Here, There, and Everywhere

I admit it…I was a blog slacker for a couple of days last week.  So, as a reward for your patience, here’s a look at the daily life that was keeping me busy over the past week and a half or so. Tomorrow, I’ll be back with something crafty!

  
My kindergartener invited me tea to at his class for Mother’s Day.  It was lovely, with bonnets and corsages made by the hooligan and refreshments made by his teachers.  They sang a few adorable songs and then read to us.  He read “The Grouchy Ladybug,” which is one of our favorites…”Want to fight?”  comes up often in conversation at our home.

I was thrilled to see that my job is to “craft stuff” according to him.  Most of the moms’ jobs involved cleaning. I was just happy it didn’t say “Laying on the couch eating bonbons and watching TV.”

    
On Mothers’ Day, everyone pitched in to get the garden ready to plant. It’s only about 10 feet on each side, so it’s not like they had to cultivate 40 acres by hand. They found lots of long, fat, wriggly worms, so I think our vegetables will have some excellent soil this year…no excuses for puniness!

After Princess Thundercloud had a timeout for flinging dirt with her shovel, they all lost interest and played Ring Around the Rosy. Oh, well.
                   

Last Friday was Field Day at the hooligans’ school, so Thundercloud and I had a fabulous time watching the boys compete in running, jumping, and throwing.

The kindergartener had apparently been working on his technique with his fourth grade buddy…his form certainly looks a lot better than he would have learned from me.  Oh, wait, I don’t run unless someone is chasing me.

As soon as Field Day was over, we packed up our gear and headed to the Wisconsin Dells for an Army Strong Bonds Family Wellness Retreat. What a great program the Army has.  We had classes for a few hours each day, then lots of free time to spend as a family.

 
We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge, so spent large blocks of time in the waterpark.  The boys are fearless on the slides, and Thundercloud loved body-surfing in the wave pool.  I was just thrilled to get to wear a swimsuit. Not really. As the kids get older, though, I have to admit it’s much more fun to go to the waterpark with them.

We also went on a boat tour of the Upper Dells, largely to see this amazing feat.  These trained dogs leap from point to point.  My mother-in-law told us not to miss this.  As a little girl in Chicago, she came to the Dells and saw the same thing.  Not the same dog, of course.

Even more amazing was the backstory.  Way back when, someone in the Dells invented the first camera that could capture motion in a still shot.  That’s pretty cool, but the amazing part was that to demonstrate it, he made his thirteen-year-old son leap back and forth SEVENTEEN times to capture the perfect shot. 

Can you imagine what the kid’s mom said when she heard and saw the photograph?  I wonder if she then offered to take a perfect shot of her husband making that leap seventeen times?  And was she going to use a camera or firearm?

As a last stop before starting home, we had lunch at our favorite barbeque joint, Famous Dave’s.  We’ve been to this chain all over the country, and, to be honest, most of the were mediocre at best, so we were disillusioned. When we lived in Kansas, the one at the Texas Speedway was outstanding and we were thrilled to find the one in the Dells just the same.

This hooligan’s nickname is Porkchop, and he loves ribs…so he was one happy camper yesterday!  Even if he was to exhausted from the weekend that his eyelids were closing.

So there’s a glimpse at our busy life…hopefully this week will be a little slower, because next week field trips then end-of-school activities really kick in. It’s been a great couple of weeks, though, with lots of family togetherness and counting our blessings…I hope you’ve had the same!