A Day in the Park

Aunt Susan graciously planned a day at Krape Park in Freeport. Part of this is her amazing hostessing abilities. Part of it is their annual excuse to pick up Kentucky Fried Chicken. Of course, the KFC is never enough. Susan also made potato salad and cake and brought watermelon. It was chilly out when we got there, but it was still a magnificent feast. And the park is really lovely, with a carousel...paddle boats...which have to be experienced with all possible adults doing the work... and a great playground.It looks like I spent a lot of time there taking photos, but I spent a ridiculous amount of time off looking for the six letterboxes that are resident in that park. It was a mistake. I would have had a much better time just hanging out with everyone else. I need to remember this stuff when I need to control my letterboxing compulsions. Still, it looked like everyone was having a good time, particularly Mam...

Father's Day in Galena

Since we were in Woodbine for Father's Day, we didn't have a very typical celebration. I'd left the presents at home...although Daddy opened them before we left. Instead, after lunch in Woodbine, we took the kids to the not-too-far-away town of Galena. Apparently, Galena was once an important river port, but today its primary claim to fame is as the birthplace and home of U.S. Grant.Still, it's a beautiful, quaint touristy town...and the home of a whole bunch of letterboxes, but I digress...Oops. There I am digressing right there in the park!

After picking up a couple of boxes, we wandered around town with the kids, getting some ice creams, picking up some wine and chocolates for our hosts. It was pretty warm. The kids were fairly cranky, but they made it for a couple of hours. Then we called Aunt Susan and Uncle Quentin, who came and picked the munchkins up while we stayed in Galena for a nice walk in the park and dinner all by ourselves. Is that legal? A date night on Father's Day. No matter. It was really nice. And we picked up a letterbox during dinner too. Who knew?? (Well, we did, obviously.)We got back on the early side. The kids were still up. Although we'd been told there were no fireflies yet this year, I decided to check that out. Even though there weren't so many of them this year, I found a few out there, so I took the kids out to play with bugs for a little bit before bed.

I know it's kind of odd, but aside from the people there, fireflies are one of my very favorite parts about Woodbine. I'd probably go out there and play with them whether we had kids or not.

The Alpine Slide

Of all the things the kids remember from our last trip to Woodbine, the Alpine Slide stands out the very most, possibly because it's a whole ton of fun. It's a drive from Woodbine, but worth every minute we spend streaking down the hillside on plastic sleds. There was a threat of rain, but it only dripped slightly on our way there.

You pick up your sled at the top and go sliding down as fast as you dare...which is naturally faster for Daddy than for me, but I do my best to keep up. Then you head back up in the chair lifts, which seem slightly old and rickety, and start the whole thing over again. With a couple of excited kids, it's over and over and over again.

One of the coolest things about the slide, which is part of a ski resort, is that it overlooks the Mississippi River. If you don't normally get to see a great big river, it's a pretty impressive sight. This year was a little different, since the river was already starting to flood near the slide. The dock in the photo below was fully above the water two years ago.This year, I decided to hide a letterbox at the bottom of the slide. Seemed like a fun idea except for that itty little thunderstorm heading across the river. We got to the bottom and I went looking for a spot to hide my box. Just as I was getting everything together, one of the staff came over and told us they needed to shut down the lift because the storm was coming. I threw everything together and we all raced back to the lift and up the hill. This was the view out over the river. We got back to the car just as it started to rain.It's now something of a tradition to stop at Happy Joe's for dinner after an afternoon at the Alpine Slide. Happy Joe's is a pretty big chain in the Midwest, but it doesn't make it out here to California. Think of it as a more quaint version of Chuck E. Cheese's. It's not nearly as obnoxious and the food, while hardly gourmet, is a step above Mr. Cheese. You can use a token to make a model train circle the dining room on a ledge near the ceiling. Sure, there are video games and tickets and lame prizes, but it's all toned down a lot from the mouse restaurant.Here's Mam with all her crap loot.Oh, and they've got hot fudge sundaes too. What could be better. Not much, Mam's decided.And here's a photo I took on the way home. You can say all you want about the interminable corn fields and farms in rural Illinois, but they're certain scenic.

Woodbine

There isn't a lot to say about Woodbine, Illinois. Its a township (not even a town) of about 75 people, located in the upper left hand corner of Illinois, most of it along the highway. Daddy's family emigrated to Woodbine in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Aunt Susan and Uncle Quentin live in the house where Daddy's grandfather was born. It's a fairly unremarkable house for the area. It's right on the side of the highway. The entire place shakes when the big trucks go by...all the time. As a native Californian, I admit I woke up a few times wondering if there was an earthquake.

Fortunately, the weather really did take a turn for the better. The rain had stopped by morning. And that's a good thing because this is what you do in Woodbine...And when you get board of swinging and chatting in the shade, you can always throw rocks or ride a tricycle very far from the street...which is the highway, after all.Mornings in Woodbine are pretty relaxed and go by slowly. I've clearly been living in Silicon Valley too long. I'm too stressed out to slow down that quickly. I'm itching to get out and do something. And lately, that means letterboxing, but I'll put all that in its own post a little later. Suffice to say the pace of Woodbine is particularly conducive to sitting around carving things.

