Our Vacation Part II

One of the yearly favorite destinations of our vacation is Pond Hill Farm. It's got everything that our kids love there: animals, ponds, food, dirt etc. They grow all of their produce and flowers organically. Inside their little retail shop, people can buy anything from organic sodas to home made salsa. It's a cool place to say the least.

The kids especially enjoy getting to feed the animals.




The kids always ask interesting questions when we visit the farm. There's just always a lot of nature going on around us. Some questions that have been raised include: "What are those two sheep doing over there?", "Why does that piggy have so many po po's?" fyi- (po po is my youngest daughter's term for "nipple"), "What's that hanging down from that pig underneath its bottom?". Typically speaking, as any good parents do, we just try to ignore our children in such uncomfortable situations.

Speaking of pigs, it amazes me that this thing...



...can taste so unbelievably good.

Especially when you know it just eats practically anything, as evident by this sign located inside the Pond Hill Farm cafe...



This year's new attraction was a very high tire swing. I wanted to get on it but there were too many children in front me. I hate lines. To compound my frustration, 2 little boys through a huge fit when I tried to cut in front of them.



Pond Hill Farm is a farm that's surrounded by hills, and, well it also has a pond. Go figure.


This pond is loaded with various types of fish, in particular very large trout. They grow to be huge because people can buy food to feed them and as indicated by the sign posted on the dock, no fishing is aloud.



The best investment we made was purchasing the butterfly nets. The kids get a lot of use out of them and ironically, rarely do they end up catching any butterflies.



"Daddy, is it okay if we try to catch a fish with our butterfly nets?"

"Sure, sweetie, you can try to catch one of those huge fish with your tiny little butterfly nets."

How precious. After all, it's not like they'd stand a chance of actually getting one of those things, right?






Wrong.

"Sweet Moses! Kick it back in! Kick it back in!"

Our vacation

Another year, another vacation. Man, time seems to be moving quicker and quicker. I've taken a vacation from the blog posting as well. Some of you have made some disparaging remarks regarding the lack of production on my part. I apologize thoroughly. So, in lieu of my slacking off these past couple weeks, I've decided to dedicate this whole week to summarizing our family's holiday to Northern Michigan. This is truly God's country and our family makes a trek up there every early July. In case anybody would like to know what we did while I was busy not blogging, here you go...

We managed to round up our Bowers 5 long enough in one spot to pose for a picture. You'd think being a photographer we'd have a ton of family pics - not the case. I suppose it's sort of like how the plumber's family always has a leaky faucet. It's crazy how much the kids change from one year to the next. This was taken on the 4th of July on the front porch of our vacation house.


This is the view of Boyne Highlands from the back deck of our house. This is a view we never get tired of. Too bad the weather was mostly horrible the entire time. 2 days we were there the temperatures were in the 50's. It felt like we could have been on a skiing trip.



This is the back yard of the house. At the bottom of the photograph you'll notice a blob that's circled. This is a pile of animal waste that appeared one morning that wasn't there the day before. Although from this vantage point it doesn't look very impressive, in actuality it was quite large. Which, given my keen knowledge of nature means that it probably came from a large animal. Various guesses as to what made this included the following: a deer, a huge raccoon, fox, and several squirrels playing "follow the leader". My fear was that it was some sort of sick joke played on us by the burly, hairy maintenance man working at the house next door.

Our vacation almost turned deadly when we had a near tragic encounter with this threatening creature...


Somehow it managed to get into our garage, undoubtedly stalking us as prey. For anybody who does not know me, I vehemently despise snakes. That is why I react the following way when confronted with a snake: Step 1: scream like a little girl, Step 2: push down my wife and/or small children in order to run past them and away from said snake 3:scream like a little girl once again.

To compound matters even worse, the burly hairy maintenance man working next door decided to come over to see what all the fuss was about. "Is one of your young daughters in danger? he asked.
"Ughhh, that was just me. Sorry," I replied.

He looked the snake over and stated that he never had seen one like that around there before. In his estimation it might quite possibly be a Copperhead he postulated.

Woooonderful.

The first opportunity I had I got my Google on and researched the various species of that particular area. I discovered it was a non-venomous Eastern Garter snake. However, it was still pure evil in my opinion. Just in case, I would not go near it, or least of all try to catch it. That's insanity.

However, my brother's in law girlfriend didn't think it was too big of a deal to grab it.



Show off.



Near our house were 2 ponds like this one. The kids spent hours fishing for trout and using butterfly nets to catch frogs. These ponds occupy most of their time every year. The best part of the pond/frog catching/fishing is that the fact that it's free. Being active like that tires them out which also means they go to sleep at night fairly easily - always a good thing.



