Pool Boy's Pool Practice

Anybody who knows the "larger American boy", Robby, knows that he will spend countless hours in the water.

Doesn't matter where or when, if there's water, he'll be wanting to get in it.

Lately, he's been obsessing over another pool.  A pool table and can occassionally drive a fella nuts with his wanting to play.

I've given him multiple practice techniques and routines to go thru, and he does them, but he still longs to play all night, "like you and grandpa do".

I must say, he's getting there.  He's making good cuts.  Making some bank shots and even practicing english, which is what he's doing in the photo below.

He can't drive, 55!!!

Holy smokes and... well, other things holy. 

The hippie is driving the mower on his own!   I did all  the dangerous mowing, and we have plenty, so that he could focus on what was taught to him during his previous lessons.  

He did great!

When corners became too tight, he went long and rounded them off.  When he had a bit of a panic, he killed the blades and stopped the mower in about 2 seconds.  Most of all, he showed great focus and poise while he completed the section that I had left for him.  It'll probably be another 2 years from now when I let him do some more of the gnarly stuff but I am crazy proud of the boy for his efforts on this evening!
 

Adoption Camp - 2015 edition!

So what is adoption camp?  I was asked that question by each and every person that knew I was taking the day off to haul Calebbers little Chinese bottom to Omaha (Ashland, truly...) Nebraska for the day.

My answer was, "Dunno.  I have no clue, really, but sounds like fun for the little dude".

I can now answer that more "gooder".

First off, it is mostly a day where adoptee's get to spend time with each other and they all know that every single kid there is adopted.  It probably didn't mean as much to Caleb as it did the older kids, but he had a great time regardless of the understanding.

Second, it was only the "Day Camp" version of adoption camp to get a feel for what the real, 5-day camp is like.  That's where the kids really get into heavier conversations about their lives and as the director told me, there are things that the kids will confide in each other, that they would never tell parents, siblings or more broadly speaking, anyone who was NOT adopted.  

I get that.  It's a bond that only the adopted understand. Kinda cool that camp provides them this outlet that might otherwise be hard to come by.

Caleb told us he wants to do the 5-day camp next summer, so I'm thinking he liked it!!

The day went like this:
10am - Check-in
10:30am - get to know'ya session/introductions/tour of camp
11:00am - kids go play with the counselors and older camp kids/parents get attend a question & answer session with a panel of college aged adoptee's (this was cool, informative & eye opening!!)
12:00pm - Lunch
1:00pm - group session with kids/fun coloring with "what's in your heart" puzzles
2:00pm - swimming
3:00pm - round table discussion with parents and camp director
4:00pm - say our goodbyes

Enough set-up.  On to a few photos of the day.
 

This was taken at the Chuckwagon restaurant in Adair Iowa on our way to Steve & Kathy's (my brother and his wife) house, where we will sleep for the night.  (thanks again!!)   We were the only two in the place for quite a while and the waitress treated Calebber quite nicely!  He's cute, in case you haven't noticed...

This is Camp morning.  I didn't know exactly how long it would take us with rush hour traffic, so we left my bro's house about 2 hours before we needed to be at camp.  Of course I knew that we would need to gas up the truck and get some coffee along the way, but it gave us plenty of time so we were never rushed and time to recover from a wrong turn or three.  So we got to camp about 1/2 hour before we could check in.  I took the lad on a walk around the place and up to see the horses that were out in a pen when we drove by.  Well, that fine gentleman in the pic saw us looking around for the horses and invited us into the stable.  He was beyond kind and went out of his way show us around and introduce us to all of the horses.  Then, he showed us the rabbits, opened the cage of the lop-eared varmint for us to pet and if that weren't enough, he asked Caleb if he would like to help feed the calf.  Calebber jumped at the chance and is still excited about it and still talks about how strong the calf was. You can see spilled milk on the ground above.  That's because the calf sucked the nipple completely off of the bottle!  Note: this was not part of camp. Caleb was the only kid that got to do this since we got there early.

This is Main St. of the camp.  The building in the background middle is the stable building where the calf feeding went on.  The buildings on the left is the Theodore Hotel where the campers sleep and the buildings on the right are the gymnasium/restrooms.

This is the cafeteria building and that's a happy little, well-fed Chinaman!!

This is taken from nearly the same spot as the cafeteria photo above.  That's the pond (very muddy from recent rains) and the building sort of upper left is the swimming pool.

This is again from that same perspective looking down towards Main St.

So how's a little dude process a day like this?

Sort of like this:

Reading, Writing, Route 23

I don't care who you are, these two fellas are cute! They both did great reading while we were on vacation and there will be much more coming soon on that subject!

Oh, and since I'm a Dwight Yoakam geek, yes, the title is a direct reference to one of his tunes and the inspiration of one of our family vacations... driving down route 23, checking out Butcher Holler and various small towns mentioned in songs, along the way.  I'd recommend that for everyone!

Happy 4th of July!

Here we are in all of our negative glory!  I can barely notice that I seem to get fatter and fatter from year to year, but it is what it is, I guess.   No matter, happy 4th to all!!

Camping - The Dry Run

I call it the dry run as it's the weekend prior to when we leave on vacation where camping will be plentiful.

It's a good thing we went too because it revealed several "holes" in our camping supplies which are much easier to replace at home than out on the road.

This tree was the primary focus of the boys this weekend.  We went with my cousin and her family, which also has two boys.  All four would sit up in the tree for an hour or so at a time. 

This was Robby's first attempt, I believe ever, at really climbing a tree.  His feet are about 12 feet off the ground at this point and he's a proud boy!  Happy to report that there were no injuries, major ones anyway, thru our 40 hours at the park.

This was the other main attraction.  It's a log fence built for parking purposes.  They devised many games to be played on it.

This is from our camp, looking due North with Saylorville lake in the far background.

This was Sunday morning when we were packing up getting ready to head home.  The boys have added a football to the balancing game.

Before we left the park, we drove over to see the Bison and elk.  The elk weren't very impressive, hence, no photo.

One last shot of the four kiddo campers.

One of the coolest trees ever!  This branch hovers off the ground little more than a foot in places but is probably 50 feet long overall.

Oh, and camping with Juno?  Not very fun...   Just in case you were thinking about borrowing her.

Calebbers Big Boy Breakfast

Caleb out for breakfast with Aunt Molly.  He was crazy excited to get to sit at the counter.

And speaking of excited...  Pancakes as big as your head!  And don't forget the sausage...

And a shot of the lad playing "football" with crazy Juno.