vacation Tuesday: mini golf and pirate show

 Since there were plans to go out, we wore our group shirts today.  They weren't normal group shirts that matched, but everyone chose a funny shirt and we wore them on the same day.  It was so much fun seeing what shirt everyone chose as people slowly got ready for the day.  Heather also made pancakes for breakfast!

Heather woke up early and decided to go for a sunrise walk.  I joined her subsequent days, but the sunrise was never as pretty.

The kids, in age order, as always.  It was crazy easy to get a good picture this year.  I took about ten and almost all of them were good.

Seth's shirt was "Let's eat kids.  Let's eat, kids.  Punctuation saves lives."  So I encouraged Isaac to lay on the table and gave Seth some silverware and think it is the cutest picture.

Group photo!  Since it's a bit hard to tell, here are the shirts:
Amanda: Awwsassin, with a ninja cat

Ben: Got any grapes? with a duck

Laura: My plan has been foiled, with FOIL diagram

Dusty: Yes, I'm always right, with a right angle

Katy: It's called a trash can, not a trash cannot, with a racoon

Ryan: We almost always almost win, with University of Minnesota football

Heather: Knock - knock joke with oranges and bananas

Doug: What exactly don't you understand, with lots of chemical symbols

Isaac: i saying be rational and Pi saying get real

Joshua: I've got your back, with a stick figure holding another figure's back

Marshall: Why do developers like dark mode? Because light attracts bugs

Violet: (sqrt(-1))(2^2)sigma(3.14): I ate some pie

Greta: animals called by funny names, such as a llama as giraffe sheep, manta as sand flap flap, and Guinea pig as furry potato.

Dagne: pieces of cheese saying 'say people!'

Eva: maybe broccoli doesn't like you either, with a picture of a cool broccoli

Seth: Let's eat kids.  Let's eat, kids.  Punctuation saves lives.

We went mini golfing after pictures.  It was indoor golfing and that was the nicest thing ever.  They also had some interesting holes, including a caldera.  Oh!  Somehow I managed to be the overall winner too.

Heather got her first hole-in-one!

In the afternoon the kids got out some diamond art and got really into it.

Greta and I talked about books.

The adults talked.  This is what we looked like a lot of the time.

We also pulled out a puzzle!  It is a group picture from each of the years we've gone on vacation together - there were ten pictures, so I guess this means this was our tenth vacation!  That's kind of crazy to think about.

The clock didn't work.  People enjoyed changing the time.

For the evening's entertainment, we went to a pirate show with dinner.  It was really fun.  The food was good and the pirates were entertaining.  

There was a pre-show that they recommended that you arrive for.  It felt like we were in the way back seats for that, but in the end it didn't matter.  There was a little story to go along with it - the crew was recruiting a new pirate - but it was not amazing.  There was a song about how you should go buy food, drinks, and souvenirs that definitely sounded like a pirate chanty but the words did not match at all since it was just an advertisement.  Heather cracked up and couldn't stop laughing. There was also a sing-along.  Then we got to file into our seats and Joshua was overheard saying, "Phew.  I'm glad that wasn't the whole thing."

It was overall a low budget cir-de-sol, which worked well for us.  There was diving into the water.  There was fire.  There were trained animals.  There was a competition between the two pirate sides and the end and that was rigged.  You could tell that one side let the other side win so that the score could stay even.  But how else can it end in a tie so that everyone is happy at the end?

We got home with enough time to hit sunset, so back to the beach we went. 

Joshua collected a pile of shells.  Isaac dug holes.

Katy found a crab on the way back.

Isaac and I wore our pun pajamas.

Ryan finally hit the ice pops.  He had held himself back until now, although part of that might have been that we had the worst freezer ever.  It didn't make ice and it didn't freeze things.  (It did keep them cold, but that was about it.)  

I lied, it did make ice.  It made fancy ice balls at the rate of six per day - the normal ice maker was broken.  There was an ice cube tray in the freezer and the water did freeze, so I would make about 24 cubes a day and dump them into the ice holder.  It wasn't really enough, but it did the job.

We also played our biannual game of poker.  I wasn't out first, but it was close.

Ryan took all of Dusty's money.  In grad school it was a running joke that Ryan had to be careful where he sat or Dusty would take all of his money, so the joke persists.