After lunch we headed to Elizabeth, the town next door, to check out the Apple River Fort. It's not much of a tourist attraction. We were the only people there, but there were still a couple of girls in period dress to tell us a little about the place.
After our trip to the fort, we drove over to Stockton, the other town next door, and visited a couple of parks. The kids are particularly enamored with "KidsTown", an awesome wooden play structure. There's nothing like it around here...probably because someone would sue over a splinter. We went to KidsTown a couple of years ago and the kids were happy to see it again. We had a hard time dragging them away to go home for dinner!

Vacating

No sooner had school ended than our little family high-tailed it out of town. It wasn't exactly planned to work out this way, but we were headed to Illinois and we figured the earlier in the summer we got there, the better. Of course, we weren't counting on the massive rain storms and flooding they were having...mostly in Iowa, but that's the direction we were headed. We arrived at O'Hare an hour behind schedule after being re-routed around some thunderstorms. Daddy's uncle Quentin had driven almost three hours to the airport to pick us up.

We stopped for dinner at a TGI Fridays near the airport where Mam suddenly went into hysterics over the nearly 20 bites I'd found on her back that morning. I'd applied hydrocortisone liberally and they hadn't bothered her all day...until dinner. Immediately after dinner, Daddy used his oh-so-handy iPhone to locate a Walgreens where we picked up some Benadryl.

It rained on our way to the countryside. And it didn't rain a little. It was that sort of rain that makes you wonder what windshield wipers are for because they don't seem to be doing any good. Smunch was tense and I could tell he was scared. I assured him that Uncle Quentin has lots of experience with this sort of driving. Of course, it was 11 o'clock at night and probably way past Uncle Quentin's bedtime. When the lightning flashed...and it often did...at least we could see the roadway. Aunt Susan called while we were on the road. There was a tornado watch for their area. Daddy carefully spelled this information out to me...literally. "T-O-R-N-A-D-O watch" so as not to freak the children out. Naturally, this information was met by a concerned, "What tornado?" from Smunch. That quality education sure comes in handy... The Benadryl had already worked its magic on Mam.

We made it to Woodbine a little before 1 am, delayed again because Uncle Quentin does know how to drive in crazy stormy weather, even after bedtime. Thank goodness. And no tornados either. Maybe our arrival was a good sign for the weather...

Growing up

This is a wee bit out of order, but I thought it was a good illustration of just how Smunch changed over this year of kindergarten. Here is a photo of him walking to school on his first day.
Here is another photo of him with Mam and one of his classmates, "walking" to school on the last day...

It's so easy to see how quickly their childhood gets away from you.

Park Daze

Around here, probably as in many school districts around the country, it's tradition (apparently) to end the school year with a day in the park. Both kids had a day in the park. Turns out it was the same park, just two days apart. Mam's "park day" was first. Her preschool always puts on a spectacular event for all the little kids...complete with a bouncy house, a bouncy caterpillar to crawl around in, face painting, fishing for prizes, a "snack walk", bean bag toss, treasure hunt, bubble, popcorn, ice cream. You name it. I had to take Smunch this year since he wasn't in school 'til the afternoon, but we all had a good time...despite Mam just having recovered from her miserable stomach thing.Here's our Mam with one of her favorite teachers, Mrs. P, doing the treasure hunt.She came home with lots of crap loot. I loved Mam's teachers this year. They were truly fantastic. I was really excited to find out she'll be having one of them again next year. She was thrilled too.

Smunch's park day happened on Wednesday, which was also his last day of kindergarten. It's hard to believe it was over so fast. It was a similar kind of event, also featuring bubbles and face painting, but adding more snacks, spin art... and the most fantastic game ever - the donut eating "contest". The only prize for eating your donut was that you got to eat a donut, but that was reward enough. This was the best photo op ever!It was sort of a bittersweet day, at the end. Without a year-long teacher to show for all the effort, the class took happy photos with their "long-term" sub, who was with them for a week and a half. I give her a lot of credit for taking over. She did a really good job, working with very little other than 17 kindergarteners who had gotten awfully squirrelly before she showed up. Did I mention the face painting?

So, it's over. Wow. It feels more momentous than I'd imagined. Despite all the difficulties with speech, with hearing, with just sitting still...Smunch got a glowing literacy report to go with his pretty, new diploma. You would have thought he'd just graduated from med school with how fast I ran out and bought a frame for him. I'm proud of the little guy and it turns out...he's pretty proud of himself too!

Cactus garden

Oh, I have so much to blog about and so many photos...and so little motivation to get quite that busy. We just got back from a week in Illinois, so there's much to report on all kinds of fronts. But I didn't even finish the posts I had slated for before our departure. For a little bit of relaxation, here are some photos I took of the cactus garden in front of one of the houses down the street. Who says they're ugly and colorless??Actually, this particular cactus garden is almost never colorless as our neighbors put a whole lot of very colorful lights on the cacti during the holidays too...making it one of the kids' favorite spots on our walk to school.

