Low-Tech Vacation Fun

As summer winds down, there are many things I never got around to writing about. Probably the biggest oversight was not posting anything about our late June week in Door County, Wisconsin, arguably the best week of the summer for all in the RedPlanet household.

Just two years ago, in fairly different economic times, there was talk about how tourism was way down in Door County, with many involved in their tourism industry wistfully theorizing it was because the times had passed it by. No waterparks, no movie theaters other than the charming old fashioned drive-in, no mega-malls or chain stores or chain restaurants, no rollercoasters or video arcades or any of the other things today's modern quick-cut, low attention-span kids are thought to need to have fun. Instead it is quiet and old-fashioned and full of low-tech fun, with endless cherry orchards, charming shops, friendly people, sunsets, art galleries, Lake Michigan, lighthouses, antiques, boats, fish boils, and boundless natural beauty. Two years later, while tourism is still down, now for economic reasons, its slower pace and throw-back retro-vacation style couldn't seem more perfect.

How can kids be bored when there is an endless supply of rocks to throw into the water? Or at the Fyr-Bal Festival in Ephraim where summer is welcomed by the lighting of bonfires at dusk in a ring around beautiful Eagle Harbor followed by low-tech old-fashioned fireworks. Where there is an endless supply of fried-perch sandwiches, cheese curds and ice cream. Not to mention Al Johnson's Swedish restaurant with its goats grazing on the grass roof, cherry stands with every kind of cherry-themed food you can imagine, the fish boil at the White Gull Inn, where the boil-over sends flames shooting ten feet into the air, the car ferry to the desolate beauty of sparsely-settled Washington Island, the Ephraim town-hall sing-a-long, on and on. We read in hammocks, scrambled down the rocks to watch the waves crash against the rocks at Cave Point, played miniature golf on a course that, though well-kept, looks exactly like the ones we played when we were kids ($4 and a free prize for the kids!), watched "Up" snuggled all together in the van at the Skyway Drive-In, checked out the yachts tied up in the harbors, caught fireflys, and meandered through the Anderson Dock museum.

One of the coolest experiences we had was when we came out of a store to find a crowd of people gathered around a small lake. A Golden-Crested Merganser duck mother had shoved her seven two-day old ducklings out of their nest in a tree 75-feet above the lake and was manically flying in circles and squawking in an effort to get the ducklings to come out of the lake and follow her 100 yards across a lawn, busy street, and parking lot to Lake Michigan. They eventually got the idea and trotted in a little group across the lawn towards the Lake as the onlookers dashed into the street to hold traffic while they passed. They all made it safely to the Lake and swam off behind their mother out farther than we could even see.

Best of all was the time just to be. Drinking wine with our parents after the kids went to bed, playing cards, talking and laughing, golfing, and just reconnecting with myself and as a husband, dad, son, brother, Uncle and son-in-law with Deanna and the boys, my parents, my sister and her family, and my in-laws. Priceless.

You know you have squeezed the most out of a day when, as we approached the door of our house one night and suggested to our usually sleep-adverse boys that the last one to bed would be a rotten egg (a lame motivational tact that has almost never worked), Owen responded "the last one to bed is crazy." Here are a few pictures:

Bonfires dot the perimeter of Eagle Harbor during the Fyr-Bal Festival

Eating outside with my Mom, Dad (obstructed view), Sister Suzanne, Brother-In-Law Bill, and lots of kids

Owen at sunset

Me and the guys.

The twins throw rocks, practicing for their fall-back careers as professional protesters.

Owen, with cousins Kurt, Emma and Kirsten. And a hammock.


Hayden takes his beach going very seriously.

Deanna and her mom on the car ferry to Washington Island.

The guys and their cousins on the playground at the drive-in movie theater.

Ice Cream at Wilson's!

Surfs (not) up!

Mom and two-day old ducklings.

Cooper after shooting the curl.

