Category Archives: Family

MANKs no more

Adventure, Family, Fun, , ,

For three days we have been MANKs – Married Adults, No Kids.  School starts Friday (why on Earth would anyone make the first day of school on a Friday?) and the kids’ summer camp closes the week before school.  As we both work, that left us in a bind.  Fortunately my parents are retired (mostly anyhow) so were willing to watch the kids for this week before school.  The good and the bad thing about that is that they are 350 or so miles away.

We headed to PA last weekend to deliver the kids.  Sunday afternoon rolled around and we headed back to WV.  It was the strangest thing…no movies were playing in the back seat, no one was kicking my seat, there was no complaining or fighting.  It was very odd.  Emily and I stopped at an outlet mall and I heard not one whiny, “Are we ever gonna leave?  I am sooo bored!”  I didn’t have to take anyone to the public restroom lecturing them not to touch ANYTHING!  Travel was so very weird.  I just wasn’t sure how to go about my trip.

Anyhow, once we got home, we “organized” the kids’ stuff some too.  Some things were put away properly and many things were filed in the plastic container out back.  You see, without the kids around, we get stuff done!

I miss my kids.  They are great and I love them tons.  Still, a few days as a MANK is a welcome change for us and for them…and I think my parents had fun too.  After all, they got some good child labor out of the deal!

Feet

Family, Fun, ,

I have pretty normal  feet…actually, my feet are nearly perfect, but that’s another story.  My kids have feet too and that’s what I am here to talk about today.

So, Isaac’s feet.  Isaac is 10.  He wears a size 10 1/2 shoe.  That’s an adult 10 1/2 by the way.  I only wear a 10 and I am done growing (up at least).  Isaac’s maternal line sports gunboats way back so it’s in his genes to have big feet but I expected a little time to save up for the process.  I am terrified of the cost of buying 2 foot long shoes for that boy when he reaches 17 (or 13!).  To put it all in perspective, I took a picture of Isaac’s feet alongside the feet of his two best friends this weekend when we went ice skating.  I suspect you will pick out the one that is different…

Of course, to grow a foot like that, a boy needs to eat…a lot!  I started gardening for the healthy, outdoorsy nature of it, but now we are forced to garden just to feed the bottomless pit!  Alas, a parent’s work is never done!

Now…about Abigail’s feet.  She has normal petite little 7 year-old feet.  We were at the WV Power (our farm team) game the other night and the wolf from a local radio station spied her tootsies.  I think they must have looked tasty though the wolf was clearly disabled.  Typically a wolf has a good sense of smell but this one was apparently unable to sniff very well.  He untied her shoes and retied her shoes and generally tried to get her riled up and (to my surprise) she let him do it!  We’ve had foot-happenings this week and that’s a little weird for me.

You see, feet usually disturb me.  I won’t force mine upon you, but let’s just say my “no-longer-the-biggest-feet-in-the-house” are doing just fine and will remain properly covered as all feet should be!  I am hoping next week we move onto something more tolerable like ear wax or something…no more feet!

I got me a nephew!

Family

I have been busy the last few weeks and have been pretty lame as far as posting stuff on here but I have an excuse…at least for yesterday.  Apart from that…just lame.  Anyhow, I am no longer a virgin uncle!  My nephew L was born yesterday (his date of birth is 8/9/10…how cool is that?!).  Until now, my kids have been the only grandkids on either side of the family.  They loved that for sure, but Abigail was SOOOOO excited to relinquish her title as the youngest kid in the family.

I have no idea what my role will be in this kid’s life, but I am super excited to do everything I can to keep his parents busy.  I am so excited to walk into their house and find it a disaster zone like ours always is.  I hope to teach him how to slide a frog into his mom and grandmothers’ pockets.  He’ll need to learn the proper way to shoot a spit ball and how to pick the gravel out of his elbows.  I also want him to have Isaac and me as allies apart from his parents.

Kids are truly a lot of fun.  Mine are great and I am so excited to see L grow up around my kids and for them to be pals.  I am excited to have someone I can help spoil (though I think he won’t need to much help from me!)  A growing family is always a great thing!

Covering one’s hind-end

Family, Fun, Thoughts, ,

Last Christmas, Isaac was given a membership to study Taekwondo under Grandmaster S.H. Kang.  He’s done really well and enjoys fighting and learning his forms (routines practitioners do to increase balance, focus, etc).  I have seen him split a number of boards and he is learning how to defend himself very well.

