Fishermen!

Grandpa and the boys at Copper Creek!  Calebs first fish, a (roughly speaking) 20 inch large mouth bass.

Some Camp Of Wonderful (you know the song!)

Robby had another kind of camp this week; FOOTBALL!

It was organized chaos at it's finest.  The South East Polk football players put it on with their coaches and it's truly a wonderful thing.  I think the high skooluurs have, or had, such is the case, as good a time, if not better than the lads and few ladettes that attended.

They broke the kids into offense and defense on the first night and then switched to the opposite sides for the second night.

Robby told me last night after piano lessons that he thought that the camp helped open his mind to playing pretty much anywhere on the field.

On the other hand, I heard the football team captain talking to the kids and said that the kids who continue to like football as they grow up will continue to come back to the camp and therefore have the basics pretty well down by the time they get to high school and want to play.

During a passing drill.  Robby is in a white Aaron Rodgers jersey just to the right of the middle of the pic.

I'm unsure of what drill this is but Robby and some other boy are showing some hustle!

A receiving drill.  Robby did good at these although sometimes I think he was too focused on trying to impress people rather than simply catch the ball and let THAT impress them.

Kind of a wide shot to give an idea of how many varmints attended this thing!

I had a few more pictures that I was going to add but these are pretty much from my fancy-dancy hi-tech phone and they keep flipping upside down when I try to add them.

I don't have time for such shenanigans...

Beaverdale's National Night Out

I don't have much to say about this post and there's more pictures on Momma's phone that I don't have time to download now, but it sure does look as if the boy had him some fun tonight!

Calebber on the right side of the law.

That's a sweet ride and I would like to see what it would go thru, and over.

Horseback riding in the "big city"!

Caleb with some sort of large gnat...  or Tinkerbell.

Robby and myself were at night two of his football camp, which I'll try to post some photos of tomorrow night.

What's That Boy Playing With Now?

What can I say?  

I am apparently a sucker for Musicians Friends Stupid Deal Of The Day.

This time it was a banjo.  I've had the hankerings to learn me some banjo and I'll be dipped if one didn't show up as the SDotD.

So, I pounced.

Robby giving it the ol' college try.

What's next?  A drumset!!  :-)

He's Back! Baby, He's BACK!!

The boy is back home from Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp.  

When we first got there, the boys were all returning to their respective cabins to begin cleaning them up and shutting them down.  Robby wasn't there yet, but arrived soon after we did.  He was excited to see us but also exclaimed, "I don't want to leave!". 

Honestly, that's what we were hoping to hear.

Now next year, which he already wants to sign up for, will not be nearly as bad for mom and dear ol' dad because we know with a 99.9% degree of accuracy that the boy will have a fantastic time cramming in 3 weeks of activities into 5 days.

Robby talking to his Momma and little brother Calebber while we're attempting to gather up sleeping bags, clothing and so on.

This is the final ceremony they have and I must say, I wish, wish, wish that our music could be as loud and enthusiastic at Lutheran Church of the Cross during our worship!  These kids were LOUD!  I tried to add a video to this post but it's not working.

That's m'boy in the Riverside headband!

So a few funny things about camp:

Robby claims he didn't have a toothbrush, so we asked him if he bought one at the camp store where we had set him up with $15 credit.  He held up his index finger...  Yes, he "brushed" with his finger the entire 5 days.  Even so, he made plenty of friends so the finger must have done some good.

He didn't take any pictures with the disposable camera that we bought him ON THE WAY UP TO CAMP!!  He claims he couldn't find it.

He did not use the self-addressed-stamped-envelope that we sent with him to write back to us to let us know that he was enjoying himself.  Nor did he use the additional one that we sent in the first letter we mailed to him...  the reason?  He couldn't find a decent piece of paper to write on.  That tells us that he did not look in the envelopes as momma had put a perfectly fine piece of paper in each one!

What can you say?  He's nine.  He was away from home for an extended period without contact with any family and for the most part, he did awesome!

That's m'boy!

Welcome home!

Vacation 2014 Post 2 - Como Park, the 1st time around...

So, something else the boys and I did while momma remained at the hospital, is go to Como Park, which turned out to be not very far from our hotel.  

It's a free park, with the exception of the "amusement park" area, which I wasn't real interested in anyway.

So the first time we went there, we had our bag with frisbee's, baseballs, a football and probably other stuff. 

We played some frisbee first but Robby kept getting sort of sick feeling from the heat (it was H.O.T.!!!) so we walked a bit, stumbling onto a water fountain in which we scooped piles of water over each others noggins in an effort to not boil over.

It worked for a little while but then we'd all get hot and need to take a break again.  And so the day went.

So what did we do?

Glad you asked!  Have a look:

This is obviously during the "baseball phase" of our summer and Robby fancied himself a catcher.

