Category Archives: Family

It’s gouda stuff!

Family, Food, Thoughts, ,

I was wandering through the grocery store the other day (which is really the only way I ever experience the grocery store) when I passed by the cheese area.  A certain joy overtook me as I saw that delectable red wax wheel covering, what I remembered to be, the cheese of the gods.  When I was a kid, my parents used to get a wheel of gouda cheese every now and then.  My brother and I waited patiently as mom and dad unwrapped the cellophane and sliced through the wax to cut out our wedges.  It was a bit of a delicacy when I was growing up so we got a fairly small piece each time so we could make it last several days.  I remember enjoying that whole experience so much.

That was supper one night

So, I bought a small wheel of gouda cheese the other day and did the routine, opening the wrapper, cutting the wax, doing all the stuff like when I was a kid.  You know what?  It was almost as good as I remember.  My tastes are probably a little more exotic now than they were when I was a kid but I think my “taste memory”  kicked in and made it taste far better than it really was.

Now I am no longer bound by rules of sharing or making it last or even letting anyone know I even bought the stuff.  It’s weird maybe, but I wanted to sort of keep it to myself a little.  Isn’t that weird?  Anyhow, I plowed through that wheel all by myself.  It was the first I had in a long time and was just sort of cool.  I think I will buy another wheel of gouda cheese though, and this time, I may just share small slivers with the kids.  We may try to make it last and talk about how special gouda cheese is.  I think my kids need to develop a “taste memory”.  I don’t know if they will ever have the love affair with gouda that I do, but I can try!  After all, not too many other foods can describe themselves…it’sa gouda!

Anyone else have a “taste memory” for something from when you were a kid?

Our woods

Adventure, Awesome, Family, Fun, Nature, Thoughts, WV, , , , ,

We spent our time at the property on Saturday walking in the woods.  Our plan was to walk more of the property line as we still haven’t seen the entire place.  We did hike the better part of the boundary and discovered all sorts of excellent things!  Except for the constant chatter of kids, the sounds of the woods were magnificent.  Actually, the chatter wasn’t so bad either as the kids were having fun.

When I was a kid, hiking in the woods was not high on my list of fun.  I played in the woods a lot but plain old hiking wasn’t good for me.  I was so surprised that Isaac and Abigail walked the entire 2 miles in the woods with only a small handful of complaints.  Incredible!

We did walk the better part of the lower edge of the place and saw all sorts of beautiful flowers and animal tracks of all sorts.  There were too many deer tracks to even keep track of but the kids tried to identify every print they came across.

That's Abigail's finger...she's the brave one

We spooked a turkey and saw the biggest centipede the kids had ever seen.  We found just a little bit of poison ivy and a lot of slippery moss.  Squirrels barked and birds announced our path through the woods.  All around us was noise but it felt like silence.  It was marvelous walking in our woods and this weekend was the reason we bought the place!  I am absolutely positive that my blood pressure is still lowered because of it!

Eight is Great!

Awesome, Family, Fun

I have been a bit behind in posting this…Abigail turned 8 this weekend!  Holy cow it is hard to believe how time has passed!  Abigail is a delight (except first thing in the morning) and she brings a smile to my face just thinking about her!

Abigail - age 4

Since this post is about her, I am going to brag a little.  I have said before that we are a bunch of reading fiends.  Both kids tend to get in trouble in school a lot for reading too much.  Normally one wouldn’t think of squelching a child’s desire to read, but my kids read non-stop, even when they are not supposed to be reading.  So, here’s the bragging part – Abigail has more Accelerated Reader points than anyone else in her whole school (not grade) and she is only in 2nd grade.  And I mean she has a lot more points!

Just this morning I had to fuss at Abigail to brush her teeth rather than read.  You see, she got a new book on the Greek and Roman gods.  She is entranced by their stories.  Her fascination with this one though, is that it has the gods’ names written in Greek letters.  She took it upon herself to learn the letters and sounds and copy every god’s name in Greek.  Isn’t that cool?

So, this weekend we had a big party for her at the local rec center.  We rented “the party deck” at the pool and invited family and a bunch of her friends.  Usually the place is not crowded but this weekend another group was there that illustrated every single bad stereotype of West Virginia.  Oh. My. WORD!  In spite of their antics, we had a great time and just stuck to our end of the pool.  It was so fun to see Abigail and a gaggle of little girls running around having an absolute ball!  We ate pizza and drank fizzy drinks and had rainbow colored cupcakes!