The Continuing Adventures of RedPlanet: Kiddie Comedian, Part II

This month's joke comes from dedicated Cloud Eight fan Gail. Thanks Gail! Your complimentary Cloud Eight logo mug is in the mail.

Me: "OK guys, I've got another joke."

[vague looks of anticipation]

Me: "What is brown and sticky???

Cooper: "Uhhhh..."

Me: "Any guesses?"

Owen: "A horse?"

Me: "Any other guesses, brown and sticky???"

Hayden: "Brown tape?"

Owen: "How about a butt??"

Me: "No, a STICK."

[Blank looks]

Owen: "Sticks aren't sticky. Oooohhhh."

Cooper: "How about a candle?"

Really, this was pretty good material, so now I am starting to think the problem must lie with my delivery. I guess I will have to refine the routine a bit before I start taking those birthday party gigs.

The RedPlanet Boy Band Project

We recently acquired a piano - a Hamilton upright - for free. Actually, free is relative, as it cost $280 to move it (a bargain compared to some of the quotes we got!) and another couple hundred for tuning (yet to come).

Anyway, the boys interest in our recent acquisition, as expressed by plinking on it at all hours, has me thinking about working on fashioning them into a “Hanson” type-juggernaut. As I read back over that last sentence, I realize I am badly dating myself with my Hanson reference. Strike that and substitute "Jonas Brothers." While sibling bands may come and go, I am reserving for myself the timeless role of bitter and demanding father driving them to success until they ditch me for a superstar agent/manager after making it big – see, e.g. the Jackson 5, Beach Boys, ummm, Jessica Simpson(?), etc. Could I be channeling my own frustrated musical ambitions in attempting to create a supergroup within the four walls of our little house??? Only time and speculation on an episode of VH1's Behind the Music 40 years from now will tell. Hmmm. Is that show even still on now? I may be dating myself again. I really need to get a better handle on pop culture if I am going to have this thing happen.

Days later.... The project is off to a slow start, as two of the boys appear to be fairly tone deaf. The third, Hayden, is more promising, as not only does he appear to be musically inclined, he also does nothing but play the CD soundtrack to Disney's Mary Poppins on a constant loop at loud volumes, chuckling to himself over what he finds to be clever turns of phrase like "spit spot." Clearly not troubled by an affiliation with the Mouse, he is my pick to click for the "talent" portion of the group as well as a starring role in an as yet to be determined TV series I will pitch to Disney. "That's So Hayden!", "Hayden Hawaii" or perhaps "The Suite Life of Cooper and Hayden" - still working on my treatments for these.

More days later... The room the piano is in, once called the "sunroom", I have now rechristened as the "music salon." It includes in addition to the piano, an accumulation of two boxes of rhythm instruments, a small electronic drum set (present from my parents two Christmas' ago - thanks Mom and Dad for continuing to indulge my impractical whims and gift requests even at age 43! You guys are the best!), a casiotone from the mid-80's (still functioning), two trombones, and an acoustic guitar. Sadly, other than a pair of cymbals and the piano, not many of the instruments are getting a vigorous workout. Having given up on any of them actually playing, I am busying myself taking photos of the room in anticipation of a request by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to recreate it as part of their exhibit when the boys are inducted 40 or so years from now. While the prospects of this seem rather remote, better safe than sorry.

More days later... The project has been scrapped in favor of summer. May revisit in the winter. Stay tuned. See you at the pool!

Paige!