And of course there were plenty of opportunities to snap pics of the girls...




Above is an obviously posed photograph. After snapping this one, I instructed my children to "be themselves and act naturally" and to "not be so stiff this time." The following is what they gave me...


I suppose in a sense they were acting normally - which is goofy as usual.

More on our vacation tomorrow.

Mud wrestling

First of all, I apologize to my vast minions of readers who surely are outraged that the past 2 days produced zero blog postings. Please forgive me. I have a perfectly good excuse. I didn't feel like it. Also, my wife and I went out of town for the night - which is a rare occurrence these days. For one evening, we had carefree fun enjoying another city. We had the chance to totally relax with no responsibilities for a short time. And then we came home the next day to our real world...

We returned yesterday around noon from our short trip out of town. When I walked into our home, I noticed an odd smell. I couldn't quite pinpoint where it was coming from, nor could I accurately decipher the type of odor. It was just a funky grossness. Nothing that anybody would want in their house.

I suspected the dog right away. But honestly the fumes didn't smell anything like her normal bi-products. Furthermore, I walked around our house, failing to find anything that could cause such a stench. We had ourselves a bona fide mystery.

A while later I ventured down to our basement to retrieve something. I turned the corner and saw a calamitous affair consisting of canine fecal matter. It was as if our basement had been used to stage a mud wrestling tournament while we were away.

I don't want to be crassly descriptive here, but I feel it warranted to explain the situation so that my disgust of the scene is truly understood. To add to the misery presented me, the dog found it necessary to unleash her mayhem on a couple of photography backdrops I had left laying out. Of course. Apparently the she was a bit sick because the toxic material in question was in a physical state somewhere in between solid and liquid. (I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.)

Ok, moving on...

The cleaning process began, and my wife helped with the process. I love her.

That part of the clean up was fun compared to what I had to do next. Looking at my dog, debating whether or not to kick it, (relax, I didn't) I noticed there were remnants on her tail end. She needed cleaned up back there. Fantastic.

I took her into the backyard and began hosing her down.(yes, the tail end area) At that point I began questioning why we have a dog to begin with. I had become a make-shift doggy bidet.(again, I have a little vomit in my mouth) It's an odd feeling when you find yourself in the position of such humbling circumstances. It'd be one thing if I thought she had some appreciation for my efforts but I fear that she just assumed we were both enjoying the experience. Not so much.

After a few long minutes of thorough rinsing and nausea, I completed the task at hand.

My apologies to anybody who was completely disgusted by this posting. I myself would just assume to forget the sights and smells of yesterday but it's still fresh in my mind. Misery loves company is what many people say. Thanks for sharing in some of mine.

One more thing. If you ever find yourself rinsing down your dog's dirty bum with a garden hose, be sure to do so with a closed mouth. BEWARE OF OVER SPRAY. One might think that would be self explanatory, but sometimes things are sadly learned the hard way. (one again, a little more vomit in my mouth right now)

The Tortito

Happy belated Father's Day. Hopefully dads everywhere enjoyed their special day. I know I did. Personally I think it's a way better holiday than Mother's Day.

My day consisted of hanging pool side, eating steak and ice cream, and having a great excuse to be non-productive. I wish everyday could be Father's Day. My wife would probably argue that I treat each day as if it were. Fair enough I suppose.

Altogether, it was a fairly uneventful weekend. Nobody did anything embarrassing in public, wounded themselves or their sister, committed a crime, or did something weird to the dog. Like I said, it was a fairly quiet couple days around here.

There was one interesting moment though. As with many kids her age, my 4 year-old daughter sometimes confuses words. She combines words and/or makes up her own vernacular altogether. It's extremely cute but also confusing at times. We occasionally have to translate and decipher what she's intending to tell us. I'm reminded of Will Ferrel's George W. Bush imitation when he used the word "strategery" on Saturday Night Live. The same oratory skill applies to my little girl.

So this weekend, her and I decided to swim in our pool together. We were about to get in and she said the following: "Daddy, let's get in and play with the tortito."

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"The tortito. Let's play with it. It's so much fun. I played with it yesterday and it's so much fun in the pool," she petitioned.

"A what?" I asked again, confused and a bit worried. Knowing she had a history of not only making up her own language, she also was skilled at doing some very odd things. My initial thought was, "Is she saying 'burrito' or 'tortilla'?" Either way, neither belonged anywhere close to a swimming pool. My world view believes strongly that Tex-Mex is a delicious cuisine, but not a pool toy. I guess I'm just crazy like that.

So I asked her to describe the "tortito" further, hoping for the best, expecting the worst.

