D's Notebook

Tag: holidays (Page 3 of 19)

Holiday Weekend Notes

September 6, 2022 /

I’m guessing this was our last ever four-day Labor Day weekend, at least on the academic side of things. St P’s generally (but not always) gives the kids Friday and Monday off, while CHS just takes the actual Monday holiday off. Who knows what M’s schedule will be this time next year, but she won’t be here, so that means the remaining girls will be on the same schedule for the final holiday weekend of summer in 2023.

L took advantage of her extra day by doing some work for us and family members to earn some money. She’s been drafted as the St P’s football team videographer/photographer and has been saving up for a camera. With a final push over the weekend she was able to order it.

Her first project of the weekend was mowing her aunt’s yard, which she has done a few times. I followed her around with the trimmer, which is too big and too temperamental for her to use. As I was trimming I felt a white-hot heat on my right forearm. I dropped the trimmer, thinking it was in the process of blowing up or something. But I didn’t see any smoke and it started right back up.

“Well, shit,” I thought, “I think I just got stung!”

But I hadn’t seen/felt anything on me or seen anything fly away. I looked around and then noticed, on my nephews’ swingset/playhouse, the biggest wasp I had ever seen crawling around. I got a fly swatter from inside the house and nailed it. Seconds later several more Big Ass Wasps emerged from under the decking and I fled before they could get me.

Fortunately my sister-in-law had a couple cans of wasp/hornet killer. I unloaded one on the nest I could see poking through the frame and left her instructions to hit it again when the wasps returned for the evening.

Not going to lie: the sting hurt like hell. I don’t know if I’ve ever been hit by a wasp before, but this fucking hurt. Even today, Tuesday morning, the area is all swollen, red, and itchy. I’m not sure what flavor of wasps these were, but I’m just going to call them Murder Hornets because they were so big and the sting was so painful. Still, happy to take one for the team rather than one of my nephews.

IMG 5531

Don’t fuck with the Murder Hornets

Friday night was one of the more interesting sports following nights in my recent history.

I had the US Open up on the TV, watching Serena Williams’ final match that began at 7:00. At 7:30 the Cathedral game began, and I pulled up the audio on my phone. And at 8:00 KU kicked off their season on ESPN+, which I had on my MacBook Air.

Super Sports Fan #1 here!

It was a bit chaotic keeping track of everything, but I managed, selectively muting as conditions warranted.

I should probably write more about Serena’s loss. I think of my life not really hitting adulthood until right around 1999–2000. That made Serena the last athlete from my extended childhood or adolescence or whatever who was still active. Just another sign that we are getting older.

Props to her for such an amazing career, for coming back after having an insanely difficult pregnancy and childbirth experience, and for going out on her terms. I couldn’t believe she was still playing doubles with her sister Venus on Thursday. I think that effort clearly affected her in Friday’s match. Then I realized that she just wanted to play with her sister one more time and was willing to sacrifice her singles match for that opportunity. When you’ve won everything there is to win, you get to pick how you say goodbye.

Cathedral fell behind 13–0 but then ripped off 35-straight points for a 35–21 win. The game was three hours away so none of the girls went. The Irish had a ton of injuries going into the game, so played a number of kids who had not played the first two weeks. This week they play their big-time rivals BC, who are ranked #1 in 3A and just lost the the #1 4A school on the final play of the game.

KU rolled Tennessee Tech. Which should be expected, and I know non-KU fans are making fun of us Jayhawks for being excited about the win. Never forget this is KU football, a program that has found a way to do the un-doable for decades. Pounding an overmatched opponent is never a given for Kansas, and while one or two more wins is likely the max we can hope for this year, at least we checked off the easy win.

The team looked better, with more playmakers on defense than I can recall. But they still lack depth and things will be very different this week against West Virginia and pretty much every week for the rest of the year and the competition keeps getting tougher and tougher. But this game was the baby step we needed.