Baseball...the real kind

I'd intended to write an entire post about what fun we had at the "High A" baseball game last weekend, but I'm quickly realizing that I have more to blog about than I've got hours to do it. The tickets for this game were a fundraiser for Smunch's school and since Daddy and I had already booked a babysitter, I pawned baseball duty off on my dad, who, after all, was the assistant coach for Smunch's baseball team. I even made sure he knew some other people who were going. It took a while for Smunch to stop asking *me* everytime he had a question (which was often), but in the end, I think both Grandpa and Smunch had a good time. I had a great time too. It was a lovely evening, great company and some really tasty barbeque too!

I think this video kinda says it all...

Great Sale....ON NOW!!!

Once Mam perked up a little from her horrible weekend stomach bug, she and Smunch put together a shoe store. They had one whopper of a shoe sale going, complete with the babe standing at the corner, swinging an arrow sign as an advertisement.Then there was a warm welcome at the door (to the playroom)....and a fantastic selection of boys and girls shoes, tastefully displayed and all at 20 percent off! Who could resist?Unfortunately, the sales clerk wasn't really up on making change, so my pink polka-dotted tennies and Daddy's nice brown dress shoes each cost $20 instead of the aforementioned sale price.
Still, it was so darned cute and something they'd done completely on their own, together, that I don't think we minded the mark-up. However, we're both finding the shoes a little tight and altogether sort of, well...used.

Mam's Weekend

Sadly, Mam spent most of the past weekend just like this. And those were the good moments...the ones where no one was holding her little head over a bucket, she wasn't begging for more water or ice chips that would just make her vomit more. She slept. A lot.

And Daddy, like a true superhero, took care of his little Mam almost entirely on his own...largely because he knows that I get these things at least as badly as Mam and he's usually done with them in an hour. We had to cancel our sitter for Saturday night, so I joined Grandpa and Smuch at a "High-A" baseball game, while Daddy ministered care to Mam. (More on the baseball later.) He also got up with her repeatedly on Saturday night. I was awake a lot too, but he always got up. I doubt he got more than a couple of hours sleep at any one time. She was so miserable!

By Sunday afternoon, after a pointless trip to the after-hours clinic, Mam was finally keeping some liquids down. As usual with our kids, that progressed rapidly to solids and to an entire dinner. None of this wait-several-hours-after-the-first-liquids-stay-down-to-start-solids stuff.

Smunch was jealous. He was jealous of how much attention Mam got. He was jealous of her Pedialyte pops, but I think her dinner capped the whole thing off. Complaints about his tummy started rolling in.

Thankfully, Mam was back to her Mam-like self by Monday...just in time for her end-of-year park party for school! And Smunch is fine, of course!

The Bounty

Not every year, but every other year, our big ol' cherry tree decides not only to bloom, but to produce cherries. And, being a rather large tree, it produces LOTS of cherries. They're a beautiful burgundy color and so, so sweet...as long as you can stop yourself from picking them before it's time. The birds eat a lot of them, of course, but there are plenty left for us humans.

This year, the kids decided that cherries would make lovely gifts for their teachers. I'm one of those annoying moms who is happy to contribute to the "class gift", but also feels like we have to give the teachers a little something just from us. Cherries were the perfect solution and everyone loved them. I used plain old brown lunch bags and decorated them to look just a little cuter. Smunch decorated his own. They weren't as cute, but they were that much more genuine. I'll have to remember this...two years from now!

A true milestone

I know this doesn't look like much. Typical kid eating spaghetti. But in our house, this is nothing short of a miracle. Smunch and Mam have steadfastly refused to have sauce on their pasta since their first introduction to the starchy stuff. Daddy made a big batch of his trademark spaghetti sauce the other day and Smuch, in an effort to convince us all that he's really growing up, decided to try it...on his pasta. Not only did he declare that he liked it, he ate the whole thing!

More on fire safety

The weekend before last, we took the kids to a tour of a local firehouse with one of my moms groups. We've done this before. It's worth a refresher. But it's not a lot to blog about. You can always check out Smunch's fire safety video if you feel in need of your own reminder. Still, there were a couple of cute photo ops...

Shared Passion

Every morning, my kindergartner is the first one out the garage to get the paper...usually before Daddy and I are out of bed. He can't wait to see the Sports section. Lately, Smunch has been waking me up by running in and announcing the scores of the previous day's games. And, no, it doesn't matter which sport makes the news. Whatever's there will do. Tonight, he had me look up the results of the NCAA Divison I Softball World Series. This summer ought to be fun. I wonder how many Olympic sports he can follow at once!

Here he is poring over his favorite section with his buddy Luke, who might be as interested as he is, but it's hard to believe.

Have I mentioned that he's a bigger sports fan than anyone in our house? I might hazard a guess that he's a bigger fan than anyone on either side of the family, even...although Grandpa runs a close second...