My folks and Emily’s people were all in attendance so I suspect we had 30-40 people all together.  Abigail, being a socialite, was delighted to make her rounds and it was really great to see her shine.  Instead of presents, she asked people to donate money to the Red Cross for Japan.  Isn’t she cool!?  Honest to goodness, it was totally her idea.  She started the trend with asking people to donate pet supplies for the shelter last year.  Isn’t she cool?!

Well, we are back to the daily drudge of being an 8 year old.  It’s a grind you know?  Still, I see her and I could not be more proud of that beautiful little girl.  Eight is indeed great!

We are so stupid…or…how my wife became the crazy cat woman

Family,

So just about a year ago, we found a little orange kitten on our doorstep.  We nursed it for weeks (my nipples are still sore), we helped it poop and it grew up to be an enthusiastic orange cat.  Somewhere around the same time we got a stray dog named Ginny from the pound.  She had parvo and fleas and whooping cough and scurvy and an ingrown toenail.  Well, she had some of that.  Anyhow, like Seph, the little orange cat, Ginny was fairly expensive.

We have had stray cats all around for quite awhile but today, one got too pathetic for us to watch any longer.  In a moment of weakness, we snatched her up and took her to the vet.  Several dollars later, we now have another cat in our household…another orange cat.

We have been calling this cat “Flash” since she first showed up on our doorstep last fall.  She was skinny and pathetic but seemed to perk right up with the food we left out for her.  She did great through the entire winter and seemed to be fine outside until recently.  We watched her go down hill for awhile but I could not stand seeing a cat die on my doorstep.  So, Flash makes 4 cats in our house.  FOUR FREAKIN’ CATS! (The other two)

Now you never hear about crazy cat men so I am sure this is all Emily’s fault.  She is the new crazy cat lady on our street.  We are so stupid…

Yellow one

Family, Fun,

When I was a kid, we always played “the punch buggy game” wherein you would search for Volkswagen bugs and smack the daylights out of your smaller, helpless brother, just hard enough to torment but not hard enough to leave a bruise so your mom and dad would ever know.  You know?  That game.  It was a bunch of fun but, of course, it became more and more rare to see them as time went on since they stopped production.  We stopped playing at some point.

Of course, VW now has the beetles and the advertising campaign that goes along with them.  Adults saying, “Green one” and slugging a co-worker’s arm.  My kids started playing that (was it a year ago?) and we still have a big competition pretty much every day to see who can rack up the most “hits”.  We do not actually hit each other but rather just collect points.

Some other friends play a game where they get points any time they see a yellow car.  We play that game too.  As we live near a 3 schools (who ever thought it was a good idea to put three large schools near each other?  I mean traffic…hello?!), there are numerous school buses which do indeed count.

Now, the holy grail of this game is the elusive yellow VW.  It’s double points you see.  We always require that someone else sees the car so no one can make up sightings, especially for yellow VWs.  For the kids, that puts them at a disadvantage since they are stuck in class all day or are riding with Emily or me who are always playing the game too.  I take a little extra liberty with the rules too.  All I need is proof of a sighting, so I take pictures of any yellow cars or VW beetles and text/email them to Emily and the kids.

All of these pictures are my trophies.  That’s right, I am on a constant VW safari across the hills and hollers of Charleston, West-by-God-Virginia.  I am on the hunt and I am a mighty hunter!

Does anyone else play these games?  All the time or just on trips?  Can you help fuel our madness?

Sore legs are nice sometimes

Adventure, Family, Nature, WV, ,

I had an itch.  I simply needed to walk in the woods.  This weekend was all sorts of busy but I was determined to get outside some and enjoy the sun.  Sure enough, the sun was out .  The wind couldn’t miss the fun though.  Honest to goodness, there were times when I thought I was going to blow away.

Anyhow, we wandered around in the hay field on our property for a little bit but the wind made it impossible to stay upright.  My parents tell a tale about taking my brother and me on a walk into the woods.  As the story goes, we started complaining while the house was still in sight.  Of course, as parents some times do, I think they embellished the tale a bit.  Still, we apparently were not good wilderness travelers.  My kids were flat out awesome and never complained once on our hike though.  We walked around for about 2 hours and the kids were awesome to watch.  Isaac plowed through the woods like a bull at first, but that slowed pretty quickly as he got into some serious thorns…Brer Rabbit he ain’t.  After he got some proper respect, it was pure delight to watch them as they wandered around and checked things out.