Saturday we headed up to S’s aunt and uncle’s in the morning. They live on a lake and offered to take the girls out to ski. M took a brief run and had no issues. L tried but could not get up. C was annoyed about having to wake up early on a holiday weekend and stayed in the boat. We took a nice trip around the lake and got off the water just before rain moved in.

Later in the day L had a basketball game. They were playing a team they’ve played many times. That team plays and practices all year, and added another good player since our last meeting. We were down 13–0 to start then went something like 5–22 from the free throw line and lost by 15. L alone was 1–6 from the line. She was 0–4 from the floor but had three rebounds, three assists, and three steals. She hit one shot that came after a foul was called away from the ball and was super annoyed by that. I was super annoyed she was missing so many free throws after all the practice shots she put up over the summer.

Sunday we had the local family over for our annual Labor Day gathering. It never got too hot or humid and the rain held off, so it was a pleasant day around the pool. I stay the hell out of the pool when the nephews take over. It’s more fun to drink and watch than constantly babysit your kids so they don’t sink.

Monday was your standard, lazy Labor Day. I watched some tennis – Frances Tiafoe upsetting Rafa Nadal was obviously the highlight, a truly enjoyable match. I was bummed Danielle Collins lost, but we don’t need to go into details about that.

(Another quick aside about tennis: Nick Kyrgios beating Daniil Medvedev Sunday was also entertaining. Not sure I’ve ever switched my opinion on an athlete as quickly as I have about Kyrgios. I thought he was a lunatic who needed to be shut down at Wimbledon. Now I think he’s one of the most entertaining, compelling, and interesting players on the tour. Not sure I necessarily love him, but I do root for him to stay in tournaments because they are a lot more fun with him on the court.)

I read a lot, we did some shopping as we prep for our next big trip, and we did some cleaning around the house.

Otherwise a pretty chill holiday weekend.

This morning we were socked in by low, thick clouds. When my alarm went off at 6:50 and it was still pitch black my first thought was, “Did I sleep through a month and it’s October 6?” Just a tangible reminder that summer is over.

Holiday Weekend Notes (Heavy With Cooking Content)

July 5, 2022 /

We’ve reached the midway point in academic summer, an occasional always highlighted by our family’s July 4th celebrations.

This year’s was a little lower key than recent ones. We had no out-of-town visitors this time, so fewer cousins, aunts, and uncles running around. It was as hot as it’s been any recent year, so it was probably good we had at least 10 fewer people in the pool this year compared to the last three.

Our family gathering was on Sunday this year. This was a big moment for me as it was my first time really using my new Traeger smoker/grill. I’ve used it a lot for pretty standard grilling, but this was my first true smoke. In fact, it was my first real smoke in at least a decade, back to whenever I got fed up with the idiosyncrasies of my old electric smoker.

For the holiday I first smoked an 8+ pound pork butt. I read a bunch of different recipes to prepare mentally. Consensus was it would take me 10–12 hours to smoke the pork, and I also wanted to do some chicken after then wrap up with grilling some hot dogs. So my plan was to get up at 5:00 AM to start the process.

In all that planning I forgot one thing: to set my alarm. Fortunately I awoke with a start right around 1:00 AM Sunday and realized I never turned the alarm on. You know how that goes, though. Even after setting my alarm I was waking up every hour or so to check the time just in case. That alarm went off as planned but I was a little wiped when I came down to take my fully-rubbed slab of pork out of the fridge.

After sitting on the counter to warm, it went into the smoker at 6:00 with the temperature set to 225. The smoker temp held pretty steady all day, although once the sun really got hot it ran about five degrees warmer than set. I spritzed the pork with apple juice every hour until it hit 160°, right around 12:30. Then I took it off, triple-wrapped it in foil, and put it back on.

