Always an Adventure.

Our beach family Photo Session is always an adventure... They are cute kids but their active ways are challenging for photos...

Thank you nice people with the houseboat made like a TANK

We are on vacation in Florida.  This is our favorite vacation.  No amusement park lines, no roller coasters, no crowds to panic about losing children... just a beach, ocean, some bicycles, and daily bike rides to the "Sugar Shack".  It is a little slow pace for the Dad in our familia, but right on the mark for the rest of us.  Morning walks on the beach, followed by a big breakfast, followed by some beach play or a bike ride, then lunch and a leisurely afternoon of checkers or Rummikub games.  Evening bike ride or beach play... fresh seafood from the seafood market for dinner, to the beach for crab hunting at dark (we set them free, but the sport of catching the fast little guys is a blast). 

Since our honeymoon, I have known that John is a speed tourist.  He wants to see and do as much as he can and likes for every moment to be productive.  It is sometimes exhausting to live it with him.  He cannot sit still, and it really bugs him to see others sitting around.  The beach allows him to go as much as he wants, and allows some to go and some to hang back with mom.  It is perfect.  Honestly, beach vacations and snow ski trips are what we do best with.

Our Boating Adventure...

While at the beach, we decided to rent a pontoon boat yesterday for a little snorkel outing. It seemed easy enough. There is a small island off the coast, where the boat doesn't actually get out of the bay where the waves would be too big for a small boat. We packed a picnic, rented a boat, and planned for a afternoon of snorkeling and seashell gathering at Seashell Island. We barely got the boat anchored, and the thunder began to errupt. There were many other boats where we were and everyone seemed to be going about their snorkeling too, so we just watched the dark clouds roll in, and the waves get bigger, hoping it would be one of those quick storms.  The storm took a while to come in, and therefore, took a while to go past.  We were all huddled under the 24 inch round table on our pontoon boat, trying to shield ourselves from the rain and wind, meanwhile the small boat was rocking with the large waves. 

We noticed a boat next to us was fairing much better than ours.  It was on first sight a houseboat, but as I looked closer, it could have been a army tank on a boat.  It was a serious heavy duty vessell, and was barely moving from the wind and waves that were rocking us severly.  We later learned that the man made the boat himself out of " marine grade aluminum". I have no idea what marine grade aluminum is, but I think it must be what tanks are made of -- that is what it looked like.

As we were huddled in our pontoon, a crowd of people rushed past, in route to this house boat.  Someone said the house boat was letting people inside the boat.  We joined the crowd, out of worry for a couple of terrified children we had by now.  We hesitated to go in, and these people absolutely insisted.  They were the nicest people, and they had close to 50 strangers in their boat during the storm.  Not only did they invite people in, but insisted people all find a place to sit, offering beds and bunks to people who were all soaking wet.  One of my children fell asleep sitting on a chair, and the woman tried to encourage me to put him in a bed.  When the storm passed, the men in the crowd helped to push the tank off from the beach, and proceeded to go up the beach to help all boats get out of the sand.  It was a exhibition of humanity at its' best. 

 

Nobody exchanged names or numbers, but we were all in it together... and then we all went on our way.  As we departed, I really wished I had gotten the address of this couple that took so many in, so that I could send them a nice note or nominate them for a medal or something.  They were really our safe harbor in the storm...  So, to say the least, our quiet day of snorkeling and seashells was a little more exciting than we intended, but we all had a good time in the end.  We had a little time after the storm to snorkel away, and we were all relieved to be on land at the end of the day.  Still... the beach is better than the crowds anyday in my book. 

... Again... Thank you nice people with the houseboat made like a tank... wherever you are... you are so so kind to take all of  the clueless tourists in during the storm. 