Isaac discovered the fun of crawling around in the stream that runs through the property.  I have a stream!  And a spring!  Somehow through the magic of the wood sprites, he did not get covered in mud.  Abigail, on the other hand was covered head to toe!  Anyhow, they were like  couple of…well, like a couple of kids in the woods!  Abigail found a bird’s nest that she wanted to put somewhere safe  She found a cool rock on which she could leave it. ( I have a rock!  And a stream!)  As she placed it just perfectly so the wind wouldn’t get ahold of it, she discovered a small snake.  I was sure she would freak but she was really cool and calm about it.  She wanted to touch it so I touched first so she would see that I am super cool and brave.  Both kids ended up touching the little snake and I figure he liked it too.

So, by the end of the day, we were all pretty tired and had sore legs from walking through the woods.  It’s one of those sore feelings though, that’s pretty nice when it comes down to it….plus, I have a stream!

Biker chick

Adventure, Family, Fun, ,

When we live in Nashville, we had a really nice situation for walking and learning to ride bikes.  We had a flat acre of land on a dead-end street.  I bet we walked 5 days a week while Isaac was learning to ride his bike.  We started with a Red Rider tricycle, graduated through various plastic trikes and finally onto a 2-wheeler with training wheels.  We spent a bunch of time riding, now and then raising the training wheels a little so he would have to balance more and more on his own.  One day he had enough and asked me to take the trainers off completely.  I figured we were in for a few skinned knees, but I kid you not, he jumped on the bike and never wrecked a single time!  He was about 5 when he figured it all out.

Isaac’s first time riding w/o training wheels – 2005

We moved to WV when Abigail was 3 so she didn’t have much time to ride bikes like Isaac did.  There is plenty of land here in WV.  In fact, there may be more land here than in Nebraska.  WV is just wrinkled into a small package that is straight up and down!  So, learning to ride a bike here requires that you find a flat piece of ground somewhere.  Last weekend, Emily was at a training class so the kids and I headed over to the track at the nearby high school.  Even at almost-8, Abigail was still in training wheels on her bike.  Before heading to the track, I raised her training wheels a little so she would have to balance a little.

Click the image for a movie!

(Click here if the above movie will not play on your machine)

We walked a few laps and Abigail was beyond fed up.  She got so mad she said, “I wish you would just take those stupid training wheels off.”  Being a good Boy Scout, I had a wrench with me so I had them off in 5 minutes.  I helped her a few laps around but she pretty quickly caught on and is now officially a bike rider!  Now that I have no more training-wheel-encumbered kids in the house, I think I have finally figured out that training wheels do more to slow kids from learning to ride a bike than they help.

So, Abigail is now a biker chick.  She loves riding and wants to go all of the time!  I am super happy for her and so proud that she got mad and decided what she wanted…and made it happen!  Bikes first…next, the world!

Guns…and dogs…and trucks

Adventure, Family, Fun, WV, , ,

Sounds like a country song doesn’t it?  You know, we lived in Nashville for 10 years or so and came away from the experience with a real interest in country music.  We like most sorts of music really, but country was only added after being around it for so long.

Anyhow, back to the point – guns.  The other two things came right out of my stream of consciousness.  Sometimes I get going on something and I can only tell I have gone off on a goose chase when I see others’ eyes glaze over.  It’s quite maddening really.  See, there I go again – off on a tangent.  So, guns…Isaac got a .22 rifle from Santa (sounds like a country Santa doesn’t it?)  He had been asking for a pellet gun but Santa figured he would outgrow that pretty quickly.  I know some folks might find it horrifying that Santa brought my son a gun but we are in WV and it is a part of the culture around these parts.  And besides that, I grew up in a similar culture so we’ll absolutely know how to properly use and care for a gun.  Rats, another tangent.

Last weekend we found a break in the weather and headed to the rifle range in Kanawha State Forest.  I had always heard that a person should not shoot there unless they are pretty well drunk, and it’s been a long time since I was there.  We took a chance though and found it in full use and very well managed by the folks who were shooting (i.e. it is not managed by anyone other than whoever happens to be shooting).  Everyone did a great job and we had a great time shooting.

We shot some at a paper target but really enjoyed the spinner target Isaac also got from Santa.  It was a lot of fun…until Isaac shot it right at the pivot point and filled the fulcrum point with lead – heck of a shot really.  Anyhow, Isaac now has his first gun and we had a great time shooting together!