If you’ve smoked you know the time between 145–165° is the longest time of the cook, as the moistures begin pulling from the center and fights the cooking process. That was the case Sunday. It seemingly took forever to get over the 165° hump, and I was sweating whether it would be ready in time for a bunch of hungry people. Fortunately once it got to 170° it took off like a rocket and I removed it at 4:00 when the pork hit 202° and threw it into a cooler to rest for an hour.

I smoked some chicken breasts next. Bone-in would have been best, but we had a freezer full of Costco boneless breasts that I decided to use. I always brine chicken that I plan on grilling to keep it moist. I just forgot about that step in all the other activities of the day, so the chicken came out a little dry. It also didn’t help that I kept the heat very low and then cranked it at the end when the chicken didn’t seem to be progressing. But it’s good with some sauce and we’ll have quesadillas and/or barbecue chicken pizza with it this week.

I turned the Traeger off at 5:45, so 11:45 of total cook time.

All-in-all a pretty successful first experience. I got lots of compliments on the food. The rest of the family added some tasty stuff to the spread and it was a fine family holiday meal.

I did have to take two naps during the day. One 20-minute nap after the meat went on at 6:00, and another 30–40 minute one around 11:00 because I felt like a zombie after the tossing-and-turning from the night before. The second one, and a Cherry Coke Zero, seemed to do the trick.

The rest of the day was solid. As I said, it was hot. We drained and replaced some water in the pool to try to cool it and that dropped the temp a whole degree. But the kids didn’t seem to complain. We had the five local nephews here and they had fun splashing.

Everyone was winding down in their own way well before our planned 10:00 fireworks, so we did them a little early despite it not being dark. We bought our standard, $35 at Target package of fireworks. That was good enough for the kids. Waiting for the year when one of the boys asks why they aren’t bigger and we explain how Aunt S is a pediatrician and hates fireworks and if they want bigger ones they need to ask their parents to take them someone else.

We had planned on having some friends over on the Fourth for another hangout, but Covid hit their house so that fell apart. We sandwiched our Sunday celebration by cleaning out the garage and power washing the driveway on Saturday (L helped power wash) and then cleaned out the pool house and added some new shelving to it on Sunday. There was a trip to Lowes in there. Exciting stuff!

Now it’s suddenly July 5 and I’m already thinking about making sure we order any new school clothes early enough for them to arrive by August 10 and 11 when the girls go back to class.

Holiday Weekend Notes

May 31, 2022 /

The first weekend of the summer is in the books. We were busy.

M and C finished classes on Thursday. Unless there’s a surprise coming we don’t know about, they both had really good semesters with just one B between them and a handful of A+’s. And now M is a senior. Yikes!

I took C to finally get her driver’s permit on Friday. She wrapped up the written portion of driver’s ed over a month ago, but, for a variety of reasons, we never made it into the BMV. She’s still a month or two out from taking the in-car portion of the class because of a backlog in the system, but we can start working with her and getting those hours logged.

Friday was also L’s last day of school. She was bummed because rain last week ruined a lot of the end-of-year, outdoor activities that St P’s kids usually get to enjoy. And now she’s an eighth grader. Yikes!

Saturday night C had nine friends over for a late birthday celebration. They swam and took 10,000 pictures then sat around the fire pit and commented on each other’s social media posts. As kids do, I guess.

Sunday was Race Day. Thanks to some brisk ticket sales the IMS allowed the race to be shown live locally, if only on Peacock Premium. Which, thanks to being Xfinity customers, we have. I didn’t get to watch a ton of the race, as we were prepping for our evening plans, but seemed like a good race. Better, it was an absolutely perfect day for all the folks who were at the track.

That evening we had friends over for dinner and swimming. I don’t think I’ve shared that we got a Traeger grill a few weeks back. This was my first time showing off my skills for others. I cooked steaks and shrimp. While I’m still getting used to the differences between the Traeger and a gas grill, I have to say these were some of the best steaks I’ve ever made.