Amusement Parks & Childhood Trauma

John and I are a nightmare combination for amusement park scenes.  He has childhood trauma from a sister who covered his eyes while on the big roller coaster at Disney as a child, so he avoids anything resembling a roller coaster -- even the smaller ones.  I have a childhood memory of getting lost at the circus in Tulsa.  It was probably 15 minutes, but in my mind it was hours.  I remember that I got so upset that I vomited.  Therefore, I have a deathly fear of losing one of my children in a crowd.  To make that worse, John is a speed walker, and just assumes that he can will everyone into walking at his pace by continuing to let us fall behind.  Our children are too big to carry, yet we still have small ones that tend to doddle when walking.  Once... John was walking ahead with 2 children, and I was bringing up the rear with the other 2.  We lost sight of him in the crowd, and then we came to a fork in the path, where we could have gone one of 3 directions.  I had no idea which way he went, and I began to panic about not knowing for sure that he had the other 2 children.  If he would leave me and my 2 behind, how could I be sure that he wouldn't also leave one behind if he was between he and I.  It was only 5 minutes until we connected with him, but it seemed like longer, and I was so upset when we did connect.  It was probably over reaction on my part, but I just panic when I don't know for certain that they are all safe.... Thus... the beach is best.  We do go  to the parks and such, but it is usually stressful for both parents.

 

We love our vacation time, and it is really about time together... no matter where we are.  I am thankful that we can take the time.

HAPPY ANIVERSARY

Today is our anniversary.  We have been married 17 years.  We have a week-end without children.  We are enjoying the time.  We started today by taking a morning bike ride.  We then jumped into the pool to cool off.  I fixed eggs benedict for brunch at noon, then we watched a movie in the middle of the afternoon.  This is all pretty uneventful, which is nice, because our normal days involve a lot of eventful times.

We spent the first 5 yrs of our courtship in college / grad school.  We spend the first 5 yrs of our marriage in grad school / law school.   

When we were done, we thought we would start to think about having a baby... wala... TWINS... first chance...from there it has been a blurr.  We used to enjoy those uneventful days but I think we have forgotten about that.  When we get a snipi of time that is not claimed by anyone or anything, we tend to look for a project to tackle or something.  NOT TODAY... we have a date tonight too.  Happy 17th ... it has been a wild ride! 

My Ranch Camp Memories

I have been working on a book for a Father's Day gift for Papa... for about 5 years... if you count my active thoughts.  I tried to make it happen this year.  I am excited about the progress, but I cannot get through Ranch Camp 2008-2010 by Sunday, so I will have to make it a belated gift... fun remembering the times.

I have been putting together a photo book of all of the experiences my family has had at the ranch over the years.  We always do many interesting things, and take a lot of photos, and I have finally gotten in gear to do something with them.

The Noise of Our Chaos...

We have added a trumpet and clarinet to our normal noise level -- twins -10 yr olds in band now... so great for them, but that noise along with everyone screaming above it is enough to drive a parent over the edge... I guess paybacks come in all shapes and sizes!


And speaking of paybacks, my math sessions with Mags are reminding me of my dear stepmothers algebra tutoring sessions -- I suspect I was looking at the ceiling instead of the paper just like my Maggie is. The algebra teacher, Mrs. Woods, haunted my dreams.  I thought she hated me, but she was probably just about to pull her hair out because she couldn't get through to me.  I must keep my calm...As a parent I have to stick with it, but the last thing I want to be doing at 10pm is adding and subtracting decimals.  She is my child... and I get why she cannot focus on this stuff.  I remember focusing on every distraction I could find, and looking for every way out I could find.  It is amazing that I made it through.  Heck, I still find myself staring at the ceiling and I am supposed to be the tutor??  And I teach college??  I am sure Mrs. Wood would be shocked to know that!  And my stepmom tutor... and every other teacher I had... and my Papa... and pretty much any adult that knew me in high school or college.  It gives hope for anyone for sure.

Maggie bought a fish tank... another adventure

The Crazy family is back on the blog after a summer break from many things, and a major change in our lives (Momma got a real job!).  It is back to school time, and we are in full swing now, and as is normal, in our world, "full swing" usually results in some funny stories to relay.  The latest funny story is one of a animal loving girl, a piggy bank full of money (well, kind of full), and a moment of weakness... (okay a lifetime of weakness... whatever!)...and a few other elements.