Caleb was HOT and ORNERY!!  He was sort of enjoying himself, but was frustrated at his inability to throw accurately.

After baseball, we played some mini-golf.  I smoked these two hon-yonkers!  Oh, and this was not free either...  so, I guess a good portion of the park is free, but some things in life require down payment.

Caleb's body language at this point pretty much tell you that he is frustrated that the silly little white dimpled ball will NOT go thru the dang windmill!!

That was the amusement park entry straight across from mini-golf.

And a shot of a cool looking apparatus in the park area.  There was much more stuff to play on in the park, I just didn't photograph much of it fearing that if I moved too much more, I would suffer heat stroke!  Just kidding, but did I mention that it was hot?

So that's it for this go 'round.  Next up is the Como Park Zoo.

What the H3!! Have We Done!?!?

So what's with the title of the post!?

I'll tell ya!!

Today was the first Sunday after the boys' VBS (Vacation Bible School) had ended and it just so happened to coincide with the the ice cream social at Oakwood United Methodist Church in Pleasant Hill, IA.  So we worshiped there this morning in the stead of our own place of worship, Lutheran Church of the Cross (LCC).

Here is lad number 1 and 2 in the masks that they had created earlier in the night at VBS, in which the theme was "Weird Animals".

No worries there, right.  I would agree.

However, today also marks the day that our oldest boy, Robby (a.k.a. Larger American Boy) was to leave for Riverside Bible Camp.  Again not such a big deal, right?

He's been gone for a night or two in the past correct?

Well, this time, we drop him off... with complete strangers, on Sunday afternoon and do not have any contact with him until Friday afternoon when we pick him up!

Obviously, I am simply NOT equipped for this kind of parenting!  It was even my suggestion to sign him up for the full bore 6 day (5 nights) excursion, instead of one of the 3 day versions under the guise that, "I know my boy", and he's going to first be getting fully into it by the third day and be HOT when we arrive to pick him up.

I still believe that but not quite with the same conviction as I did a few months ago when we signed him up.

He will be fine, indeed, but will I?

Nobody had a checklist for daddies and what they can deal with!!!!

So to recount the story of this past week, I'll do my worst.

Robby was starting to sort of get nervous as the week progressed.  Rightfully so as he's never been away from his immediate family for more that a day or two at a time and for that matter, has always been watched by extended family!

This is a little different...

So last night (saturday), as we returned home from Crystal Lake,  he was N.E.R.V.O.U.S.

Both Momma and I had some talks with him and he seemed okay.  So did we, for that matter.

This morning was fine as they woke up on their own, had breakfast, we went to worship/ice cream social, and Robby met up with his lifelong friend, Noah (seriously, they've been friends since 5 months of age!!) and then we went to the grocery store. Cooked and ate lunch and got the boy ready to go.

We delivered him to North of Story City Iowa at the Riverside Camp and started the process.

Let's have a look...

That's Robby's cabin towards the left.  They are the conquerors and I don't know any of the people in the picture... neither does the boy.  These cabins are called the tree houses , because they are suspended over a steep drop and there's the lagoon directly behind the huts.

The beautiful boy who is the focus of ALL of my current anxiety!!

This is on the back of his cabin and this little walk-way connects this cabin to the one on the right in the photo above.

You can sort of see the lagoon down thru the trees, to the left of Robby in this photo.

And a shot of the horses, one of which, the boy will ride at some point during the next five days.

So what's wrong with all of that?

Absolutely nothing!

Except that this is yet another thing that people, the people in charge, do not prepare you for as a parent.  

I was a big mushy mess driving away from there tonight as Robby went from nervous, to confident (hoping that we would be alright without him), back to nervous and very clingy when it was actually time for us to leave.

I was a mess all the way back to Pleasant Hill wondering why we do the things we do and also why it felt like somebody had cut off my right arm!!! 

We dropped off our boy, with no way to contact us (oh sure, emergency numbers are provided and so on) other than a self addressed stamped envelope, with total strangers, in a cabin with two camp consoulers and probably 12 - 14 other boys and drove off.

What a dreadful feeling!

Oh sure, he'll have a good time.  He'll become more of a young man thru the experience.  He'll learn problem solving skills as he only has $15 of credit at the store and will probably blow that on a stuffed animal in the first couple of days and NOT be able to buy something he NEEDS later on.  He'll meet a few friends for life and probably experience a hundred other things that I am not even considering at this point.

So when I, Momma, and little Calebber got back to Pleasant Hill tonight, we decided to go for a walk around Copper Creek.  We ran into Robby's favorite teacher from his pre-school years and just as we piled back into the van to go home, a couple of girls walked by with a gorgeous Boston Terrier that made the heart ache even more!!  

UGH!!!

So here we are,  three of us aching for the one of us who is very likely having great fun by this point.

God bless you all and GOD BLESS MY LARGER AMERICAN BOY!!!

Love You Robby!!!