C went back to our old ‘hood with her buddy to spend the night. As they left they were talking about waking up early to watch the sun rise That made all the parents laugh, as both C and her friend will sleep all day if you let them. They showed us, though. They pulled an all-nighter and went to a local park to take pictures as the set came up just after 6:00 AM. Apparently there was an old lady there getting her morning walk in and she came over and checked on them. She was worried they had spent the night in the park, which also made us laugh. Anyway, in this case, Kids 1, Parents 0.

Finally, Monday we hosted a sixth birthday party for one of the local nephews. It was another near-perfect day, warm but not humid with a refreshing breeze. The first time this season all the nephews have been in the pool together.

S was also on call all weekend, which meant she had to go into the hospital in the morning to do rounds. Between her getting up, the cloudless mornings, and the early-rising sun, I was still awake before 7:00 most mornings. At least the girls can sleep in. I either need to get more motivated to do things early in the morning or insist on us finally getting some drapes in our bedroom.

Weekend Notes

April 18, 2022 /

Sometimes the Midwest really sucks.

We had a decent Easter weekend, weather-wise. Not perfect – if it was 5–10 degrees warmer it would have been ideal – but at least it was warm enough to do little kid activities outside.

Then this morning it was snowing when I woke up. And it’s going to be 80 by Friday.

Sheesh.

We had our family Easter celebration on Saturday. Just about all the locals were there, including all the nephews under six. The girls had fun hiding eggs for them then helping the youngest ones find them. With five boys in that group, it always gets a little chaotic, but they were generally well behaved. As were our girls.

Luckily we had a brunch-time gathering, as L had two basketball games later in the day. They won game one by 12 or 13 but they made us nervous. After leading 8–0, they gave up a big run late in the first half and trailed 15–14. A little five-point run gave us the lead back before half and then we cruised in the second half.

L looked like she hadn’t played a competitive game in a month. Which, to be fair, was the case. She made some terrible passes, rushed shots, and went 0–4 from the line. One play summed up her game. She missed a free throw, battled her ass off to get the rebound – tipping it twice in traffic before grabbing it in the corner – then dribbled in for a wide-open layup before she panicked and traveled when she got stuck between shooting and passing to a cutting teammate. After the game I asked her what happened and she said she was so wide open that she wondered if the ref had blown the whistle and the play was dead so she just stopped.

She also got absolutely trucked by a girl when she was leading a break. They both went flying and parents in the crowd let out gasps. They both popped right up and L was laughing, although he had a big bruise Sunday. On our way out of the gym I heard that girl’s dad saying, “You about put that girl in the hospital!”

They had three hours off until game two, so it was nice that they were playing just 20 minutes from home. They trounced this poor team, winning by 40. L played much better, scoring eight while going 2–3 from the line. She was most proud of getting fouled on the break, making the basket, then converting the free throw. “I got an and-one!” was the first thing she told her sisters when we got home. Not sure they know what an and-one is…

Even though this was not a tournament, they still got medals. Which caused come grumbling from the parents. One dad said to me, sarcastically, “I guess everyone gets trophies now?”

“That orange team doesn’t,” was my response, referring to the team we just destroyed.

Harsh, but fair.

With Sunday open we got some cleaning down around the house. We planned on power washing all the outdoor stuff that needs power washed but our damn power washer wouldn’t start. We hauled out some of the porch furniture. It was cooler Sunday but it still felt like pool season was close.

The girls are all off today – Easter Monday is a Catholic school holiday – so there are some doctor appointments; maybe the first kickball game of the year if the parking lot dries off; practices for track, tennis, and basketball; and M is hanging out with the girls in her prom group getting ideas for how to do their makeup this weekend.

So This Is The New Year…

January 3, 2022 /

Happy New Year, everybody! Let’s kick off another calendar year of discussing random shit, shall we?