Our horse loving, puppy worshiping, all around animal loving girl is in MIDDLE SCHOOL now -- they call it "Intermediate School".  Her twin brother, who we now refer to as "Major League" (later story), is also in Intermediate school.  They correct me every time I say middle school, but it is the step between Elementary and Junior High, which I guess has different names.  Anyway, they have lockers and 4 teachers, and it seems big for our littles.

Among many first week of school requests, in between various requests for skinny jeans and cell phones, Maggie returned home last week and informed us that she was to buy her teacher a goldfish for her birthday on Saturday, that the teacher loves fish, and that "everyone" is doing this.  By the way, "Everyone" also has a cell phone at age 10 and grade 5, and I am sure we are going to hear more about what "everyone" has and does not have, and is and is not doing this year -- it seems to be more important with this new grade.  Each day, she returned from school and reminded me of the fish.  Each day, the number of fish she was to buy grew, and at some point, it was a fish, a frog, and a shrimp... she just cannot get enough of animals / mammals / creatures.  By the end of the week, she had decided that while shopping for this fish gift for her teacher, she might want to get a fish for herself.  When I raised my eyebrow, she informed that she would use her own money to buy a fish bowl... which grew to a fish tank.  When we began to protest her using her money for a fish tank, she proposed that she use it to buy a cell phone... so fish tank it was.  At age 10, we just aren't ready to take the cell phone step / plunge, even if this person "everyone" has it.  For starters, we wouldn't keep up with them for longer than a day...

On Saturday, after our session at horseback riding, we had 2 tasks.  1) to buy/rent a clarinet, and 2) to shop for the fish (plural).  I knew nothing about fish species, so we visited our friendly Petsmart and inquired about the process for acquiring a sea creature.  What kind of tank / bowl do we need and what other supplies are required?  We asked about the teacher's fish first, and were told that we couldn't keep a goldfish overnight unless we had a tank.  So... we acquired a tank.  It is defined by Petsmart as a small tank, but 10 gallons seems awfully big to me.  I envisioned a small round bowl sitting on Maggie's dresser, but apparently there aren't many fish that will live long in a bowl.  We also learned that you just cannot buy a tank and a fish and be done.  You must take the tank home, add water, apply treatment, install filter, bubble maker, gravel,etc., and allow several days for the water to be ready for a fish.  We left the store with all of the tank parts, but no live creature... sigh!.  BUT... Maggie was determined to return to the store on Sunday to acquire at least her teacher's fish.  With a little luck, she hoped that, although the expert at Petsmart said several days, our tank would be ready for a short overnight guest in 24 hours, to allow her to keep her teacher's gift fish.  So... on Sunday, between Girl Scout meeting and dinner, we returned to Petsmart, talked to another fish expert, who shook his head, but said the fish "might" live in our tank for a few hours, enough to transport it safely to the teacher's tank this morning... and so Maggie selected her fish for the teacher, made one more plea to acquire a few of her own (I held strong - yes that is me... strong), and we left with one fish that would be our guest for one night, and we would all have to pray that he survived in the mystery water that awaited him in Maggie's new habitat.... And... He DID!  We checked frequently before we slept last night, expecting to find a mishap, but we made it through the night.  The fish guy told us to wait until last minute to place the fish back into the bag to transport to school, so we planned to do this after breakfast. 

The morning continued with the regular chaos of getting four kids dressed, eight shoes located, and four mouths fed, four backpacks ready, lunches packed, this and that.  As we were wrapping up breakfast, moving into lunchbox requests, our youngest bounces into the kitchen with the goldfish in the net -- no water, just flopping around in the air, in the net!  He was so proud of himself for catching the fish!  EVERYONE SCREAMED in unison "B-E-NNN!"  He ran off, and all kids followed to see if the fish would survive this.  Thankfully, the fish happily entered the water and began to swim around... and then he happily entered that plastic bag and thanked his lucky stars that he would reside in a 5th grade classroom and not in our home.  He sent a prayer up for that not so lucky fish from his tank at Petsmart that would be selected to reside in our home one day.  Ben cried for 20 minutes because everyone scared him so much when we all yelled!  It's all good... whew -- that was a close call!

This story has kept me laughing all day... We all survived the day -- even the fish!

