Sunday up North

Sunday morning dawned with yet another early wake up call from Lump. I took her outside to the gazebo at 6:30 and let her crawl around while I read some of The Dante Club and enjoyed the sight of cardinals in the backyard.

Eventually, after an hour or so, she tuckered out and I returned her to bed. No one else was up yet so I took advantage of the morning to do some fishing. Unfortunately we were out of bait and the fish weren't interested in the least in the artificial lures. So I started hunting under rocks and logs for a grub or worm to do the trick, and wound up coming across a huge honeybee that had stung something and dropped dead.

I was going to use it on the hook but then realized the kids would like to see it so I held on to it. And yeah, the kids loved it. In fact, we took the bee home with us.

Soon enough all the kids were up and joined me in the water.

 

The husband made a trip for bait and returned with wax worms, which the fish just couldn't refuse. Within only a few minutes I had caught three (and wound end up with six on the day). All the kids started clamoring to join me and by the end of the adventure YaYa caught two fish

Smiley one

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and LuLu three.

 

And I mean they caught them. All you had to do once the fish were fired up was drop the hook in the water and pull up, they were biting like mad.

[sidenote: one time I was ready to cast when I checked behind me to make sure the kids wereclear. There was Smiley and his 3 year old female counterpart buck naked and swimming. Heathens! I sent them both out to put their swimsuits on.]

Speaking of biting, here's some pics of LuLu's bites, which covered her from head to toe. Like me she's allergic, although thankfully not as bad. Most of the pics fail to show the majority of the bites, but you'll get the idea. The kid looked like she had the pox.

And yes, duh, we used Deep Woods Off, but the damn skeeters up there are nasty and indifferent to it.

Well, soon after it was time to pack up and head out. On the road we stopped back at the Pamida to clean them out of the cheap diapers, and picked up some sandals at Family Dollar. We got lost on the way home, going an hour out of our way, but aside from a stop at McDonald's it was a straight shot once we found the highway.

The only argument on the way back was with YaYa. She'd received a scrapbook from the 11 year old to document the trip and she'd wanted the McDonald's receipt to put inside. I'd thrown it away and she broke down into tears.

Such is life with four kids.

Ah well, a fine and enjoyable weekend. In closing, here's some more pics of the fun we had.

Our Second Day up North

Ok, there are a few parts of the rest of the weekend's story that are going to sound like a serious blow to the fun-meter, and yeah, they may not have been a blast themselves, but they really didn't ruin the integrity of the weekend.

Eh, you'll see.

Lump woke up super early in the morning and, eager to see us sharing a room with her, took full advantage by refusing to fall back asleep. So our day started early.

Then a few hours later I was holding her when she passed gas. Only, it wasn't gas and she quickly boiled over like a science project volcano turned upside down. In short, she shat completely through her diaper, outfit, all over my shorts and leg, and on a nearby backpack.

Apparently well-water didn't agree with her, so for the rest of the weekend she was on milk only, and her tummy settled right down.

Meanwhile I was feeling very fatigued and had shortness of breath. It had started the night before, just after the swim, and internally I was very busy trying to figure it out. Was it a series of small but vicious panic attacks? Was it the long-awaited heart attack? All I knew was that I felt like sh**.

And then it dawned on me. Mosquitoes. I'm allergic to mosquitoes.

Oh, I know nowadays everyone's allergic to something. It's hip and funky and gives you a ripe excuse to avoid inconvenient things, like your in-law's barbeque when the 'pollen index' is too high.

But I really am allergic to the buggers. I used to routinely get bites that would swell as large as golf balls, fully three-dimensional monsters. On one grand occasion I had to go for X-rays after a softball game because the coach thought I'd broken my hand in the field. Turns out I'd simply been bitten by a mosquito and had the whole  hand swell. Nowadays it's toned down quite a bit.

But when you are covered head to toe in mosquito bites, for me at least, it's more than itching. It's fatigue and shortness of breath and swelling, and it sucks. Benadryl helped, but there was an undercurrent of blah most of the day.

Anywho, despite appearances this was all of 5% of the day. In the early afternoon Lisa and her friend joined me and most of the kids as we hit the rummage sales in the area. The sales were largely void of books, but Lisa scored big at a clothing rummage.

And at another rummage I was so put off by one woman's constant refrain to her partner of "Did they pay for X? Did you charge them for Y?"  that I looked her in the face and told her I wasn't a thief. I don't know what she was so hyped up about, most of the stuff was worth about as much as a campaign promise, but she still wound up with $8 in sales.

[I say 'most of the kids' joined us because for the most part YaYa was AWOL with the 11 year old most of the weekend, to be seen only at dinner and bedtime. She rode the horses, she petted the bull, and she rode her bike, all day long.] 

Then we stopped off at a store called Pamida, which is basically like a small K-Mart. I'd never heard of it before, but they had very good store-brand diapers for very little cash. Smiley had a hissy there because I wouldn't buy him a set of water pistols, but otherwise it was a neat experience.

