The Beaverdale Fall Festival

I don't have a whole lot of comments on this post, because other than dropping the boys off at Aunt Doris and Uncle Frank's house, I wasn't there.

Mom and Dad went and ran errands while the Brunnettes entertained the boys for the afternoon.

I hope Aunty & Uncle had as much fun as the boys did!

I will let the photos speak for themselves... mostly.

Robby playing Franks new (to him) Seagull acoustic.  It's a "parlor" sized guitar that seems to fit him quite nicely. Hmmmmm???

 

Robby is clearly stressed by the situation!

It was Iowa vs. Iowa State game day so Caleb got his face painted.  When Robby returned and saw the Iowa State face paint, he had to get Iowa to offset it.

I think he's frightened! :-)

Ahhh... football season! Smell the pain!

The fall leaves. Crisp cool air. And F.O.O.T.B.A.L.L!!!!

Woooooo-hoooooooo!!!

Right?

It's that time of the year when , on Monday evening after the last game of the week ends, you can't wait for the next weekend (okay, nowadays it's next Thursday night, but don't get me started on that!) so that you can get on with the next chapter of the season!

And since becoming a daddy of a flag football player, I'm equally, if not more excited for that to start!  I absolutely adore watching the kids (mine, especially) try to run the right routes, hand off on the right side, catch or throw the ball under duress and that's only on offense.

I cannot tell you how pumped up I was last year when he had a pick-6!!

So, after a bumpy start to this year's practice for the flag football season, we're ready for the first game of the year!  Saturday morning at 11am!!

But then today happened.

You see, Robby wanted to play tackle football this year and his cautious, stupid dear ol' dad wouldn't let him! 

Dumb ol' dad says, "learn the fundamentals while you're growing up and THEN you can play tackle".

So today at recess, Robby is playing touch football with his buddies, as is their common recess practice.

He got touched and "pushed" by a friendly fella, who Robby said later, "That dude can tackle hard!", and managed to break his wrist.

Notice the football shirt...  What can I say?

So what does this mean?

It means that he will not play any football for at least 3 weeks.  Hopefully it will be three weeks and nothing more because I, dad, need me some football!! 

Just kidding...  kind of...

I will take him up to the games to be with his team on the sidelines as he heals so he can root them on as he has a great passion for the game, and so he can be in team pictures and so on.

Other than that, pray for a quick and complete recovery of the boy as he mends.

I told him the good news in all of this is that it's his left arm so we can have him do writing practice with all of the available time he'll have on his hands...  uh, hand, since he cannot wield a football.

Take care all.  We're off to the S.E. Polk Homecoming game in about 45 minutes.

F.O.O.T.B.A.L.L!!!!!

Vacation 2013 - Post #1, Travelling

The vacation photo's are finally sorted out thanks to my bride, who to nobody's surprise, has more patience than me.

I decided that since we didn't take a lot of photo's on the drive out East, and to my knowledge, only one on the way home, that I would simply combine them in a post to get things started.

What I'm really saying is that this buys me time to go thru the rest of the photos chronologically so I can continue to do a vacation post every couple of days or so. 

So off we go.

I left work on Thursday, August 8th at my normal time. We had the car packed up and ready to roll.  We still didn't make it out of Pleasant Hill proper until right at 5pm as I wanted to go to the local grocer and get some Iowa micro brews to take to our "host" family once we arrive in Gaithersburg.

So the first night, we drove to Joliet, Illinois and crashed at the first hotel we found. 

Unfortunately for the Aqua Man Robby, we got to Joliet too late for the Chaos Unit to go swimming when we know we have roughly 12 - 13 hours in the car the next day. So off to bed we went.

We drove well into Ohio when it was about lunch time so we decided that we would have lunch on the shores of Lake Eerie.

This is Lake Eerie, where we decided to get off the interstate and have a picnic lunch next to the lake. It was nearly impossible to find a spot along the water's edge that was open to the public. They apparently aren't interested in tourism on the lake.



Another shot of the shore line on the lake.

Note the color of the water...  It's a sort of dirty-clay brown until you get out nearly to the horizon where it changes to a lovely blueish-green.  Not sure if that was of any significance, but right up by the shore line, was a darker colored stuff in the water that almost looked like spilled paint at first glance, or perhaps a small oil spill.

You can see the "spilled paint" behind us in this photo that Robby took of us.  It was some sort of algae bloom that they warned any would-be swimmers about on a sign.  Didn't stop some special folks from getting in the water though.

The varmints hamming it up on the shore of shells.

Once we were back into the car, it felt like we drove for another full 2 days by the time we got to Pennsylvania. Then, crossing Pennsylvania seemed like another 2 days...  It was a LONG day.

This is what happens when little boys have their own cameras and are cramped up in the back of 4 person sedan for 11 - 12 hours.  They take "artsy" photos of their trail mix.  This is Caleb's cup.  How can I tell, you ask?  Because he has eaten nearly all of the peanuts, sunflower seeds and some of the raisins out of the cup and left the m & m's behind.