Our New Year’s Eve was rather quiet, as usual. M went to a party, which was a first. That meant we had to stay up until we were sure she was safely at the home of the friend she was spending the night with. What did our parents do before the Find My app? Just worry until we showed up the next day? Fortunately she had a good and safe time.

Our neighbors invited S and I out for an early New Year’s toast at 10 PM. We met at the end of their driveway, shared a drink, and caught up about how our respective holidays went. It was a humid 55, so we all had light jackets on. Those were the final hours of both 2021 and our balmy stretch of weather. It got cold New Year’s Day, snowed a bit overnight Sunday, and the windchills are down below 20 now. 2022, January, and winter are all here.

L had a couple games yesterday, her final of the early winter session. They won the first game by 34 and she had her highest scoring game of the year, dropping in eight. She also had a half-court shot rim in-and-out at the final buzzer. They played the team of a St P’s classmate in the second game. This team was tall and athletic and play together year-round. We hung close for about 10 minutes then gave up a 12–0 run that we could not come back from. We were down 20 in the fourth quarter before a little run turned it into a respectable 10-point loss. L didn’t score but played solid D and probably had her best rebounding day of the year despite facing the big girls.

Her team will now transition to a different league for the winter. Those games will be closer to home and usually just one per weekend. She will also start playing in an occasional single-day tournament with the travel team she’ll be a part of in the spring and summer.

After her games we got all the Christmas decorations taken down and stored for the year. As always the house feels a little emptier and colder this morning without the tree up.

I also watched a certain 10-episode Netflix show over the weekend. More about that later this week.

M and C went back to school today. Cathedral is doing a two-week elective thing; they call it J-term, I know there are other schools that do a similar thing. M is taking an art appreciation class, which includes a day in Chicago going to museums. Hopefully Covid doesn’t wipe the out. C and all the other freshmen have to go through the same set of courses that are a mix of leadership/mentorship/future planning stuff and some fun sessions. Neither of them is super excited about any of this even though this means no homework for two more works. They both said they’d rather be in their regular classes with their friends. L has two more days of playing Xbox before she goes back.

So now I guess we start counting down for spring break. Only 82 days…

Christmas Notes

December 27, 2021 /

It is days like this you can’t help but wonder if climate change is a good thing. I’m sitting on our back porch, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, at 10:39 AM on December 27 and feeling completely comfortable. It feels like a May morning. Hell, it wasn’t that much warmer than this around sunrise in Hawaii. We will obviously pay for this at some point. Tomorrow we are supposed to have heavy rain all day and a slow decline until a low in the teens Monday morning. But this is a hell of a way to close out 2021 and we’re going to do our best to enjoy it.

We had a standard, big, crazy Christmas with most of S’s family. Eight of the nine kids are in town and 14 of the 16 grandkids.

Christmas Eve everyone who was in town gathered at the sister-in-law’s who lives in our old neighborhood for dinner and family time.

Christmas morning we realized this might be the first, but second at most, time that our girls have ever opened gifts without us having guests. There were no grandparents, aunts, or uncles staying with us Christmas Eve, so we had a quiet present time to ourselves.

S has loosened up from her Three Gifts for Christmas rule and the girls all got four gifts! They long ago wisened up to this process and only ask for 4–5 things, so they pretty much get what they ask for and know what’s coming. Highlights were all three girls getting new ski pants. M and L got new Nikes. C got some kind of magic hair dryer/hair straightener and a kit to make her own faux-acrylic nails.

Most of the local family joined us for our traditional Christmas brunch. I spent a couple hours on Friday knocking together my usual casseroles and we picked up the must-have Honey Baked ham earlier in the week. A few hours after brunch we busted out the dessert bar and most folks cleared out around 5:00.

S was off to the airport a couple hours later to pick up her sister and family who flew in from Denver. Those four are staying with us through Wednesday.

