Summer Camping Trip

Cousins

Brooke just chillin

It wouldn't be a campout without smores

Helen and the lunch crowd


Hanging out around the campsite


Our campsite overlooked the river

Everyone thought the river was big fun - except Lindsay

Hanging around at the playground

Adam proudly shows his monster catch

At the end of last month we went camping with Helen's family. We try to do at least one camping trip each summer with her family. Our family usually camps in a tent, but it's not truly roughing it as Helen's parents have a motor home that serves as home base. However, this time the motor home had some technical difficulties and was scratched from the trip at the last minute. Helen's brother Paul and his wife Agatha brought their pop-up camper and Helen's parents stayed with them. But no refrigerator and no air conditioning. Helen's brother, Mike, and his wife, Chris, also joined us, along with their two kids, Lindsay and Brooke. They weren't up for camping so they slept at a nearby hotel.

We kind of put the trip together last minute so were limited in our choices. We ended up at the Etowah River Campground. I was a little skeptical, but it ended up being fine. Our campsite overlooked the river and, although there were trees all around, it was not beneath the tree canopy and therefore got pretty hot in the afternoon. Luckily, the river was close by for cooling off.

Of course the kids just loved it. Riding bikes everywhere, the playground, the river, eating all day and night, visiting with family, making new friends, and fire!

Kid's Triathlon

Arrival

Orientation

Swim

Gavin (Derek's teammate)

Gavin finishes the swim - now it's Derek's turn on the bike

Adam enjoys a muffin with his teammate Ryan while they wait their turn

Derek on the bike leg

Derek finishes while Adam looks on in the background

Erin finishes her swim and touches Ryan to start the bike

Adam helps Ryan swing into action

Ryan finishes the bike and touches Adam to start the run

Adam gives a little wave as he runs towards us

Adam shows us his medal

Cole, Gavin, and Derek

Trophies

The kids participated in a triathlon at our swim tennis club. This is the fourth year that our club has hosted a kid's triathlon, but the first time our kids have done it.

Ages 7-10: Swim 100 yards (4 laps), Bike 3 miles (2 loops), Run .75 miles

Ages 11-15: Swim 200 yards (8 laps), Bike 6 miles (4 loops), Run 1.5 miles

Adam and Derek were pretty excited about it and rounded up teams on their own. Most of the participants were individuals with only a few teams. It was impressive to see the kids that weren't on teams doing all three events. Some kids were serious with racing bikes, etc but most were just having fun. There was even a little girl who still had pink streamers on her handle bars and was tentatively breaking the whole way down the big hill in front of the club.

Derek and his friends signed up thinking they would be competing in the young division, but Gavin was just old enough to push their team into the older division so their distances doubled. They were all a little worried and it was a little bit of a struggle. I don't think any of them is ready to sign up next year to compete as individuals.

Adam did great on his run and seemed to have a lot of fun.

WhirlyBall

We had a department outing for work last Friday where went to lunch at Dreamland, played WhirlyBall, had some Guinness, and went home early...nice.

We had another WhirlyBall department outing last year and that outing was pretty even, but this time the QA team dominated our Development team. The headhunting collisions were fun and, in the end, it was sweet redemption for the QA team. We used to bowl against them every Friday, but they got tired of not winning and eventually almost everyone quit going. Now me and another developer are the only ones that go on a regular basis.

One of the guys posted a video on YouTube of a small snippet of our match. It pretty much summarizes how it went (we're the team in yellow). If we could only shoot.

Big Canoe

Kicking off the weekend at a nearby Mexican restaurant

Caboose - he loves you to rub those big soft ears and, of course, his belly

Adam enjoys a snack while hanging out

The water slide was a big hit

Me and Adam enjoying a canoe ride

Adam still loves to play in the sand

The picture above is one of the clearest pictures ever from our camera - from about 50 feet away. I wish I knew the secret.

It was a really nice atmosphere with a pool and beach area overlooking a lake

Adam and Robert loved playing with all the army men

Sunday hike to one of the nearby falls

This fall was steep and slippery - perfect for sliding...and getting a boo boo

Helen after we checked out the old cabin in the background

Jul 31 - Aug 2 2009

A couple weekends ago we were invited by our friends, Jeff and Leigh, to spend a weekend in Big Canoe which is a nice resort development in the North Georgia mountains. Helen and the kids picked me up after work on Friday and we made the beautiful drive to Big Canoe.