This is Robby experimenting with his new camera that we got him just prior to vacation.  This is, I believe, somewhere in Pennsylvania, but I could be a state or two off.

And another one, taken out of the car window whilst travelling the fine Eisenhower Interstate System.

So we got into Gettysburg fairly late in the evening on a fairly spooky drive thru some very narrow, curvy back roads without a lot of traffic on them.  It was a sort of uneasy feeling that we seem to come across about once every vacation.

We got to our hotel in Gettysburg and much to the dismay of Aqua Man Robby again, there was an accident in the pool and thus, it was closed until sometime the next day. 

He was not happy.

They did not expand upon what the accident may have been, but since we did not see any type of emergency vehicles or police tape, we guessed the someone expelled something from their body that should have been properly deposited in the public restrooms supplied nearby.

Again, just a guess...





This is on the way home.  It could very well be the only picture we took on the journey home as we "just wanted to be there".  That's Robby under the pillows.

Next up will be Gettysburg...   hopefully in a couple of days or three.

Holy Smokes! I'm Behind...

Jeez... I either need to get blogging or give it up. I'm so far behind that catching up is going to be a chore!

I haven't done our trip to Washington D.C. yet because of a slight discord between the three cameras that we used and the extra work it will take to go through our 850 pictures.  

Rookie mistake...  it won't happen again.

So, while I'm jacking around with vacation photos, here's what we did the weekend after we got back from vacation.

You see, we had big plans last year to go over to the Western edge of Iowa and visit Grandma Pat and Arney (I have no idea if that's spelled correctly, but I hope that it is).  It didn't happen last year due to who knows what.  Then, we were to visit earlier this year when Arney's daughter became ill and unfortunately, ultimately died. 

So, as it is, we finally got it on the schedule for August this year, even though it was only 6 days after a rather taxing drive from Wheeling, WV. 

So be it.  It was fun and had to happen, and so it did.

We drove to Elk Point, SD, on Friday night after work.  We had Aunt Molly in tow and were to meet Grandma and Grandpa at the hotel in Elk Point where we would regain possession of our wiley beast, Rosey.  

That part of the plan went great, with the exception of my back.  You see, I have a back that I would call... oh, tempermental, lets say.  On about the last 20 - 25 miles of the drive, my back was going crazy and had me nervous about what was to transpire once I got out of the vehicle.

Turns out, it ended up being "fine" but there were some moments, lets call them.

So we were reunited with the beast, and the next morning we drove to the Dakota Dunes, SD to visit Uncle Ken and Aunt Pam.  We had a good visit and then hit the pool.

Somebody's in the pool.  I wonder who that could be?

Ahhhhhhh...  aqua man!  Mister Robby, Pool Master, Sir-Swims-A-Lot, Moist-man, or whatever you want to call him.  The kid will not, possibly cannot, pass up an opportunity to spend time in a pool.  Today was no different even though Dad informed him that I was not to go swimming due to the aforementioned back woes.

Here's Small Chinese Boy with Larger American Boy on a flotation device.  Robby did a great job of floating/driving around the pool and managing the craft so that Caleb, who is unsure of such devices, would be as safe as possible.  Robby was also tasked with the burden of toting Calebber McCheese to the edge of the pool in the event of a raft disaster.

So after the swimming, we went back upstairs for a fantastic lunch before settling our full bellies onto the soft chairs to watch the golf tourney prior to leaving for Akron, Iowa.

We arrive in Akron after a, thankfully, uneventful drive and manage to find Pat & Arney's on the first try.

Here we are in the "commons" of Pat & Arney's apartment complex.  Aunt Molly appears to not be buying whatever it is that Grandpa Jim is selling.  If memory serves me correctly, it's a cell phone that they're looking at and I'm guessing that Molly was attempting to teach the proverbial old dog some new tricks.

At dinner!  The second time in five hours that we were fed like kings!

After dinner, as is Grandma Pat's wont, she took the Schmitz boys for a walk around Akron which included a park (kinda muddy so the varmints didn't get to play much) and a stroll down main street.  I did tell her the story of JB and I playing pool listening to Hank Williams Sr. and grandpa telling me the story of some song that he would play over and over and over. Much to the chagrin of Grandma Pat.  She said, "It wasn't the song so much, but he played EVERYTHING so loud!".   That's gold.  Not only gold, but would have been great ammunition for his daughters growing up if they had only knew!  :-)  (note: we're long overdue for another battle on the pool table and that paragraph nearly made it ache!).

After our walk, the St. Louis Schmitz's...  well, Robby and Daddy, were captured for a photo op with Grandma Marlene.

That about wraps up our weekend in Western Iowa/Eastern South Dakota. The odd part is, we took three cameras with us and they never left the vehicle.

Oh, and have you ever heard of a food called Scrapple?