It occurred to me that his teenage years are coming up.  That time is, of course, always full of moody, brooding, hormonal fun.  I suppose many parents lose touch with their kids when they become teenagers.  TKD seems like an easy place where Isaac and I can find common ground so I started taking classes with him a couple of weeks ago.  I figure the exercise will be good and Isaac and I get a chance to talk on the way to and from the training studio.  If we ever find ourselves in a moody teenage fit or a dark alley, I also will have skills to…uh…calm the situation.  Plus, this is really a great chance for each of us (esp as he gets bigger) to be all manly and tough and express frustration in a controlled way.

So, I started taking lessons and I am here to tell you, TKD is a serious cardio workout.  I am not in bad shape but the free-fighting very nearly kills me each night.  It’s just constant exertion and challenging balance maneuvers.  I am certain that those movie scenes where people fight each other for several minutes is bogus (as if we needed evidence!)  Unless you are in great shape, a real fight doesn’t last long without oxygen tanks nearby!

Anyhow, I am learning my stuff and trying to get more flexible.  Isaac insists that I will have to bow to him when he becomes a black belt.  He probably will beat me there since he has 8 months head start, but I remind him that another TKD rule is that kids essentially bow to their parents…this part is going to be interesting!  Anyhow, I am here to tell you that even the stuff I thought looked simple is anything but…but at least I am covering my hind-end defense-wise and getting in better cardio shape so my Emily and the kids can enjoy me even longer!

A visit…

Family

Awhile back we went to visit my family in PA.  I grew up in the area just past the boonies.  I like going back because it gives the kids a chance to be surrounded by nature and to be free from the usual stuff in the city.  We took a bunch of pics of the kids doing what kids do when they are free to play!

So…there it is…our trip!

16 to life

Awesome, Family

Sixteen years ago Emily and I were married.  I joke and say that it seems like much longer than that.  I know that sounds bad and that’s the joke part of it, but in another way, it’s a good thing too.  We were married right out of college (only weeks after graduation).  We actually met the first day of classes in our freshman year and started dating 6 months later so we’ve been together for a long time…in fact, we’ve been together longer than we haven’t.

Anyhow, the other part of it seeming like we have been together for a long time is that we grew up together in a way.  We were still kids and had no idea about anything.  We shared so many of the really cool things about transitioning into adulthood (we shared the crappy things too of course).  I guess sharing all that makes us just feel timeless…like we’ve always been together.  That’s just super comforting (now that we’re all growed up and such).

I have done my share of really stupid stuff (that also seems timeless…it just never stops) but Emily seems to ride through the storms without too many frying-pan-against-Warren’s-head moments.  I wasn’t sure at first, but I am sure now that I want the maximum…16 years to life!

To the river gods

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

Last weekend we went canoeing with the kids and Emily’s aunt and uncle.  The Little Coal river is near where we all live so it is convenient and really, a pretty great river for canoeing.  Like most of the East, we have been hot and dry for quite awhile so I had pretty low expectations about the quality of the water on the trip.  I grew up in NW PA near the beginning of the Allegheny river.  It is pretty shallow and slow there so I have plenty of experience in carrying a canoe through shallow water.  I didn’t really want to carry a canoe full of my offspring over rocks and downed trees.

We threw our canoes in (actually, the kayak started down the river without us) and headed out.  The water was perfect!  My shallow-water-eyes were just flat out wrong.  There were spots that weren’t deep but in every case, there was a ton of room to navigate the river anywhere we wanted!  The last time we went on this river, the water was raging.  We absolutely could not  get out of the boats (and truth be told, probably shouldn’t have even been in the boats) and our trip down the river was speedy.  This time, we got to really enjoy the river!

There were a few “rapids” that we got to ride.  I wasn’t sure whether the kids would enjoy it but they laughed and Isaac yelled, “Caribou!” at the top of his lungs (yeah, it’s a 4th/5th grade boy thing I think).  We stopped at the end of several of the rapids and walked back up to ride down in the rapids sans boat.  Holy mackerel that was fun!  I had to hold on to the kids the first few times because they were wary, but in no time, they were itching to go on their own…we just had to catch them at the bottom!

