Our Vacation Part IV

Being surrounded by nature inspires a person to be outside as much as possible. So one day we found some hiking trails and marched off into the woods by our house. The kids love this sort of thing. They picked up walking sticks and saw this as a huge adventure. Once again, my wife and I saw this as an excellent opportunity to tire out their little bodies.



Along the way, we stopped and nailed a note to a tree. My mother-in-law had the idea to seal up a letter addressed to other passersby. The paper requested that they sign and date the note. Then, next year when we return we'd see who all participated in our little experiment. With our fortune, we'll probably get fined for littering though.



The Chuck Taylors got a work out, and on the return hike back to our house, our 4 year decided that she was too tired to walk so I had to carry her on my shoulders. Funny thing, I didn't realize just how far we had walked until we turned around to go back to the house. My legs started to strain a bit and my shoulders started to burn. That's when she piped up and commented that, "Going on hikes is hard work," and that she was "getting so thirsty from having gone on such a long hiking trip" and of course, "my bottom is hurting from sitting on your shoulders." Oh really? Sorry for the inconvenience that my shoulders are causing you. You have my full sympathy. I'll try to pick up the pace so as to not create any more hardship. Give me a break, man.

I love pointing out certain things to the kids while traipsing through the forest. I try to not only put out the vibe that I'm well-trained in the skills of a survivalist, but I also like to mess with their little heads a bit. They're young and impressionable so it's just a lot of fun. For example, "Those trees over there are Northern Maples and are indigenous to this part of the country,"(they just assume I know what I'm talking about since I used the word "indigenous") or "Those green plants there are poisonous," or "I think I heard a bear," or "Be sure to watch out for quick sand," or "There have been reports of Sasquatch in these parts," or "Oh my word, we're lost! We're lost!". Good times, good times.



As I mentioned earlier in the week, the weather was a bit on the chilly side as well as a little rainy. So, on a couple days we had some extended time inside the house. My 9 year-old daughter seized the opportunity to teach me how to play the game of chess. I've always sort of wanted to learn but never have. I quickly realized that as I get older, the less capable I am of retaining new information like this.

She sees the board quite simplistically it seems. Sort of like this...


However, in my head things are organized more like this...



In a weird fluke, I somehow managed to actually beat her the first game we played. I suspect that she let me because ever since then she absolutely destroys me. Typically, I'm left sitting at the table trying to figure out how she could win so quickly. "That's okay, Daddy," she says with a smug grin, "you tried."

Chess is a great thinking person's game. I love the strategy and gamesmanship involved. I'm glad I finally took time to start learning it. I didn't feel so bad about my late arrival to the chess playing community until I read this on the box...



Age 5? Are you kidding me? I didn't even start playing checkers until I was about 10 years old. I guess I'm a bit "slow".

The last game we played together was extremely close - and long. We actually had to stop play and resume the game later that evening due to the longevity of it. In a disheartening ending, she inevitably captured my king. I'm not a good loser. So I immediately challenged her to another competition. Arm wrestling.

Fortunately for me we agreed to a "best 2 out of 3" match.

As it turns out, she's abnormally strong for a 4th grade girl.

Our Vacation Part III

I think the girls' favorite activity that we did as a family was visiting the beach. You can't really go wrong with a good beach. There's so much to do there for the kids, it's therapeutic for the parents to hear the crashing of the waves, and there's always ample opportunity for good photographs. The downside to it is that we inevitably end up with sand in places that sand just does not belong (on our body and otherwise). And similarly to Easter basket grass, it resurfaces for a long time afterward. We will be sweeping sand from our minivan until Christmas I fear.





On this particular day, we decided to even eat dinner on the beach. So, we just grabbed a bag of tacos and enjoyed a beautiful evening on the shores of Lake Michigan. However, the girls were so excited to explore the waterfront, they elected to only eat a few bites and then scampered off. "We'll eat later," they said.
Well, that didn't exactly happen. Since we left the food unattended, it ended up being scarfed down by this guy...



I don't even want to imagine the disgusting effects that Tex-Mex has on a seagull. Nasty.



Since the temperature was only about 65 degrees this day, they didn't swim at all. Instead they scoured the beach for shells and miscellaneous items that washed up onto shore. They sorted and collected their finds. Sadly, they are not this organized at home.



A true blessing was the discovery of large sand dunes. These seemed like mountains to the kids and they repetitiously ran up and down them. The great thing about the dunes is that they require a lot of energy to navigate them. The burning up of energy yields tired children. Tired children inevitably results into them willingly going to bed early. Awesome.



While on the dunes, I noticed many narrow tracks in the sand. I found one, then another, and then realized they were simply everywhere. What could be making these strange markings? And then it occurred to me. Oh crap. It had to be these things again...



As I've already expressed in an earlier blog, I hate snakes. I hate snakes. I hate snakes. And one more time to drive the point home, I hate snakes.

I called the kids over to me and pointed out the narrow squiggly lines going in all sorts of directions. There must have been dozens of trails. I told the children that these markings were the makings of some sort of small snake. They were impressed by my animal tracking skills. That's one cool thing about having small kids. It doesn't take a whole lot to impress them.

Were we surrounded by water snakes that buried themselves in sand dunes, waiting for prey to come along? I've seen those types of slithering reptiles on Animal Planet before. It did sort of feel like we were being "watched". But my paranoia was relieved when I discovered the creator of the winding paths in the sand...



The girls just sort of looked at me disappointingly. I don't think they were let down in the fact that snakes were not producing the trails, but rather I am pretty sure they were moreso disappointed in themselves for having believed me.

I have a feeling I will see that expression many times throughout the course of their lives.



It was a great day if for no other reason than this image was the last fading glimpse of it.

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.