She described a toy that was long, narrow, and went real fast in the water if a person threw it. "You know Dad, a tortito!" she said emphatically.

It then dawned on me. Much to my relief, she did not speak of a burrito nor a tortilla. My daughter wanted to play with the "torpedo". Thankfully, my family is not as bizarre and, well, as gross as I had feared there for a moment.

This is acceptable in our pool...



However, this is not...

Hair things: Part III

In this final segment dealing with a few hair accessories that are a part of our everyday life around here, I figured it’d be nice to end on a positive note. I have mastered the object above. I refer to it as a “rubber band hair thing.” Pretty sure that’s not the official name of it but my moniker works. The kids know what I’m talking about and that’s pretty much all that matters.

If you can comprehend the mechanics of a rubber band, you can figure out this guy. If you can’t figure out a rubber band then I’m fairly certain you can’t figure out how to use a computer. In that case you are not reading this blog. Generally speaking, you're probably not reading. Moving on…

Anywho, I love when the girls approach me with this thing in hand, requesting to have me “do their hair”. I’ve become quite talented in the art of ponytail making. It took me a while, but I finally learned that “ponytail” is the singular, and “pigtails” is the plural. For some time I’d interchange the two terms, always evoking correction from the kids. Silly me.

I rarely attempt pigtails because when I’m finished, their heads always look asymmetrical. The bundled sprouts of hair on either side are very difficult to make evenly. From the back, the children’s melons look quite odd. From the front, they look slightly insane, perhaps even a little deranged. Neither of which are looks I want my daughters to have. I’d be afraid they’d never find husbands in that case, resulting in them living with us forever. Yowza.

Like the other two hair accessories featured this week, this rubber band style can be found everywhere: sinks, drains, couch cushions, washing machine, the dog’s poo etc. Rarely are they found in weird places like dressers or heaven forbid vanity drawers. That’s just crazy talk.

When they’re swept up in the vacuum, at least these are quiet. So that’s nice. Same goes for when they’re run through the washing machine. Yet just another reason why I prefer these to the other 2. When they’re lying on the carpet, I always think they resemble coiled up night crawlers that have come out onto the ground after a rain. I guess this goes along with the analogy that the metal clip style sometimes look like a cockroach.(see yesterday’s post)

I've learned over the years that little girls love to be told they're "pretty". Fortunately for them, my girls look like their mother. No girl wants to be told that she looks exactly like their father. "Wow honey, you look just like your daddy!."

"Uh, my dad has a beard and receding hair line. Gee, thanks...jerk."

I think it's especially important for them to hear complements from their dad. If not, the first loser who comes along with a few kind words could sweep them off their feet. I'm going to try my best to keep that from happening. For now, I want to be the only loser in their life. Wait...I mean...oh whatever.

Have a great weekend people.

Hair things: Part II

So getting back to hair issues...

This particular hair thing is impossible. It is the weird, more fashionable cousin of the bobby pin but it is absolutely worthless. There's no technique that works for me in trying to get this to stick on my girls' heads for any extended period of time. And according to my wife and daughters, "Duct tape has no place in styling hair." Whatever. I still occasionally give "the old college try" and manage to somehow stick them on their heads for a short while. It should be noted that when I think of college, the last thing that pops into my mind is "trying" however.

Although lacking in the sheer innumerable quantities like the bobby pins, these guys still pose some similar problems: falling off of heads, getting caught in the vacuum cleaner, startling noise made when sucked up into said vacuum cleaner etc. However, unlike it's skinny anorexic relative, this one will make a grown man cry if stepped on with bare feet. (My reference to "grown man cry" doesn't necessarily apply to me. It's just a vague analogy. Seriously, I am very tough as well as macho. No need to verify that with my wife though.)

There are a few differences between the two, however. For whatever reason, I find these continually in the washing machine. I have no idea why exactly but it's crazy. It's almost like the girls allow me to put them in their hair, as if a token gesture to make me feel good about myself, and then when I'm not looking they remove them and put them in their pocket. Inevitably, with this scenario they'd easily end up in the wash. Hmmmm...



In just the right light, these things look like giant bugs. Sort of like winged cockroaches or one of those weird African beetles that people had to eat on Fear Factor. These hair clips can make a person do a double take. Sometimes, if it's a dimly lit room, they might even make a grown man shriek like an adolescent girl thinking it's a large insect. (Again, "shriek like a little girl" does not appertain to this man's man. It's just another totally hypothetical situation. I don't even know how I came up with it. Honestly.)

Kayla & Jason's wedding

Here are some pics from Kayla & Jason's outdoor wedding this past weekend. We could not have asked for a better day. The setting was fantastic and so were the people I had the privilege of photographing.

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