, she brought a dress along with her to change into after we were finished.

The beach experience was interesting to say the least. There was a gentleman at the beach named "Turbo". I know his name is Turbo because that's what his wife(?) called him and that's how he introduced himself. Were that the only significant thing about him, that itself would be memorable. But it's not. Turbo likes tattoos. Which in and of itself isn't all that remarkable, even though he had a lot of them. Again that doesn't entirely distinguish him, and indeed didn't distinguish from others at the beach, including a good number of the men. Turbo though had a couple tattoos that did distinguish him--on the back of each shoulder he prominently displayed a Swastika. And even that wasn't the most distinguishing attribute of Turbo. No, that would be Turbo's son. Sigh.....

I think I might have mentioned here a few times that Abby and Sam go through some sort of metamorphosis around water, and this day was no different. They rollicked and played and had a marvellous time for about 2-3 hours until it became time to make dinner. I reluctantly pulled out of the water in order to change and make our way back to the campsite. As fate would have it on the walk back to the campsite we found the top to Abby's bathing suit lying in the middle of a path in the campground. And as fate would have it shortly after arriving at the campsite Abby discovered that she did not have the top she wore while swimming--so back to the bathhouse we went.

Luckily Abby found her top in the bathouse, and we were able to return back to the campsite after buying some firewood and 2 "Kozy Kampin' " cards at the park store. The latter is a great deal. For $5.00 each the card entitles the kids to one scoop of ice cream, 2 cookies, a Slushee, and a toy from the Toy Chest--more on that in a bit.

After dinner--hot dogs and chips for Abby and me, cereal for Sam (I failed to get him to eat the chicken nuggets I made for him, sometimes that boy ain't right)--we went back to the camp store so Abby and Sam could pick toys from the Toy Chest. As I peered into the selection of toys in the Toy Chest, I couldn't help but wonder what the Chinese think of us. Sam picked a "Sun Ball" and a plastic and utterly useless fork, while Abby picked 2 animals made from cheap plastic--the workers at the store let them pick an extra toy if they promised to be good.

We left the store and went to look at the animals at the Nature Center. The Naturalist for Pike Lake, who had been doing programs at other parks, returned to the center to feed the animals and talked to us a bit about them and even gave the kids literature on identifying fish in Ohio.

Back at the campsite I tried to get the fire going again while the kids played at the playground across the way. As always Abby made new friends, but unlike most times, these friends I didn't like. 2 of the girls were throwing sand at one another, and caught Abby in their crossfire right in the eye. Grrrrr.....

I called the kids back from the playground pretty much for their own protection but also to roast marshmallows. Sam is a bit worrisome roasting the sugary concoctions. He likes to burn them. Abby is a bit obsessive about roasting the "perfect marshmallow" but nonetheless a good time was had by all. The only downside is that somehow Abby lost her new toys at the playground. I suppose if she was going lose something a $.05 toy wasn't the worst choice.

The next morning I rekindled the fire and started to cook breakfast. I sent the kids out to get firewood. Why they, and in particular Abby, thought that getting a big piece of wood literally out of the creek was a good idea is simply beyond me. Sam got the worst end of the deal, as he emerged a muddy mess from the ordeal.

After breakfast we packed up the campsite and went canoeing. Canoeing wasn't quite as much fun as last year. Sam was really upset that he couldn't sit up front and let his feelings on the matter be known. Abby for her part seemed to lose interest pretty quickly which actually worked in my favor. After a bit I took the canoe in and let Abby off and moved Sam up to the front which made him much happier.

After lunch, we headed back to the beach where for reasons unknown the kids wanted me to throw them in the water. Sam at 30 pounds isn't much of a challenge, but Abby at double that weight is a whole other challenge.

After the beach, we had some ice cream and went home. Sometime after we passed through Chilicothe Sam fell asleep.

Overall it wasn't a bad camping trip, but forgetting the chairs turned out to be a harbinger of things to come.

Really?

So last night a neighbor went GranTorino (without the gangs, guns, violence, and language) on me because my 6 lb dog happened to venture forth on the easement in front of his house. Since Sam was with me I had to censor myself, but I was seething, especially because this particular neighbor frequently soaks the sidewalk in front of his house while watering his front lawn. I can't help but wonder how much damage the guy thinks a REALLY small dog could do relative to the REALLY BIG dogs in the neighborhood that no doubt frequently do their business in his yard, along with the couple of cats that roam the neighborhood, the dozens of rabbits around, and most likely a large number of other animals. I'm guessing that in reality the least of his yard concerns is a six-pound Shih-Poo. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr...........

Maybe we should get out on the water

Came across this article about a college that is awarding scholarships for fishing.

Contrasts

Abby is such a contrast. She escehews things deemed too "boyey" and lectures me constantly on not understanding girls--which is true as some of you can attest. Yet today when we were in Dick's she pointed out the fishing pole she wants to get when she's older, insisted on looking at kayaks and canoes, and camping equipment and even stated that she wants to go on a backpacking trip some day.