Ready or Not, School's Out

Last day of preschool. Pizza party at noon. 3 more days of school for elementary kiddos.  Had a ton of things on my list then I turned on the TV and the movie "My Sister's Keeper" called out to me -- I had tears from the beginning credits... I now have perspective (and blood shot eyes), and I realize I have no problems whatsoever!... AND I have not accomplished a thing, except for a lot of cryin' -- maybe that is what I needed to appreciate my blessings this summer! Great flick - so sad....
Happy Summer... It is here, whether we are ready or not

Ben... sweet sweet Ben... he "HELPS" me so much!

I noticed Ben had disappeared. He was in the front yard. I called and asked him what he was doing, and he replied "I am making lettuce"... hmmm?... well... he had gotten the garden shears out of the garage in the chaos of big kids getting bikes for school, and was cutting up flowers... I guess boys don't need flowers. I have to keep my sense of humor for sure! I will miss these days one day. right?

I know I will miss it.  He makes my heart smile, even when he is making work for me - which is anytime he isn't sleeping or snuggling, but the snuggling makes it all worth it!  Oh it is so hard to be mad at him!

Happy Tuesday!  (It is Tuesday, right?) 

The Easter Bunny Visited Us!

The Easter Bunny visited, and all kiddos were happy. We awoke early (though, thankfully after 6am, unlike are 4am mornings when Santa visits). Anthony was the first to search out the loot. He is our early riser and this gave him something to do other than watching Astro's re-runs.  He was instructed not to wake the others until 7, but mysteriously, they were all up by about 6:15??  "I didn't do anything" is his hourly response to everything, so who knows!

He no doubt gave the others a nudge to get them going, and all were in our bed, jumping on us by 6:45. We had a great day. We hunted eggs first thing in the morning, then went to church, then we had Paul and a few neighbors over for a Easter Brunch. It was a beautiful day!

We feel truly blessed to have this family!  Children have this way of reminding you of your blessings... especially on those special holidays.

Our California Family Adventure – Legoland, Disneyland, San Diego Zoo, Beaches

The Flying Grizwolds?  We don't get out much...

Last week, we embarked upon our first ever flying vacation as a family of SIX. We normally drive, and our trips resemble that famous Grizwold adventure to Wally World. We also normally take our 1 yr old lab, who is our best traveler, including Mom & Dad, hands down. To say that a 1 yr old lab is the best behaved of our bunch is a little sad. Actually, it is more that “Marshmallow” is very mellow in the car, and not so much that our children are terrible, though we all have our moments, except the dog it seems (knock wood). Anyway, we were destined for Legoland this Spring Break, as our 6 yr old is a lego building maniac, and has been asking for this for a while, and as the middle child, he has rarely gotten to choose destination. Dad and Anthony were pushing for a Florida Disney trip… “and by the way, we could take in some baseball Spring Training, since we are there.” I insisted that middle guy gets his pick this time. Our life cannot revolve around baseball all the time. Can it? And since I am the travel agent, I also had some pull. We boarded late night Thursday flights both ways to get the best price – w/ 6 passengers, we need every angle we can find. Our 4 yr old set off the metal detector with his cargo shorts that had too many zippers, and was body searched which was scarey for him for a moment, and most of our bags were in need of security search for some reason, because we don’t travel often and are not well versed on current carry on procedures. The people behind us must have loved us! Dad tried to bring juiceboxes and Mom forgot to remove the nail polish from purse (which I obviously never use anyway but keep handy just in case? Don’t ask? It never happens, but I keep dreaming). Though our security process may have started out like the Grizwolds, our air adventures were uneventful, except for the complicated security process.