Six years ago, when Owen was about four months old, he started in day care. Some months later, a little girl named Paige joined him in the daycare baby room. They were soon fast friends and, except when separated by circumstances (Owen's move to the toddler room, their inability to drive, etc.), they were inseparable and seemed to share a special bond. We, likewise, became quite fond of Paige's parents, Betsey and Brent. After awhile, when they weren't preoccupied with stirring up trouble at the daycare, Paige and Owen were making plans to marry, with Owen going so far as to plan out such details as the names of their future twins (Coasterball & Googly-Goo). When our own twins were born three years ago, Owen left day care in favor of our current in-home care situation, and he and Paige saw each other less often. Then, last year, Brent got a job in Boston and the whole crew moved east, leaving Owen sadly behind. Separated by multiple states, a good many miles, and poor phone-talking skills, Paige and Owen have grown less close now, corresponding at first in dictated letters, then in handwritten giant-kid print letters, and now barely at all. Still, despite some passing infatuations with others (such as this), I know that Paige still holds a special place in Owen's heart. As Hayden was prattling on recently about marrying Cooper one day (while they say you should marry your best friend, there would have to be quite an evolution in the law to allow that particular marriage to happen!), Owen idly remarked that he would probably marry Paige.

Anyway, I write all of this now because on Saturday, Paige (along with her little sister and Betsey) are coming by for a visit during a Midwestern jaunt. Rather than tell Owen outright, we decided to play "Whose Coming to Visit 20 questions." Granted, it was his first time playing 20 questions, but he was alarmingly bad. He seemed to only vaguely grasp the concept of a "yes or no" question (he is smart, really he is). After 10 questions, he had only established that there were not 2, 5 or 6 people in the visiting family, that they did not live in Chicago, and did live in America. When he could conjure up yes or no questions, he would not ask logical things that would actually help narrow it down like "is it a girl?" despite some very obvious prodding and instruction from us. Instead, he would ask bizarre things like "do they live in Indiana?" (where he knows no one) or "do they have a British accent?" (again, knows no one with a British accent). Finally, with some serious help from Deanna, he ascertained it was Paige. Much excitement ensued, including his statement that there was no way he could go to sleep now and a wish that he had a time machine to flash forward to next weekend. His excitement and anticipation level have remained high all week.

So, it will be interesting to see what a year and a half absence and a year and a half of aging does to their bond. Will it seemed like they haven't missed a beat or will they be struggling for common ground? Details to follow next week. Meanwhile, here are a few photos from the Paige and Owen gallery:

Stars in their eyes.

Troublemakers. This one was taken moments after Paige and Owen knocked over our Christmas tree and moments before Owen whacked his head on a coffee table and was taken to the emergency room.

Their first house. Rather small, but when you are starting out, who needs a lot of room.

Halloween, 2005.

Cooking together.

BFFs!

Last night together, April 2008.

The Continuing Adventures of RedPlanet: Kiddie Comedian

Me: "OK boys, I've got a joke."

(three expectant little faces turn my way)

Me: "Two carrots are taking a bath. The first carrot says to the second carrot, please pass me the soap. The second carrot looks at him and says 'I can't, I'm a carrot.'"

(silence)

Me: "Get it? They're carrots, they don't have arms."

Owen: "Oh. Well maybe he could kick the soap over with his foot."

Hayden: "Or his knee."

Cooper: "Yeah, knee."

Owen: "Or they could put the soap in a well and it would come out of the shower with the water."

The Return

I have always set the posting bar low here at CloudEight, eking out an average of just over 2+ entries a month. So, given what has to be the modest expectations of my dedicated readers, when I start receiving e-mails from them asking what gives with the long absence, I take notice, dust-off the old keyboard, and start typing.

While I can offer any number of excuses for a lack of writing, and have not shied away from doing so in the past, my best bet this time around is simply to note that summer has, at long last, arrived here at our little outpost in the northern tundra. Given that summer in Chicago is approximately 4 weeks long, we tend to react when it does arrive like a ravenous dog that has been thrown a State-Fair sized turkey drumstick - attacking it with all the energy we can muster, ripping great gaping mouthfuls of tender meat from the bone.

