Riverside 2019, Pick-up #1

Well, I'm late. Robby's Riverside 2019 visit is over half done at the point of this posting and I'm just posting Caleb's retrieval!

The problem with Rob's camp is that I was scheduled to take him and his buddies, Sam and Landon, up last Sunday but my back was so bad that I simply could not.   As a result, Mama Chaos and Calebber delivered the lads but didn't take any pictures!  The horror!!

And a former camp counselor is going to the closing ceremony and will be bringing them home.  I'm guessing that he will likely not take any pictures either...

Anyway, here's Calebber's pick-up.

The only picture that turned out sort-of non-fuzzy.

Can you find him?  He's just about dead-center in the pic with the front of his head blonde and the back black.

Schmitz 2018 Vaca, Post 12 - Acadia Ntl. Park, Part 3

This was taken at the Jordan Pond House where there's a gift shop, several public restrooms, places for weddings (which is what you're seeing) and all kinds of Acadia National Park information to be had.  That's Bubble Rock in the distance and I have a suspicion that will figure into part 4 of my Acadia posts...  just a hunch though.

I believe this was taken at a scenic overlook turn-out on our way to our next destination, Cadillac Mountain.

Same here.  Remember what I said about my boys climbing out onto/into things/areas meant to protect people?  

He's on to us!!!

I think this was at the same place as well, but it could have been in the parking lot of Cadillac Mtn.

This is definitely from Cadillac Mtn.

Have I mentioned lately that I love Maine!?!?

No hiking paths here!  Go wherever the heck you want!

The boy off getting a little bit of alone time, away from the fam.  You can't hardly blame him in this kind of beauty.

I love this picture!  It wasn't nearly as perilous as what it looks like, which is good, because it looks like he's sitting on the edge of the Earth! LOL!!

Somebody felt that last pic could be just a bit better.

Love and love!

I loved the rocks here.  They look like somebody spent some serious time painting them.

Again, the climbing...

I have no idea what he's doing here, but I like the picture so you have to look at it too.  :-)

Back in the parking lot after a long hike.  One last parting shot...

Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp, 2019 First drop-off

He was a bit more tentative than what his face shows in the picture, which has lent a bit of anxiety to his Daddy after dropping him off.  He makes friends easily, thank God, so I'm excited to pick him up on Friday to hear his stories and the craziness that he brought to "the party".

I Caught Me A Baby!

Jill, on the right in the photo, was kind enough to get a year older and have many people over to her fam's house for a potluck/bonfire/birthday party.  As luck would have it, somebody brought a baby and he latched on to me!!!  When I first snatched him from the arms of another, I felt him relax and he laid his head down on my shoulder!  There is very few feeling better than that and now I need a dedicated baby of my own.

Let's Meet With Meat!

The back seat of the pickup has never seen so much meat!

The freezer once I got everything put away and organized!  Much better than the nearly empty and badly in need of a defrosting!

Good Mourning

There's about  5 weeks of the year when the sun shines into my office space with it's full glorious abundance. We are in that window of time!

How In God's Name Does This Happen???

The handle,  including the silver band around the bottom of the pot has been rotated so that it is no longer in sync with the opening of the friggin' decanter!! 

Or perhaps a better look at it from above, so you can see the handle in more direct (mis)alignment with the "mouth" of the silly thing.  For a very, very, VERY symmetrical based brain like mine, this is nearly unbearable!!!

The Garden of Eat'n!

As part of our summer program at home, we've assigned the boys their own garden to maintain.  They're both 5x10 in size so there's no discord betwixt the two of them about who gets the easy one and whatever other nonsense that kids might come up with.

They're supposed to keep them weeded & watered.  Caleb works in his more often than Rob as he has figured out that just a few minutes per day is much easier than an hour on Saturday.

This is Rob's garden, which I think you'll note, more weeds than...

Caleb's garden.  To be perfectly fair,  Caleb weeded the day this pic was taken.  Rob plans to weed later today.

I got the fence on the big boy last night as well.  So let'er grow and lets can some 'maters!

1/2 Blondes Have 50% Percent More Fun

What is going on with that boys hair!?!?

Caleb and Mom bleached the front of his hair tonight as per his request.

Smokey Sun

The air quality over Iowa has not been so hot for the past 5 - 7 days.  There some Canadian wild fire burning and the jet stream is sending the smoke directly over Iowa, and all of it!  While it does affect some people negatively,  there is some beauty that comes out of it too.  Last night, shortly before sunset,  you could literally look at the sun without hurting your eyes.  While the picture is kind of cool, it did not capture the orange & pink hues of the sun through the smoke.

Another shot from a slightly different angle.  I feel like we're on a green version of Tattoine!

Schmitz 2018 Vaca, Post 11 - Acadia Ntl. Park, Part 2

So as we continue on our vacation, we find ourselves at Thunder Hole. This is another spot where me bride & I, along with my sister Doris, found ourselves out in the New England area somewhere in either 1999, or 2000...  can't recall for sure, but I do know that Buckcherry had just released their debut album because I recall quite clearly lying down on the air mattress in her living room and there being some type of metal music video show on the tv that I had on to calm my nerves after a CRAZEEE-ARSE drive, and Buckcherry's Lit Up came on and I was blown away as it sounded so different from all of the other crap metal that was out at the time.  

I came to realize later that I was likely attracted to the song as they had clearly ripped off KISS's Shock Me riff for their own tune.  Do some research and feel free to prove me wrong and we'll debate.

Run-on sentences and everything else aside,  it was a great trip that produced many fond memories that we wished to recreate with our kiddos and hopefully a few new memories along the way!

In the upper right quadrant of the pic,  you can quite clearly see Sand Beach which was featured in the previous post.  Thunder hole is just down the road to the "middle of the picture",  slightly left of center, with a light blue dot representing its bad self!

The waves come in and make their way into this cove, which has some unique sonic properties that resemble...  wait...  for... it...   thunder.  Hence the clever name!

I am truly amazed by the crap/stuffs that grow on rocks at the edges of the oceans.  If you would like another point of reference, check out this older blog post here.

The noise, the smells, and the sights are serious points of pontification!

These two are on a very short list of things that can make pictures of Maine better than just natural landscape!

So this pic was took'en in 2018.  Not even one of theSchmitz Mobile Chaos Unit is visible in this this pic, but it's very similar to a pic taken back in the late '90's when my bride and I visited with my sister Doris.

And HEY!!!  Here we are back in whatever year this really was.  My bride took this picture of  me and my sister Doris.   Its a bit faded and color jaded after these last 20+ year but that's me in the northwest corner of the pic with a white windbreaker and my sister is standing next to me with the dark top on.

Why would I not want to move here and finish out my days!?!?!?  It is so beautiful and there's so much exploration to be done!

LOL!!!

This is on the Park Loop Road at Otter Cove.

Same...  and the rest are at the similar local.

So we ticked thru more precious time in one of the loveliest places in the U.S., we got to show the kiddos why I deem this place as a little bit of heaven on Earth!