Redneck Games

Family, Fun

Christmas has been a 2+ week thing for us this year.  Last weekend, we hung out with my family at my brother’s place.  This weekend, we stayed at home and did Christmas around our area with Emily’s family.  It was a great Christmas for us and the kids.  It was quiet yesterday and we just sort of took it easy…to recover.

You see, in the weeks prior, we (meaning me mainly) have been participating in the redneck games (as my brother-in-law termed it).  The first good snow a couple of weeks ago found us sled riding at my BIL’s house where there is a most excellent hill.  It’s hard enough to walk on in good weather which makes it dang near impossible in snow…which makes it the perfect sled-riding hill!  We went up and down a number of times in the usual way.  We went feet first and head first.  We tried sitting and laying.  Being one who folks can count on to act a fool, it occurred to me that we hadn’t tried standing up.

Yeah, it didn’t last long.  I rode a few short rides until my bones suggested that I had better knock it off.  I guess it looked pretty white-trash for me (still in full beard) to jump on a big plastic sled clearly not rated for stand-up usage.  I guess it could have only been better if I had a car hood to ride.  It was one of those, “hold on to my beer and watch this” sort of things (yes the hill is that steep) .

No bones were broken during that episode of redneck games so I tried again at my brother’s place.  He has a new 4-wheeler that seemed like it needed to be tested.  There was a little bit of snow on the ground…maybe 2-3 inches when we arrived at his place on Friday night.  We exchanged pleasantries and then got right to the destruction of his yard.  You see, we are both somewhat city-dwellers nowadays but we come from solid redneck roots and a 4 wheeler seriously magnifies that tendency.  We spun his machine around and drove all sorts of stupid (don’t tell my mom or kids or wife though).  Neighbors drove by and cheered us on (I figure they could see lights slinging around…plus it was 11pm when we stopped) which was all the encouragement I needed.  We only have pictures of the daytime riding when the kids were around…probably a good thing.

Ahhhh…the holidays are so nice!

A letter to Santa

Awesome, Family, Thoughts

I think all kids probably write letters to Santa at some time or another.  My brother and I always used to sit at my Mom’s typewriter with the JC Penny, Sears and Montgomery Ward Christmas/toy catalogs.  We’d pour over them for hours if not days.  I don’t know whether we were greedy or anything but I do know that the letters we typed were pretty much to the point…something like , “Dear Santa, here’s the stuff we want…”

Isaac and Abigail have been pretty varied in what they want for Christmas and how they ask for it.  One year when Isaac was much younger, he asked for batteries and a peach.  I guess we hadn’t replaced the batteries in his noisy baby toys soon enough to suit him.  That explains the batteries but I don’t know where he got the idea for the peach.  Anyhow, I still smile when I think about how simple his wants were back then.  Gosh, one year he asked for bottled water.  His tastes have gotten a little more sophisticated but he really only wants one thing this year…a pellet gun.  Now, he doesn’t want a Red Rider or anything like that.  In fact tonight, he quoted to me, “Dad, I think that pellet gun we saw at Gander Mountain (an awesome outdoor-sports store) shot pellets at 1600 feet per second.”  That’s no toy really at that point but still, he only wanted that one thing.  Isaac has never been much on writing stuff down so I think he had to hope that his Christmas wish-list made it through the ether to the North Pole.

Abigail's letter to Santa

Abigail, on the other hand, is very expressive in her writing, and, well, everything really.  So a couple of years ago she wanted an art easel which she loves to use.  Recently she has taken to writing notes to Emily and me on the dry-erase part so it is pretty common for us to see a very detailed message or a clever note in her hand-writing on the board.  A few weeks ago we noticed an updated message and I have to tell you, I laughed out loud and still get  huge smile on my face when I look at the picture.  You see, Seph, our little orange kitten is a full sized cat now but he still likes to bite a little and can be quite the terror.  I don’t think Seph was actually chewing on Abigail when she wrote the note to Santa, but I absolutely love her creativity.  The best part is, after all of the details of the note, at the bottom she adds all that she really wants for Christmas – a chess set of her own.  We probably have 5 others laying around but she wants a nice one that is just hers.  I suspect Santa will help her out on her wish.  And besides my pride in her excellent writing, I am so glad that she, like her brother, has such simple Christmas wishes.  Merry Christmas kids and my blog friends.  I hope your Christmas is a simple one heaped full of awesome and love.

Edit:  It turns out that Santa just passed through and he left this note:

Santa's letter to Abigail