For those of you who are literalists, "tender meat" = "summer fun." For those of you who are still struggling with this concept, I offer the following example: I kicked off the fourth of July weekend by going to the American Music Festival at Fitzgerald’s, where I was lucky enough to catch the Texas-blues of the Marcia Ball Band, the alt-country of Robbie Fulks, and the manic New Orleans funk of Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, down a few cocktails and hang out with friends. During the course of the remainder of the three day weekend, we had a family bike ride, went out to eat, attended a town picnic/concert on Friday night, a parade, a family fun-fair, an all-day long party at my in-laws on the 4th followed by fireworks, and a Sunday brunch with friends. I also ran a 5K and we took a family trip to the pool. All this in addition to the more mundane but unavoidable tasks of child maintenance (including keeping them fed, their noses (and butts) wiped, and ensuring they don't stink so much that we aren't invited back places) and house maintenance (including grass cutting and the most recent installment of my weekly battle with the back license plate of our van, which persists in its taunting of me by hanging from one rusty bolt every time I think I have it securely reattached). Thankfully the weekend also included three family naps or I may have been dead at this point instead of merely exhausted.

From the "How Long Can I Get Away With This" file:
While we were driving to a 4th of July picnic in another of the seemingly endless bouts of pouring rain, Cooper asked from the back seat "Daddy, why is it raining?" He may have meant "why is it raining when we are supposed to be going to a fun picnic?", "what makes it rain?", or "what made you decide to raise us in the new Seattle of the Midwest?" Not in the mood for science or, frankly, for delving into the motivation behind his question, I gave it a theological and holiday spin by answering: "Because God hates America." That effectively shut him down for the rest of the ride.

Cold, Cars and Evil Cackles

Dropping by with some brief thoughts from a chilly CloudEight:

I am not sure which is more annoying: Having to wear coats in June or people who point to any spate of unseasonably cold or cool weather as some sort of "proof" that global warming is not occurring.

The boys have been entertaining themselves recently while we drive by enthusiastically shouting "C'mon lady, lets move!" at the cars ahead of us every time a traffic light turns green. This is allegedly a behavior they learned by hearing me shout it at a fellow driver(s). While the statement is maybe not the greatest behavior for the boys to be modeling, I comfort myself with the fact that they could certainly be repeating much, much worse statements I have made. So far, so good on that front - so don't cross me on the road.

Sharing is hard for three year olds and, I'm guessing, even harder for three-year old twins since there is not a lot that seems uniquely "yours." While the little guys are okay at it, they are constantly on guard for any perceived advantage one is being given over the other, as well as opportunities to assert their individuality. When I had just Cooper on errands recently, and a local business owner gave him a sucker, he promptly told me he was going to save it to show Owen and Hayden and then proceeded to let loose what can only be described as an evil cackle at the thought of lording it over them. His plan had the desired effect, resulting in jealous whining, tears and demands for suckers from his brothers. Meanwhile, Hayden, the more obviously selfish of the twins, has slowly come a long way in his sharing ability. Several times in the last couple of weeks, however, he has apparently been having twin-sharing nightmares that have caused him to shout out things in his sleep along the lines of "No, Cooper, No! Don't take the whole thing!"

Dell-Tastic!

We spent the long memorial day weekend at a water park in beautiful Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. In my usual hardcore Vacation Dad way, I had the sleepy kids and sleepy wife loaded in the car and on the road prior to 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. At 10:04 a.m., an excited Owen announced his full transition into vacation-mode by declaring to all of us that he could no longer remember what our house looked like. In a sign that we had chosen our long weekend destination well, at 10:37 a.m., as we rolled past the first tacky and gargantuan water parks on the fringes of the Dells, Owen yelled "We're in Wisconsin Dells baby! I have to scream!"

By 12:30 p.m. we were waterparking it. You might say things went downhill (waterslide pun intended) after that, since by 2 p.m., I had a black eye (Owen's skull met my eye socket as he launched himself up out of the water for no apparent reason), a badly bruised foot (I'm a little fuzzy on the origins of that one) and was gagging into a toilet with motion sickness after Owen and I had a nasty run-in with one of those vortex water slides that sends you spinning around a giant bowl-like room a number of times before sucking you backwards down into the dark and then spitting you out of a tube back into the light. While the spinning portion of the ride that made me nauseous did not seem bad at the time, the drainpipe portion at the end definitely was a bit hairy, as I desperately tried to hold a screaming, low-swimming skills Owen in the raft during the dark backwards descent and our raft then flipped as we shot out into the pool at the bottom. Owen christened the ride "Mt. Death," announced to Deanna that it had "drowned" him. and quickly dialed down his water slide ambitions to a more manageable level.