Their son turned 12 yesterday, so we took most of the family to a bounce place. It was pretty funny seeing our group of kids that range from 17 to almost-two all bouncing together. L enjoyed trying to dunk on the various basketball hoops. M and C did some cool obstacle course that was 15 feet above the ground and required them to be harnessed-up and connected to a safety line.

After everyone was back to our house for pizza, dessert, and some games.

Today M and her five-year-old cousin from Boston are getting their ears pierced together. These are M’s second piercings – one of her other gifts – but little L’s first and she is super excited.

I guess it’s been the standard, pretty good Christmas. Folks are getting along. Kids are behaved. For the first time in three years I’m not having some weird health issue over the holidays (knock on wood). The weather, which has hit 60 multiple times in the past week, is just a huge bonus.

Holiday Notes + Kid Sports

December 6, 2021 /

It seems like most of the family has re-acclimated to being in the eastern time zone, but our days are still all messed up. A full, five-day school week this week will surely get us back on track.

Our holiday schedule is all out-of-whack from normal, though. The day after Thanksgiving is normally our decorating day. Since we were hiking through Waimea Canyon ten days ago, that wasn’t possible. L and I got a bunch of the decorations out on the Friday before we left, placing them around the house as we listened to the Cathedral semi-state game on the radio. But we left the tree for when we got home. S and I got that put up last Thursday night, completing our decorating for the season. We didn’t put up any outside lights this year. The five big spruce trees in our front yard we lit last year that remain dark. I’ve heard from several friends who are disappointed that they don’t see them shining brightly as they drive by. We also ordered our Christmas cards yesterday, a week later than normal.

These little things shouldn’t be such big mental hurdles. But everything does seem just a little off. Again, a normal week should rectify that and we’ll all be freaking out that Christmas is just two weeks away when next weekend rolls around.

Saturday was Cathedral’s winter formal, back after a year’s Covid-induced hiatus. It was a much more hectic night that two years ago, when we had just one girl going and she had friends over to our house to get ready.

C asked a guy friend of hers from St P’s to go with her (this is a girls-ask-boys deal), but just as friends, and she was awfully casual about the whole thing. Since it was the first time she went to a dance with a boy we had to give her a little slack. They were going with a big group of kids, and the plans were constantly changing, which was annoying to S and I, who like to have details locked in. We texted another parent Saturday afternoon to see if she knew what was going on. Her response was, “Good Lord, I have no idea what the plan is!” Kids…

M went with a group of girls and left our house before allowing us to take a picture of her and C together in front of our tree. When S learned M had been gone for 20 minutes, she was not pleased.

We took C to the gathering point for her friends. We stayed about 10 minutes and got a few pics before leaving. Before the group departed for the dance, there were something like 46 kids gathered at that house. Bless those parents!

We left early because the family who was hosting M’s group was having a parent party and we wanted to get there before the girls left. This group was only nine girls and not all the parents stayed, but it was hectic for a bit. We laughed later at how the ladies stayed upstairs all night while the guys were downstairs. I guess we can’t complain about our kids acting weird when the parents won’t mix. It was cool to get to meet a few new dads, though. We stood around and watched football while having stilted, guy conversations until the group thinned to a more manageable number and the dialog got easier. Meanwhile the ladies were upstairs getting into the wine and having a good-old time! The juniors all left the dance early and when they came downstairs, M said, “They are so loud and you guys are so quiet!” Facts.

It sounds like the dance went well. Both girls said the music sucked. I don’t think C and her “date” spent a ton of time together, but that was true for most of the “couples” who aren’t actual couples. Ahhh, the awkwardness of youth! I can’t judge: I didn’t go to a dance until my senior year because I was too nervous/lacking in confidence/fearful of rejection to ask anyone.

Speaking of CHS, I should note that the football team won the state title while we were away. I was able to listen to part of the game while we were getting ready for our luau. They fell behind 7–0 early and were struggling to move the ball. But the QB snapped out of the mini-funk he had been in and a junior wide receiver went off, racking up over 220 yards on the night, leading the Irish to a fairly easily 34–14 win. That wraps up a 27–2 run over the past two years, with the only losses coming to Center Grove who went 28–0 over the same stretch.

