Haven’t posted in a while…
I just got back from a family trip to Wisconsin. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I didn’t, so I’ll keep the mainly-text recap brief.
It was nice to go on a full-family vacation; we haven’t taken one with the complete family in many years. In addition to the core five members, Monica’s whole family came, and Erica’s boyfriend James was able to come too. I was kind of a seventh wheel at times, because Sara wasn’t able to make it, but it was still a lot of fun.
Erica really likes the Green Bay Packers, so we spent a few days in Green Bay and visited their stadium and watched their training practices. Melany, who is now about 19 months old, picked up the football concept completely on her own – out of nowhere, she tucked her sippy-cup under her arm, got down into a three-point stance, and took off running.
Monica and Nolan’s hotel had a pirate themed water park, and this included a section of pool with two floating rubbery treasure chests that were tied down to the bottom of the pool. After the initial challenge of climbing onto them without slipping or being flipped off was overcome, Nolan and James and I moved onto trying to stand on them. Once that was out of the way, we tried jumping from one to the other.
We apparently inspired some kids, who we later saw trying to jump from the pool deck onto the floating barrels. Some of them took ridiculously nasty spills, but this one kid managed to do what I had declared impossible – jump from the pool deck onto one of these slippery, wobbly, floating barrels and land standing up.
For several hours over two nights, we tried to match his feat (he got good enough to where he could call his shot and land it, occasionally three tries in a row). James got really close several times, and finally as it neared bedtime the last night we were there, he did it.
Although I might feel differently if I’d been able to land it, but I actually thought it was more fun to wipe out. If you landed on your feet with enough momentum, chances were good that your feet would keep going and you’d flop hard onto your back. (click here to see me wiping out, and here to see one of the other kids wipe out)
We also spent quite a bit of time at the lake where we stayed along the Wisconsin Dells. Miqaela and Melany weren’t too thrilled about going out into the water, but they loved feeding the ducks with grandma. I really like being out on water, so spending a vacation out on a lake gets high marks from me.
I have to add that, while on the trip, I started reading Harry Potter books. I’ve liked the movies and I’ve always wanted to read them, but the legendary Nate Barnhart finally gave me the inspiration and this trip gave me the free time to start reading them. So far I’ve finished the first two and I’m looking forward to finishing them all so I can actually sit down with people and have nerdy Harry Potter discussions.
Not much else to share on this end. It was a fun trip, a nice vacation from work, and fun time with the family.