The twins meanwhile, recovering from nasty colds, were still sporting ugly coughs throughout the weekend. While not an issue in the noise and chaos of the water park itself, it did not endear us in restaurants and shops, as I am sure a number of people subjected to their open mouthed fits were wondering why the boys were out and about with us rather than in a consumptive ward somewhere.

Other than those minor glitches, we had an awesome time. We took an olde-timey picture - formal western gear (including rifles!) in front of a stage coach, realizing a long-held but heretofore unvoiced dream of Deanna's to have an olde-timey family picture taken. We played mini-golf and arcade games. We took in the supremely cheesy Tommie Bartlett Water Show, which appeared to be unchanged from 30 years ago with the bizarre exception of a randomly inserted song by Lady Gaga. The boys played happily in the hot tub of our rented condo one night and ate mini-boxes of bad cereal for breakfast each morning (Cocoa Puffs still suck after 40 years!). We ate at a buffet where Owen fell in love with crab legs, a fine compliment to his long-established passion for shrimp. Swam in an outdoor wave pool. We watched bad TV, including one night when Deanna and I stayed up way too late after getting hooked on a terrible movie called "Head Over Heels" starring Monica Potter and Freddie Prinz, Jr. Feel free to google it - you can watch it free on the internet if you too have the urge to waste two hours of your life!

In one sign that the glorious cheesiness of the Dells may not hold sway over today's kids the way it did over our generation, when we suggested driving to the "Lost Canyon" attraction to take the half-hour horse and buggy tour through it, Owen asked why, if the canyon was really lost, we had a brochure about it and declared the whole thing to be nonsense. This moment of sober reflection was thankfully rare compared to his and the twins boundless enthusiasm at the rest of the trip, including their glee at playing on the ratty old mini-golf course that actually passed off a street light pole planted in the middle of a green as one of many "exciting" obstacles.

All in all, an awesome start to summer.

Here are a several photos of the trip:

Yes, the Dells actually ARE beautiful, despite the cheesiness of the town. This is the view from a river dock at our hotel.

Brothers and best friends.

Money saving vacation tip: While the kids are still young and gullible, you can convince them the oversized bathtub in your hotel room is actually a "waterpark."

How do you know you have crossed the border into Wisconsin? Giant cow statutes every 7 miles.

Apparently concerned about making a claim it could not back up, this business cautiously boasts that "Only in the Dells can you get a Polish Taco in a Caboose." Take your best shot, all you other polish taco stand in caboose owners.

Inside the polish taco caboose, the boys don railroad hats for a family photo snapped by the owner while our polish tacos were cooking. The hat makes Owen in particular look like he stepped out of a picture of Soviet youths circa 1936.

Me giving my usual rousing interpretation of "Bear Snores On," one of our all-time favorite children's books.

Ain't No Party Like a Pee-Pee Party

It appears that I have only been able to muster a single post in the last month. Where have I been? Well, there was that period where everyone was a little sick. And then there was that stuff at work. The refusal of Hayden to sleep except during a random two hour window every two weeks or so has also contributed. So, honestly, has the improving weather. Oh, and several times I was simply distracted by TV and just didn’t feel like posting.

So what has been going on on CloudEight, you ask?? Hmmm. To touch on a couple of our favorite themes, there have been two incidents of puking in the car since my last post, along with all of the post-puking clean-up fun that car puking incidents lead to. There has been one trip to the emergency room: Cooper v. coffee-table = 3 staples to the back of the head. Yuck. Second trip to the emergency room caused by this particular table, by the way, as it also sent Owen there with a wound to the forehead three years ago. Either we are slow learners or the coffee-table has blood-lust, not sure which. Cooper and Owen have since been engaging in sometimes heated arguments as to who was hurt worse by the coffee-table, and we would certainly be wise to move it before Hayden, who loves a good argument, intentionally self-inflicts some damage to his own head just to get in on the action.