L started her first winter basketball league yesterday. She’s playing on a team that has girls from four different parishes. She was super excited when she heard a friend of hers, who is probably the best seventh grader in our part of the archdiocese, would be on the team. That girl is on crutches, though, and may not play until the second session begins in January.

The team has practiced a lot but Sunday was their first time playing together, and you never know how that will go. After her practice Thursday L said, “We are soooo bad!” She was wrong. They won their first game 44–21 and the second game 39–20. They are really good on D and have two girls who are fearless going to the hoop and can convert. We jumped on both teams early and neither game was in doubt after the first quarter.

L played solid. She scored six in the first game. She missed a couple shots late and I told her she deserved to miss them since her coach told the team to stop shooting. She only scored two in the second game. She moved the ball well, though, and played decent D. She had a couple steals both games and got some tough rebounds in the second game. Once she tried to back a girl down in the post and shoot a turn-around jumper. She didn’t come close to hitting rim. I was running the clock and a mom from the other team was keeping the book. I started laughing and said, “Not strong enough to do that yet!” The mom said, “That was a sweet move, though!”

I think playing with these teammates will help L’s game, as she’s running with legit scorers and will have to hone her distribution skills. They have three more weeks of games – two before Christmas, one after – and then I think most of the girls will stay together for the second winter session.

Halloween 2021

November 1, 2021 /

I swear October is the fastest month. It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating L’s birthday and now here we are on November 1 bracing for the onslaught of Christmas commercials. Hell, they started Saturday, from what I could tell so we’re already in it. Fall break, a trip, and lots of basketball helped to make the month speed by.

Two weeks ago we were in the midst of one of the warmest Octobers in Indianapolis history. Today it was 33 when we left for school, and the high temps may not top 50 until next weekend.

Yep, things move pretty fast in October.

We had a split Halloween weekend this year. M and C both went to parties on Saturday. For the first time we were a little concerned about M’s plans. She and some school friends were going to some vague “party” hosted by some public school kids. Not that CHS kids don’t make stupid, typically teenage mistakes. Nor that there aren’t CHS parents who allow kids to get wild. But we feel pretty confident her circle of friends comes with parents who will not let kids get out of control in their homes. Plus, the public school is three times the size of CHS, so that makes it at least three times more likely something sketchy happens.

We just reminded her to make good decisions before she left. After she left S muttered to me, “And don’t get caught drunk if the cops show up.” Not that we worry about M acting out too much, but Halloween is the perfect night to start doing stupid stuff.

We checked in on her location occasionally. At one point she was on the total opposite side of the city where she was supposed to be. But she was also constantly moving. We guessed, and later had confirmed, that the “parties” they heard about were either non-existent, lame, or M and her friends didn’t feel comfortable and left early. Sure enough, she said the first public school party was filled with people they didn’t know, a second was mostly older CHS kids and they felt like outsiders, and they finally ended up at a small party about three blocks from where she was spending the night. So it all turned out ok.

C went to a party with a group of kids she’s been hanging out with all fall. They were at the home of people we knew, so we were confident things would be fine/safe there. Apparently two kids who were dating were acting “weird” all night and kind of ruined the party for everyone. Only 15 and she’s already run into the “awkward couple who might be breaking up at the Halloween party” phenomenon! She had a lot more fun at the sleepover she went to after the party.

L, on the other hand, stayed in on Saturday but went out trick-or-treating Sunday. She stressed for weeks on which group of friends to go with. She finally picked her group of guy friends because her girl friends were arguing too much about what to dress up as. Turned out the boys didn’t have much better of an idea, but at least they weren’t fighting as they changed their minds.

