The 43

Last week, we went to Lagoon, an amusement park here in Utah. It's a very old amusement park, which is part of the charm. Yes, it's been updated and updated over the years, but it feels nothing like Great America, the Six Flags in Illinois that my wife and I grew up going to. The park is a little smaller, the rides are a little smaller, the corporate immensity of Six Flags is absent. I imagine this is what amusement parks 50 years ago were like, before Disney and Six Flags and mega-parks took over. We had gone to Lagoon last year, through a function of my wife’s workplace. It was fun, Eldest had a blast, though he was mostly relegated to kiddie rides. He was able to go on some bigger rides, like the Scrambler and the Tilt-a-Whirl, but most of them required him to be 46 inches tall. So when we went back this year, we were hoping he’d be tall enough to go on some more rides. He missed by two inches. It was odd, too, he needed to be that tall to go on a Wild Mouse rollercoaster. A...

Yes, I haven't posted in almost two weeks. Just off kilter with my routine somewhat, while (and this is getting old, I know) working on the NFL blog. Plus, I've been, well, not uninspired, just a little less creative lately. Not writer's block, just off kilter. Summer is almost over, it went quick. This month is sailing by, Eldest starts preschool in two weeks, college football and the NFL start up soon, and I'm wondering when the last time to mow my dry lawn will be. August always goes fast, it did as a kid, when you knew school was coming, but I can't explain why it does as an adult. We've had a couple of moderately cloudy days here, but not like a Midwestern cloudy August day. One of Wife's friends in Chicago called her yesterday, said it was 73 and cloudy -- a typical August day in Chicago. And those, unfortunately, were the days I always remembered about August, at least before school kicked in, when it inexplicably got sunny again. Those cloudy days th...

Vacation just ended, or so it seemed. It's already been a week since we returned from the Midwest. I'm always surprised a) how quick the few days after vacation seem to go; and b) how tricky it is to get back into a normal routine. It doesn't help there is no routine now -- not swim lessons, tumbling classes, preschool, etc. It's finally starting to feel like I'm off vacation time and back to normalcy, however that is defined. Did the big grocery day today, bigger considering we only bought the basics last week after we got back to get us through few a few days. Still wish I was posting more, but as usual, I've been focusing my energies elsewhere, at least temporarily. Plus, even though there's stuff I want to write about, I just haven't had the will so much, maybe just post-vacation blahs (though I'm not that blah that we're back -- it was a great trip, it had to end, it's good to be home). I guess that will come around as the routine does, ...

The vacation was great. But no vacation would be complete without some misadventures. There was Wife tripping over a very small tree stump while carrying Littlest at a park in Thorp, Wis. (She skinned her knees pretty good, but didn't drop the baby). There were meltdowns by overtired kids (on any trip like this, avoiding overtired kids is tough). There was our rental car losing power in stop-and-go traffic in Minneapolis (it started right back up thankfully, and no, we weren't near I-35W). And then there was the saga of my cell phone. We arrived at Wife's sister's family, and while the ladies went to the store, I took the kids swimming in their inflatable 3-foot pool. As I was getting ready, I put my phone in my pocket, thinking I wasn't dumb enough to not take it out of my pocket before I got into the pool. I brought it along in case of an emergency, that was a responsible thing to do, right? Turns out, I was that dumb. All the kids were in the pool (except Littles...

The long trip to the Midwest is finally over. And at the same time, it went too quickly. When we first planned this, 12 1/2 days seemed like such a long time. Indeed, it was the longest vacation we'd ever endeavored. Now that it's over, and we're back in our comfortable home, I'm amazed how quickly it really went. It just seems like we were here very recently, when it was almost two weeks ago. Maybe vacations simply aren't meant to go slow. Anyway, there's a lot I want to blog about our trip, but not tonight. We had a good flight back, arriving early, got home, and have done very little the last five hours. The boys are sleeping, Wife is finishing the final Harry Potter book, and I'm settling down to go to bed early, too. Though I don't work again for a couple days, starting tomorrow, it's time to get back to work.

Going through another posting lull, mostly because I've really thrown my efforts into the NFL blog and there was much other stuff to do this week. Today, I'm going to write about one of Eldest's favorite songs. No, not from Paul McCartney, but from children's television. For several weeks now, Eldest out of the blue will start singing "Hold tight, hold tight, hold tight, hold tight." We couldn't figure out what song he was singing. I thought maybe "Hold on Tight" by ELO, but when was he going to hear that and internalize it so much. Maybe it was something he learned a Terrific Tots? We had no clue. Then, Saturday morning, Wife wakes me up, and on the TV is "The Backyardigans." On this kids show, the Backyardigans are singing "Hold on Tight (hold tight)" The characters are pretending to be Vikings and are stuck in a ocean whirlpool. It now made more sense: Every time Eldest sang this song, he was running in a circle around a di...

Eldest's new favorite movie is "101 Dalmations." My new least favorite movie is "101 Dalmatians." We decided to get some of our older Disney videos, the ones on tape, not DVD, into circulation. Though some are scary and not quite allowable for a 3-year-old, we decided "101 Dalmatians" he could handle. He's handling it very well. Since its first airing in our house last week, he's watched it about 15 times, always asking for the "puppy movie." It was cute at first, now it's becoming tedious. I've seen "101 Dalmatians" more in the last week at least three times more than I did in my childhood. I joked today that I'm about to start rooting for Cruella, which didn't sit well with Wife. We've tried to deflect Eldest into "Lady in the Tramp" -- no luck, we think he might think it's too scary -- and "The Aristocats" for which the jury is still out. Oh, Littlest likes the opening credits ...