a walk in the woods to a 99th birthday party

Kevin innocently suggested taking a family hike in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park last Saturday.  We were going to Cuyahoga Falls to the 99th birthday party of his Uncle Clair.

This was MY view for the majority of the hike.

I learned that "family hike" has at least two definitions.

There is mine:  a family friendly stroll through the woods on a well marked path involving lots of discovery, swinging from vines, poking at mosses, rotting trees, and mushrooms, trying to identify various fauna, and looking for wildlife.

And then there is Kevin's:  a rigorous 5 mile workout where you go up and down many hills covered with leaves and mud, cross at least 4 streams on slippery rocks, are sure to get your feet wet and never stop long enough for your heart rate to drop below 80%.

I also learned that if I had been Maria von Trapp escaping over the Alps, the Nazi's would have caught up with me.

Uncle Clair didn't seem to mind that we were sweaty and covered with mud when we arrived late at his party.  He is an amazing specimen of a man.  His full head of hair has only recently gone gray.  At 99 he enjoys good health and still does most things on his own.  His sister Earline told a story about how he would hitchhike back to Lorain County from OSU about every 2 months when he was a student there.  Once he slept overnight inside a corn shock because it got late and there wasn't any traffic. 

I'd bet we'll be back next year for his 100th.

Sunday Sledding

Sunday after church I took a vanload of kids (including babysittee Delaney) to the Oberlin Reservoir for sledding. I had never been there but another family had suggested it and I drove past it on accident on Saturday.

I think it is my new favorite sledding location. It's less than a 15 minute drive, and the hill is big enough to be fun but not so big that it takes too long to hike back up. And the hill is wide (the entire length of the bank of the reservoir) so there are plenty of good tracks to sled down.

Someone had left a big hunk of cardboard, and Rachel was the first to try what I called an "old fashioned sled." She enjoyed it but said it was too bumpy. George really enjoyed it and called it his "paper sled."

As a bonus, we saw some people ice-fishing out on the reservoir itself.

High School Basketball

We went to the local high school basketball game last night. George was excited about it all afternoon but in the end he got a little tired and restless in the 4th quarter.

He liked to climb up and down the bleachers. He fell and banged his head on Rachel, but he's ok.

My friend Catherine who is a pizza waitress is also a cheerleader and dancer, so we got to see her perform also. And when the cheerleaders threw out souvenirs to the crowd, she made sure we got something. Nathan came home with a new t-shirt and Rachel brought home a little blue basketball.

Emma was missing as she had a dinner activity with a group of friends from church.

Ask Any Girl

Stepdaughter Emma was involved in her high school drama club this fall, working on the set production for Ask Any Girl, based on the 1959 movie (I think). Victoria attended on Thursday & Friday and the whole family was planning to attend on Saturday.

Unfortunately, Saturday's performance was canceled. The school was hosting an ROTC event in the afternoon and several people collapsed. This led to a fear of carbon monoxide or some other dangerous gas leak. So the school was shut down.

We'll find out later today if Saturday's performance will be rescheduled.

I did get to see several of the drama team when they had a post-play party at my pizzeria on Friday night.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween for us started on Saturday when Brooke, Rachel and I went to the trick-or-treat party at the local community college. Basically we waited in line for about 45 minutes before parading through several campus buildings where students passed out candy in the halls. At the end the girls colored pictures for a coloring contest, then Brooke got in line for a balloon animal while Rachel showed off her pirate costume on stage for the costume contest.

Later on Saturday we carved pumpkins. We take our pumpkin carving seriously at the "family of 9", using patterns and special pumpkin cutting tools. Below are this year's results:




Victoria did an awesome job on this skeleton fish!







Nathan carved a pirate face.








Brooke made a wise owl.








Jacob made his pumpkin into a lizard.







And Rachel, with her dad's help, made a scary wolf.

Luke didn't carve a pumpkin this year since he spent most of Saturday at a friend's birthday party.

On to Wednesday. Dad rearranged his parenting time schedule so that he could pick up the girls and bring them trick-or-treating. Luke stayed and went to church with his mom, and Nathan was ill with asthma. Jacob went with his cousins D & D.

Rachel again wore her pirate outfit, while Brooke was a dead princess and little George dressed in a warm Tigger suit. Even Dad got dressed up, walking along with the kids in his Anderson Varejao wig.





One of the houses we stopped along the way was local radio personality Bob Frantz, who moved into our neighborhood about a year ago.

We had a talk before we started and the kids followed my rules:

1. Stay on the sidewalks, don't walk on people's grass.
2. Say "Thank you" when someone gives you a treat.
   
3. Say "Trick Or Treat", don't just hold out your bucket.

It took us the full hour and a half to walk our neighborhood, including both sets of clusters off our main road. The weather was nice and everyone was friendly. By the end, the kids baskets were overflowing into the little green wagon that George rode in part of the way.

George's basket was so heavy he could hardly hold it, but he wasn't about to let go of it!

As you can see from the final picture, the kids made out pretty good.

Sticks And Stones ... And Car Trunk Lids?