Weekend: cottage

This weekend the boys and I went up to the cottage.  (We left Ben at home, but I told him to text me frequently so I knew he wasn't dead.)

Isaac tried fishing for the first time.  He said it was meh.  To be fair, Dad also said it was meh because they caught zero fish.  However, Isaac did well casting.

It was supposed to rain in the afternoon, so we went to the sand bar in the morning.  Well, I joined in the boat ride but didn't get in the water.  It was warm but not hot, so I wasn't interested in getting wet.  Joshua went tubing after the sand bar, but Isaac was too cold.

After lunch was movie and a nap.  It was a long week and I really needed a nap.  After I woke up we played some games and the rain finally started.  We just hung out for the rest of day, even though it didn't rain for all that long.

Today we played bocce ball in the morning and just hung out again, watching the birds.  Isaac wanted to go tubing, so Dad and I brought him out for several loops around the lake.  Then lunch and home.

It was a very relaxing weekend.

Thursday: busy day 3/3

It was the last extra busy day!  I even had some things canceled.

I drove 35% of the battery today.  (update: this was about 84 miles.  Not too much as a whole, but a lot when it is just stuff around town.)

Ben was moved into a walking boot today, but he can't actually walk without pain yet.  We did get a knee scooter though, and he's very excited about that.

It was a rather boring day for having so much in it.

Wednesday: busy day 2/3

 Another busy day, with some ups and downs.

Isaac also had an up and down day.  He had most of his clay project finished (a giraffe), and it fell over, nose first.  The teachers were so kind.  They got the basic shape back and then let Isaac finish the details...all after class.  The teacher also is working tomorrow after class, and said Isaac could stay until he finishes.

A friend came over to work on a puzzle.  We got about half of it done.  If we had another forty-five minutes we probably could have finished, but I had to pick up Isaac.

I drove about 20% of the car's battery today.  I don't know what that means in meaningful data like time or miles.

Tuesday: busy day 1/3

Today was the first day of busy week.  The kids both have camps.  In some ways it's nice because then the rest of the weeks are more free, but it does make this week busy.

Joshua went to the library to make salsa.  (Pat came to bring him because I needed to pick up Isaac.)  Joshua has really enjoyed salsa lately so was thinking he'd be really excited about it...he was a bit relucent.  However, by the time he came home he was all smiles.  He had a great time.  Also, I thought it was some of the best salsa I've ever had.  Everyone else thought it was good but not great.  I could have eaten it for dinner, but did the responsible thing and ate real food instead.

vacation Monday: surfing and beach

Today there weren't plans to go anywhere.  Ben and Isaac had a surf lesson, but the location they selected was the pier so they could just walk 100ft and be in the right place.  I told Ben and Isaac that I supported them and I hoped they would have a lot of fun, but I wasn't going to watch - I was going to play in the ocean.  However, we did go over to their side of the pier for 20 minutes to watch while playing in the ocean and they did a great job.  Also, happily, we have other people in the group that were willing to take pictures so we got some great ones.

The boogie boards were in high demand, so I just jumped in the waves a bit and then pretended to read my book.  I only read about three pages; friends and kids are distracting, the ocean is distracting, being wet is distracting.  I brought it down a few more times, but never opened it up again.  (Please note the beach book is different from the one I was reading on my kindle.  Phones and beaches don't mix all that well.)

We spent the afternoon inside.  The girls went swimming again, and they all ended up with very sad sunburns...they had been well sun-screened up in the afternoon too!  (Actually, Joshua was burnt too, but that was more due to poor application of sunscreen.)  It reinforced my plan of not going out in the afternoon and putting on more sunscreen in the morning.

During the afternoon we played several games, read some books, and just hung out.

For dinner we pivoted our plans.  We picked up some Buffalo Wild Wings and then went back to the beach.  The beach in the evening was perfect.  All four of us played in the ocean for quite a while.

Monday: Joshua

 We got Joshua some new shelves for his room.  He worked really hard putting them together this evening.  He's doing a really good job doing most of the work by himself, although I needed to keep reminding him to put the front of the pieces in the front.

The other day we were listening to an audio book and Joshua has me pause the recording...

J: so, the what is the kid's dad?
A: The poor kid's dad is a chalk maker and the rich kids dad is a senator.
J: OH!!!  A senator!  I was wondering how a kid's dad could be a centaur.

vacation Sunday: travel

We had at 12:30pm flight, which was perfect.  We had time to wake up, finish packing, clean the house, and even do some LEGO.  It was lovely. 