We kicked off the weekend with a visit to a nearby Mexican restaurant where we all caught up. Our friends have 2 boys, Brian and Robert, so the kids were entertained while we had uninterrupted adult talk - always nice. Helen had surgery a couple days earlier to repair some places where her gums had receded so she was still a little uncomfortable and limited in what she could eat all weekend.

On Saturday we went to the pool and lake area where we hung out most of the day. It was a beautiful setting with lots of fun things to do. Afterwards, Jeff took me on a tour of Big Canoe and then we all had a cookout. We finished off the evening with everyone playing a raucous game of Apples To Apples.

We woke up to rain Sunday morning, but everyone was still up for the hiking we had planned. Under the canopy of the trees we barely felt any of the light rain and it was certainly better than the heat. We saw lots of cool things - especially the water falls.

All in all a very nice weekend. Thanks Jeff, Leigh, Brian, Robert, and Caboose.

First Day Of School

Derek makes his way to the bus stop. Adam had already raced ahead.

Derek and Becca. Their last year in elementary school and their first year in the same class since preschool.

Adam (4th from right) is actually one of the older kids as a "been there done that" 2nd grader

Today was the first day of school for 2009. Helen and the rest of the teachers were back at school last week getting ready, but today is the first day for the kids. It seemed like a couple years ago that the number of kids at our bus stop had dwindled to just a handful, but now we're back up to about 15. There were several new kids at the bus stop who were starting kindergarten. One of the Mom's thought Adam was starting kindergarten and after I told her that he was starting 2nd grade we had to talk about how fast it goes.

Helen started to fade a little as she got herself mentally and emotionally prepared for another school year. Usually, as the start of the school year draws near I accuse her of "slow responsing" me because her responses get slower and slower as she draws more into her own thoughts...lamenting the passing of another Summer and psyching herself up to face another school year. We joke that she needs her "rocking in the corner" time. Once the school year starts she's always fine.

The Long Awaited Cleansing

Derek and Adam made some additional cash at their lemonade\bake sale

There were some tears shed letting go of the baby rocker



The kids worked hard to get things ready

Let me just start by saying that I do not like clutter. There's something about order that I find very comforting. However, with kids it's hard to keep the clutter at bay. Although I would prefer a nice orderly house with minimal possessions and each possession in it's place, I have compromised because the kids enjoy all the toys, games, etc and I know the clutter won't last forever.

Each year I would buy additional plastic storage drawers and bins to hold the ever increasing volume of kid stuff. Our living room has been filled with the plastic drawers so that the kids would have easy access. Helen was not happy about "all the plastic", but it was functional and it was cheap. Periodically we would mobilize, usually after a big Christmas haul, to reorganize the storage and get everything in it's proper place. But it was hard to purge things. We would think that the kids were done playing with something so that we could get rid of it or store it in the attic or crawlspace, but inevitably Helen would inform me that one of the kids was recently playing with the item. So I just sighed and bided my time.

This summer I decided that the time was now! Once swim team was over I talked Helen into making the garage sale happen. Actually it was more of a tantrum and some mutterings about how "the cleansing" was the main project I wanted Helen to tackle during her summer off.

Helen is not organized by nature. She likes organization and says that she likes that I keep things orderly, but she gets overwhelmed easily and ends up just working around the disorganization. So the garage sale was a monumental hurdle for her.

Once the kids found out that they could make some money they were all in. We all worked together over a week or so to get things ready, especially Helen and Derek. Adam still gets distracted playing with everything.

We had clothes and toys in the attic and crawlspace from when Derek was born 10 years ago. We also had plenty of household things that had accumulated over the years. We cleaned it all out and now the only plastic storage bins are all upstairs in the playroom and kid's rooms - no more bins in the living room. The playroom, the attic, and the crawlspace all look so nice and tidy now.

We listed a number of things on craigslist.org and then had the garage sale Friday and Saturday. The weather was beautiful and we sold a bunch of stuff. We walked away with about $450 and the kids made about $150 each. Anything left over we gave to the local cooperative ministry or gave away on the local freecycle group.

We've given a number of things away over the years, but we've never sold anything before. We never really cared about making any money, but once we decided to sell things this time we became conflicted. We would find ourselves mulling over a sale because of a minimal price difference and then we would shake ourselves out of it and remember the ultimate goal was to just get rid of the stuff. We couldn't believe some of the stuff people wanted and were miffed at some of the stuff people didn't want. It was an interesting experience.