Our Perfect Vacation House: We arrived in Los Angeles and drove to Carlsbad, where we had the best vacation rental home we could have hoped for, for our crew. It was a 3 bedroom home with a pool, and the pool even had a locking, motorized cover that also provided solar heat. We are always nervous about renting a place with a pool, since we still have one child who doesn’t swim well. This house was nice, great kitchen, enough sleeping, and as a bonus, we scored a closet full of toys that were perfect for our kids ages. There were even a few kid and adult bikes in the garage, sand toys, beach chairs, etc. We were 5 minutes from Legoland, 5 minute walk to the beach, 45 minutes to San Diego Zoo and an hour from Disneyland. Our Camp Counselor (John) had deemed this “not a Disney trip”, as he agreed that we needed to focus on the younger 2 kids this trip, and we were expecting Disneyland to be a bit daunting for us. We would do a day at Disney, but would not attempt to cover everything. Save that for another trip. We wanted to see legos and animals and beaches… and maybe a little Disney.

Legoland: This was our second visit to this amazing park, but our first was when the twins were 4 yrs old and middle guy was an infant. We were again amazed at all of the lego creations to see. You can build just about anything you can dream up out of legos, and those magical Lego engineers have done that. Wouldn’t that be the neatest job ever… to build Legos all day every day? The rides were pretty cool too, mostly geared towards younger children (and adults who are scared of rollercoasters).

The Beach: The weather was perfect – a little chilly for swimming at the beach, but perfect for building sand castles and getting our toes in the ocean. The boys loved playing football on the beach too! We missed our sweet water loving dog here though. We built some cool sandcastles, which Ben took joy in wrecking, thus creating frustration among the other kids, such that one child broke off to try to distract Ben by building him special castles that he was allowed to wreck! He wasn’t born yesterday though, so eventually, he got to our big stuff… it’s all good though. At the end of the day, that great tide would have gotten it anyway, and Ben has all of us wrapped around his tiny finger, so not too much fuss about it.

The San Diego Zoo: Mommy was bummed that the Polar Bear Exhibit is under construction until later in March, but the other animals and the facility were amazing. Unfortunately, the luster of the Panda exhibit was lost with our impatient four, as the line was long, and it was lunch time, and they were cranky. They just didn’t get how special these animals are. Parents enjoyed them though, and then we deemed it was time to give the munchkins a break to feed their little cranky bodies. Ben said his favorite animal was the Gorilla. Maggie’s was the Zebra (because it is most like a horse – go figure). Anthony liked the monkeys, and Alexander loved the giraffes. A good time was had by all.

We attempted a scenic drive at the end of our zoo day to wait out some rush hour traffic, but whining from the back seat as we crossed the Coronado bridge caused Daddy to do an about face and head for the beach house. The troops were a little in trouble, and they knew it, so everyone fell asleep on the drive.

Disneyland: We were actually pleasantly surprised at how manageable Disneyland was with 4 kids. We never attempted to do everything but we were able to make it through the highlights and hit everyone’s favorites at least one more time. The highlight of Disneyland for the younger 2 kids was definitely the Jedi Training show, where all 4 kids were selected from the audience to come on stage for the show (with a little creative marketing, we finally figured out how to get picked on our 3rd try – arrive early, which is not in our nature, and make signs to be noticed). The look on their faces when Darth Vader entered the stage was priceless, and they are practicing the new light saber moves from home often (might be dangerous?)

The favorite of the older kids was Space Mountain. It was very cool, and mommy liked it because, for a roller coaster, it wasn’t to crazy – it was dark, but no loop-di-loops, and no too big drops. Indianna Jones was another favorite of these 2, but the line was a little long, even with the fast pass, and it was a rough ride. I want to kiss the person who invented that Fast Pass system – really makes the best of your time. We are not big fans of waiting in line – I guess the kids get their patience from us. It was a good full day. We could have spent a week there, but we left feeling a little taste of Disney, enough to make us want to come back, but not too much to cause crankiness to set in.   Everyone had a good time, and we all left the park in great spirits.  What more could we ask for?

After Disney, we went straight to the airport, where we caught a late flight home. Everyone was duly exhausted and slept the entire flight, and all was right with the world. We clicked our heels three times and said “there is no place like home”… and we were here… with our puppy… and our cat that hides from us most of the time… and our beds… and neato toys… and laundry and all that other stuff. It was nice to be home.

Our trip was a nice escape that we will remember always, and as usual, we crammed about as much as one can into 7 days. 

Happy Monday now… it is back to the real world. Baseball game tonight, and on and on!