Last weekend started off with a bang! While I was at my fantasy football draft, Emma broke her hand. She had went to a high school football game with her cousin. Apparently she bent over to pick up something, putting her hand on the edge of the open trunk for balance. Meanwhile someone slammed the trunk shut. Ouch!

Victoria took her to get an X-Ray and they didn't get home until almost 3 AM.

Saturday morning we (all 9 of us) were up at 7 AM and soon on our way to the Firelands 5K. Brooke ran the 1 mile fun run, while Luke and I (and several other uncles and cousins) ran the 5K. Following that, we went out to my mom's for lunch.

Next it was back in to town to watch the parade. Emma stayed at Chris's to rest. The rest of the kids picked up more candy than they could eat in a month! Victoria begged, pleaded, and cajoled, to get as many boxes of Dots as she could.

After the parade we went to the festival. For only $5, you get in to the festival and can ride all the rides. This is a great bargain! The kids rode a few rides, we played a few games of Bingo at the Ruritan pavilion (where my dad always used to work when I was younger), and the kids each got $5. Most of them used it to play a dart game and win a blow-up toy.

George used his to play the duck game. He didn't really care about the prizes, but he loved watching those ducks go around in a circle and sticking his arms in the water!

Saturday night was a feast at Chris & Todd's, featuring hot dogs, brats, pizza bites, and best of all, dirt dessert. Then we spent the night back at Mom's (less 2 kids that stayed at Chris & Todd's).

Sunday morning we got up and headed to the cottage to visit Victoria's parents and celebrate her sister Dawn's birthday. After the Pizza Hut fiasco, we got lunch at McDonald's. We spent the afternoon fishing and swimming in Lake Erie, before having dinner and cake and then driving back for another night at Mom's.

Monday, Labor Day, we got ready and went to yet another picnic, this one at Dick & Debbi's. I grilled the hot dogs, reminiscent of my days working for my sister Sharon at the Flower Hospital company picnic. Lunch was followed by a few games of cornhole.

Finally, we dropped my kids off at their mom's and made it back home, just in time for me to make it to my pizza delivery job.

It's a good thing we didn't have soccer this weekend!

George's First Easter Egg Hunt

We went to an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday put on by our parks department. It was in the skating rink. There is no ice at this time so there was a carpet down. They spread straw over a large area and then scattered the eggs on and under the straw.

Kids went by age to find the plastic eggs. Most eggs had candy inside, Tootsie Rolls, Hershey Kisses, and Nestle eggs, and other small candies. A few eggs had papers inside that could be turned in for a "prize."

Luke has won numerous prizes in his egg-hunting career but this hunt was for 3rd grade and younger so Luke and Nathan had to watch and cheer for their siblings.

George was in the first group, ages 2 and under. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, but neither were most of the other kids his age, so there was no real disadvantage. George got a dozen or so eggs and put them in his pretty yellow basket.

The next group was preschoolers. Amazingly we have no children at this age!

After that came the kindergarteners and first graders. Rachel was ready, hoping to fill her pillowcase with plastic eggs. She gathered as fast as she could, and when they were all popped open, she had found 2 "medium basket" certificates!

Brooke and Jacob teamed together in the final group, 2nd and 3rd graders. The plan was for Jacob to hold the pillowcase open and Brooke to grab the eggs, but neither let go of the pillowcase and they quickly resembled an entrant in a 3-legged race. Nonetheless, they got a good quantity of eggs and found 2 "jelly bean tube" certificates.

As is customary at local park events, we saw Brad from the Tuesday night running group, who was there with his girls, Jamie and Brooke, as well as his wife, sister, and several other family members.

Science Center Visit

Our family took a visit to the Great Lakes Science Center on Saturday. We had a annual pass that we had gotten last spring in time to see the Grossology exhibit, and it was expiring on Saturday, the last day of March.

Our first stop was the Baseball As America exhibit. This is a traveling exhibit on loan from Cooperstown. It has alot of old relics and memorabilia. Some of the Indians items were caps worn by Len Barker and Dennis Eckersly for their perfect game and no hitter (respectively), shoes worn by Kenny Lofton in the 1995 World Series, Sandy Alomar's bat from the All-Star game a few years ago when he homered and was the MVP, several Bob Feller items, and more.

This exhibit didn't really have much to do with science but there was a cool hands on exhibit that showed how various pitches are gripped. (pictured right with Phil Neikro)

There was also a speed-pitch area and a baseball video game on Xbox 360 that the boys tried.

And there was a computer that you could look up info and see video and photos of Hall Of Famers. The kids had fun looking up our distant cousin, a famous baseball executive.


After that we toured the rest of the Science Center. George, Brooke, and Jacob spent most of their time at the Polymer Fun House which has a fun ball pit where you can use various means to lift the balls to a holding area above and then push a lever to dump them all down again.

Victoria, Nathan and Luke watched the Omnimax movie on Hurricane Katrina.

Rachel enjoyed the hang-gliding simulation. And we did various other favorites including the swinging pendulum / spiro-graph, the reflex test, the skateboard balance test, the Great Lakes puzzle map, and the build-it-yourself foam arch. Everybody also enjoyed an electrical device that made their hair stand up!

The Science Center pass was a great value for our family even though we had a busy year and did not use it as much as we could have.