At one point, we saw a few cassette tapes in the water.  I suspect that someones house or camp was flooded at some point as no one would just dump old Motley Crue cassettes.  Anyhow, the kids saw them and asked what they were…that’s right, my kids had no idea what a cassette tape was or why people would use them instead of cds or dvds.  That was a bit shocking to me but we had a great conversation about how life was when I was a kid (and that wasn’t super long ago…I can’t imagine if they had the conversation with my 96 year old Grandpa!)  I enjoyed telling them about sleeping in the back of the station wagon on trips and how our legs would burn and stick to the plastic seats…how we didn’t have A/C in the house  or cars and no cell phones or video games.  Abigail asked me, “How did you make it through?”  HA!  And our lives were still pretty easy compared to people before us!

Anyhow, it didn’t take long for Diva…I mean Abigail…to get tired.  She propped back in the kayak and toured the rest of the river “princess style”.  We ate lunch on the river and laughed and had a great time not worrying about a thing.  Our only donation to the river gods was one pair of old sunglasses.  They were easily satisfied with our sacrifice.  I think the river was just what we needed…and I can’t wait to go again!

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You may need to download Quicktime viewer if these videos don’t work for you…

I am part mermaid

Adventure, Awesome, Family, Fun, , ,

I think I was born to live on the beach.  I have been to the mountains and the cities and foreign lands (like New Jersey), but I think I relax and enjoy my time at the beach more than anywhere else.  If I could live at (or near) the beach, I wouldn’t hesitate.

I keep trying to do my best Percy Jackson routine under water…you know, where he holds his breath for 8 minutes because he is a demi-god- son-of-Poseidon (if you have no clue what I am talking about, check out the movie and books!)  I never seem to make it much past 45 seconds or so which must mean I am not a demi-god.

I guess that must mean I am part mermaid.  In fact, I tried on a seashell bikini top and it looked magnificent…they did throw me out of Red Lobster though.

Anyhow, we went to the beach last week so I felt like I had returned to my homelands.  We had tons of fun boogie boarding and body surfing and skim boarding and falling asleep under the tent and chasing crabs and watching for sting rays and reading mindless books.  Abigail finally discovered that she can ride the waves so the beach turned into a lot of adventure for everyone!

We usually sit around and read all evening but this year we added bocce to our evening fun list.  We all had a bunch of fun playing although Isaac was a little overzealous in his throwing of the bocce balls.  He and I did our victory dance several times which pretty well cleared the beach…so it was perfect!

The local wildlife was interesting though we found one that had stayed out in the sun a bit too long (which we didn’t realize at first…talk about funny as we tried to sneak up on him to get a picture!)  Anyhow, we saw sting rays and little fish and “diggers” and pelicans.  The shrimp boats were always nearby too…and we enjoyed the fresh shrimp indeed!

By the end of the week, things had started to get a bit silly…which meant it was the funnest time!  I don’t know who taught these kids to act this way…probably their mother…

Bullseye!

Adventure, Family, Nature, WV,

The kids first started archery about a year ago.  Since then, Isaac has participated in “Archery in the Schools” and the state tournament.  Abigail’s school doesn’t have that program yet but she loves to shoot when she can.  Back when we started this deal, I thought it would be a good family-together thing to do.  We didn’t really have the equipment or a range to make all that happen (I figure the city frowns on shooting a compound bow in the back yard).

Fast forward a bit…Isaac and Abigail both received bows as presents from their grandparents.  Last weekend Emily and the kids surprised me with an early father’s day present…my own bow!  And it’s camo!  The day they gave it to me, I decided we needed to make the “family shooting thing” happen (I wonder what sort of weird google searches will bring people to this page now!)

On Sunday we headed to Kanawha State Forest with Emily’s parents to be devoured by the mosquitoes try our luck at target shooting.  We started off a bit rough (and that was before we even started shooting), but once we got into the groove, we had a great time!  Isaac was able to do some “shooting while moving” exercises during which he shot a good bullseye from 15-20 yards.  Abigail did great also.  She is finally strong enough to draw the bow such that every single arrow she shot stuck!

Granddad and I had fun…that’s all I’ll say about that.  We didn’t have to comb the hillside which was covered in poison ivy and some sort of ridiculous scratchy plant which would make a nun cuss, too many times searching for arrows.  We did donate one arrow to the archery gods but we gained someone else’s previous sacrifice so it was a wash, arrow-wise!

Anyhow, it was a great time and we have a date to go back out this weekend to shoot some more!  I think we may have hit the nail on the head for a good family hobby!