Mostly, though, I have spent the past month hanging out in the bathroom. The good news on that front is that I may have actually changed my last diaper, retiring after a respectable career. I can’t say that I have put up hall-of-fame numbers, mind you, as I only have three kids after all, but I have certainly worked it hard. I have left it all on the changing table, so to speak, and have no regrets. Well, there was that one time I guess, that I regretted my lack of vigilance and failure to note a penis aimed at my head. And there were certainly times I regretted having a sense of smell. Other than that though, it has been tedious but sweet, as a swift change of a diaper has long been one of my parenting strengths.

Anyway, my career is coming to an end not due to me losing a little something on my fastball or some sort of marital decree laid down by me that henceforth, only the women in the family shall change diapers. Instead, the twins went from reluctant and seemingly unready to potty-train to wearing nothing but underwear in the space of a week. Seriously, it was that fast. That was three weeks ago and not an accident since.

My changing of diapers has been replaced, however, by endless trips to the bathroom, during which the guys proudly eek out the thimble full of pee that has trickled into their bladders since the last bathroom trip ten minutes ago. And so it goes. We read books, we sing songs, we chit-chat. There is dramatic grunting and bragging about the size of poop (they are actually quite generous in oohing and aahing over the size of each other poops; a mutual admiration and support society). There is endless wonder as to where everything disappears to when the toilet is flushed, complete with numerous questions and close examinations of areas of the toilet that no one has business examining. Then there is the rinsing out of their little potty seats, followed by extremely enthusiastic hand-washing, leaving our little bathrooms perpetually looking like a freak thunderstorm has just raged through. Leave bathroom for five to ten minutes, repeat ... and repeat ... and repeat. Still, much like bodily waste, this too shall pass - hopefully in time for me to catch a bit of out-of-the-bathroom sunshine before winter sets in again.

The Club Scene

While the rest of you have probably spent your recent Saturday nights maybe renting a movie or doing something equally tame, we have been out hitting the club scene. Well, one Club in particular. You would be in awe if you saw it - huge cavernous place, with a whole wall of flat screen TV's, all showing the same thing (hello mindfreak!). It is too hip to have a "theme" per se, but if you pinned me down, I would say that its theme is supersized consumer goods - with authentic reproductions of food and household items on steroids stacked in row upon row and rising towards the heavens in an effort to make you feel tiny - Alice in Wonderland style (mindfreak no. 2!). Some sort of ironic commentary on American consumer culture I suppose. And did I mention exclusive? I have a card that I flash at the door and am waived right in, but if you just showed up for the first time, no way you get in unless you are willing to pay. I keep my VIP status intact by dropping loads of cash at the place every time I go. This time, my night out cost about $500, and that was without even hitting the jewelry kiosk that they have on premises for those inclined to buy their significant other or new Club friend a bit of bling on the spot - a stroke of marketing genius. While Deanna and I have been known to hit the Club for a night out, we have recently gone with the whole family in tow, as kids appear to be a trendy Club accessory right now. I would have been wise to hit the jewelry kiosk during our last visit, because as our little accessories were gulping down some of the retro-chic hot dogs, I saw some dude with a funky American-flag hearing aid (as if the music wasn't already loud enough!) and crazy wisps of gray hair chatting up Deanna. He claimed he was only commenting on how cute our kids were, but I didn't buy it, and challenged him to a fight in the "radial room", a room of the club where the walls are stacked with tires (mindfreak no. 3!). He backed down and the night proceeded without further incident, other than the usual crazy fun. Anyway, I hear the owner of the Club, one Sam Walton, is opening these things everywhere, so keep your eyes open locally. If a Sam's Club opens near you, you can be as cool as me next Saturday night.