Later that afternoon we all drove into a nearby town for ice cream.

Milty Wilty is a drive in that's been in business since 1947. Their custard fails to trump Leon's here in Milwaukee, but that's besides the point. Leon's doesn't have an expansive set of play equipment for their customer's kids.

They even had a bouncing castle.

It was very relaxing to just sit out in the sun and enjoy your custard and conversation while the kids played.

As we were about to leave the kids found an injured butterfly in the parking lot.

Our original intention had been to attend a 5 pm parade in another town, but we ran late at the ice cream stand. So we returned to the house. One group of kids swam while LuLu asked me to watch her bicycle in the front yard. I did so, utilizing the 'flip the back bench over to create a tailgate seat' on the Freestar. Booyah!

At one point something came over me and I asked the 11 year old if I could use her bike. After adjusting the seat I took off on my first real bike ride in (seriously) 25 years. Oh, I'd hopped on a bike last year for a quick second, but that was diddly. This time I went for several minutes, at a pretty decent speed, and actually whipped around much as I did back in my childhood.

It might have helped that YaYa was egging me on and taunting me the whole time. :)

Maybe we'll buy some bikes as the summer progresses. It was fun, and good exercise of course; plus it would give us quality time with the kids.

Tacos for supper, and then the kids retired to watch a movie. I joined the friend's husband on the pier for some fishing (and caught two bluegill - the FIRST TIME I'd legitimately caught a fish on my own in all my 34 years. I had caught one last year, but with one of the kids joining me on the pole).

Later, Lisa and her friend went to visit her (friend's) Mom's bar in a nearby town (and came within a few feet of colliding with a deer on the return trip when it bolted from the woods. Credit her friend's sharp driving for avoiding disaster).

While they were at the bar we took turns playing Tour of Duty 4 and MLB '08  The Show on Playstation 3.

[In the latter game I drafted and managed a team that went 102-60, only to be swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Royals.

By the bleepin' Royals! Can you believe it?]

Then it was on to bed when Lisa returned, and another fine day gone by. That swim, riding a bike, and catching a fish, all in one day.

 Huh. Good day for firsts eh?

The 4th of July

We hit the road on the Fourth of July midday (after some packing delays) and were on our way.

The kids weren't the greatest on the way up, whining and fighting at times, but I reckon it's like taking them out to eat - you have to put up with some bumps in the road in order for them to learn what's expected of them in the future.

 

Lisa in particular made a valiant but futile effort to get them engaged in the two $5 road trip games we bought to entertain them. No way it was happening, you could see that as plain as day, but she kept plugging away, and a tip of the hat to her for that.

The day before I'd had new tires put on the van, and let me tell you that Ford drove like buttah!

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Midway to our destination we stopped for fireworks

I spent $60 at the store (not including the $4 state permit I had to buy) and that was about $60 more then I'd ever spent on fireworks, since I have a nifty love for all my fingers. In fact that was the first time I'd ever set foot in such a place. But the fireworks up where we were going had taken place on the 3rd, and there was no way we were going an Independence Day without fireworks. Especially not Lump's first Fourth of July.

[Odd sidenote: This is a picture of a dead rat on the side of the highway. We'd stopped . . what was it for?? Oh, I think to regulate one of the kids' tantrums and this is what greeted me. First (and last?) time I've ever seen a rat.

End of creepy sidenote.]

After two hours or so we reached our destination.

Lisa's friend lives in a nice sized house with a backyard that leads to a private stretch of waterfront on a man-made lake.  It's fifteen minutes to the nearest store, and more than 40 minutes to the closest movie theater.

Predictably, everyone was in the water within minutes of arrival.

And then the kids took off to explore the neighborhood on their bikes. The neighbors have a farm with horses and a bull, and YaYa in particular would spend much of the weekend there with the 11 year old daughter of Lisa's friend. Weird, but even with a five year age difference they seemed inseparable. When I asked how that could be Lis shrugged off the age difference and said "They're the same, that's all"

Later, we had a barbeque of hot dogs and hamburgers topped off with cake.

Near nightfall we roasted marshmallows and made smores over the firepit

,

 then began our fireworks display. The kids themselves got nowhere near anything heftier than a sparkler, which even my paranoid Mom allowed back in the day.

The $60 proved well-spent, as it provided a decent and relatively long show. LuLu was especially happy that her "Unicorn" brand fountain was impressive.

Again, a very nice display.

Then the kids were off to bed and the four adults sat in the enclosed patio and drank, talked, and played dominoes as we were seranaded by bullfrogs(!) and the echo of fireworks across the lake.

Around midnight we all headed into the water for a starlight swim. I may or may not have have kept my swimsuit on (but I think you can hazard a guess). Alas I can assure you that either way no hanky-panky took place, despite a strident but polite attempt on my part. Something about cold water and shrinkage, I think Lisa told me . . I kid I kid.  

Lisa btw, labels this weekend one of the Top 10 experiences of her life. I don't rate it that high, but it was a blast.

More to come . .