Snaxalotl and Catnana didn't get to come because they are too big.  So they started vacation early 

We were most of the way to the airport when we got a notification that our flight was delayed two hours.  Did you know that most things are closed until noon on Sunday?  We finally found that Dave and Buster's opens at 10:30, so we headed over there for a bit.  It was a nice easy to spend and extra hour.  We also had non- airport food for lunch. 

We got to the airport and everything else went pretty smoothly.  The exact timing of departure was a little weird as it was pushed up and back a bit.  My most eye-roll comment was from the gate agent who was telling the people standing in line, "Hurry up!  I've only got 10 minutes to get everyone on board!"  as though we can go any faster.  It isn't our fault the plane was late.

We made it to Myrtle Beach and proceeded to wait 30 minutes for a gate.  I was annoyed.  Doug, Heather and Seth kindly waited for us though and didn't really care.  I mean, it meant we didn't have to help carry up the groceries.  Our family also didn't have to help get the groceries.  

As normal, we have pizza for dinner because groceries are sometimes still coming in.  Unlike previous years, we did not have any leftovers.  This was a common theme throughout the week - the kids are getting older and eating more!

We ended up taking the upstairs king room and it was a good choice.  It had a massive closet, which frequently doubled as a changing area since the kids' stuff was in our room.

I was also happy I got pictures before it got messy.  It was never too bad, but never as nice as the beginning.

Upstairs there was also an arcade game.  I think.  I honestly never looked at it, but heard it had a bunch of games.  The kids enjoyed it.

This was the downstairs main area with the table off to the left.  Not quite as big as last time, but still fit us all well.

The kids were chomping to go play in the ocean (almost literally), and we finally had everyone around.  The adults had been expecting to just go look at the ocean, but all the kids wanted to put on swim suits.  We didn't really have a good reason to say no, and they had a great time.

I spent some precious luggage space on big shovels.  It was the right call as they, especially the one in the picture, were used a lot.

Joshua was trying to be a seawall for their castle.  It worked at first, but the tide comes in surprisingly quickly.

Four of us went for a walk.

I'm writing this rather late, unfortunately, but I don't remember anything else of note.  The kids went to bed.  I told our kids to go to bed when they were tired and to not be the last kids up, and it worked well.

Sunday: cats

A cat nicely curled up on my lap while I was reading today.  So I read a bit longer.

 

After reading, Ben was goofing off with the kids and throw Catcachino at Isaac.  It rebounded perfectly into an empty bowl of ice cream, getting the bottom of Catcachino all dirty.  It was Catcachino's bad part of the day.  It was also Snaxalotl's bad part, because he wanted to end up in the ice cream.  Anyway, we cleaned Catcachino up and set him out to dry overnight.  Square and Spark showed up to keep him company.

Saturday: bread, pool

I got my first loaf of sourdough made today!  The bottom is inedible because the parchment paper is stuck to it and it was really hard to get out of the pot, but it is delicious.  The kids had some as their afternoon snack.

This evening we went to a pool party.  Ben broke his foot, but all things considered it will hopefully not be too bad.  It is in a place that can heal without surgery, per the urgent care doctor.  It'll just be six weeks of letting it heal.  After urgent care we even went back to the party and enjoyed the last hour with friends.  (And picked up the kids.  We knew the kids would get home, even if we weren't the ones bringing them home.)

Friday: climbing, bread

 Today we tried out a rock climbing gym in GR.  It was small, which wasn't bad.  The mats were a bit weird; they didn't go all the way to the edge and while I'm sure people fall in the middle, it felt off.  The walls were a bit short.  But there were two arches.  There were fun walls.  There were a bunch of easy routes, which I appreciate.

Joshua wasn't really enjoying himself, but I finally got him on the belay walls.  The walls were good and involved a lot of swinging so he started enjoying himself again.

We got home and I was happy to see that my sour dough sour was still activated.  I'm trying to make bread, but don't have timing down yet.  On top of that, I had too much starter.  So instead of getting rid of the extra, I started dough for a second loaf.  This seems like a very silly move since I haven't successfully made a first loaf yet, but here we are.

I was taking a few minutes between dealing with bread dough and starting the pizzas and sat down to read.  Tornado decided to make himself comfortable right on my chest.