She went as an inflatable dinosaur. That was supposed to be the group plan but two boys in her group never got around to finding costumes so had random ones they found in their homes or borrowed from other friends. It all worked out. She went to a fancy, gated neighborhood where one of the kids lived. There were lots of full-sized candy bars which she was thrilled with.

S and I stayed home. This was our fourth Halloween in our new home. The first year we went to our old neighborhood and left candy at our door. According to our porch cam, we only had one group of trick-or-treaters that night. Year two it snowed and was insanely windy and we had no guests. Last year we had nice weather and only had a couple.

Last night we had four groups of trick-or-treaters totaling 10 kids, so a new house record! Two groups of neighbors and then two other groups of randoms. We live in kind of a weird spot – off a very busy street with no sidewalks and on the opposite end of the proper neighborhood – which really cuts down on the traffic. In our old hood I always stressed about whether I bought enough candy. And every damn year we had way too much. That’s not a problem here. I bought three small bags and we still have over half of it left. But with only one trick-or-treater, that means M and C have some to split for the next few days.

Now that November is here, there are a couple very big things on our calendar. One is this week for one kid; we’ll discuss that later. The other is a family thing that we’ve been waiting a long time for. We are praying that Southwest Airlines gets their shit together and we can pull it off. More about that, also, down the road a few weeks.

Holiday Week Notes

July 6, 2021 /

A busy family and holiday week is in the books.

We had visitors. My brother-in-law, his wife, and their three kids who live in Boston spent a week with us. Their kids are 6, 3, and 2. When I think of our kids being those ages and trying to spend a week as guests in someone else’s home, the word “disaster” immediately pops into my head.

But the week passed quicker than I expected and was more-or-less incident-free. There were some bedtime meltdowns but those are inevitable and didn’t grind the entire house to a halt or anything.

It was very funny having the two younger kids talk to me. The three-year-old comes across as an old soul. He would come up and ask me a question – Have you seen my mom? Do you know where my swimsuit is? Can I have a muffin? – and wave his arms around and scrunch up his face like he was an old man and the fate of the world depended on my response. He would also forget the name of whichever one of our girls was not in the room. So he would ask, “Where is the other cousin at?”

One night we were getting ready to watch a movie and he was irate at my choice. “I’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE!!!!” he screamed at me over-and-over. My brother-in-law whispered, “Just start it, watch what he does.” Sure enough, I hit play, the kid went catatonic, and didn’t utter a peep the rest of the movie.

His little sister killed me with some of the things she said, too. She has a sweet little voice and has very good speech for a not yet two-and-a-half year old. One morning she was asking me about breakfast, where her cousins were, etc and then dropped this bomb, “Can you stop hitting me?”

WHAT?!?!

I promise, I had not touched the kid. We think maybe she was asking me to tell her brother to stop touching her. We laughed about that all week.

Another morning she kept saying something to me and neither her dad nor I could figure out exactly what she was asking. Finally my brother-in-law said, “Oh,” and laughed, “She telling you she has a vagina.” Then she repeated it like three more times before asking, “Do you have a vagina?” More laughter. A few minutes later she told me her brother has a vagina which set him off. “MOM ALREADY TOLD YOU I HAVE A PENIS!!!”

Later my sister-in-law told us that while everyone was waking up, the little one started asking when she would get a penis like her brother, which led to an explanation of what different body parts boys and girls have. That left her with announcements and questions to share with the rest of the family. We missed out on fun like this with three girls.

Every day these little ones cracked us up with stuff like this.

Their older sister reminds us a lot of M at the same age. They both are/were very smart, could read well for their age, LOVE to talk, and have curly hair. If she pinned you down and started a story, you had to be prepared to listen for 5–10 minutes until she wrapped it up. I had years of practice with that so it was no sweat to me.

It was lots of fun to catch up with them since we don’t get to see them very often, and it had been 18 months since their last visit to Indy.

We had crazy weather over the holiday week. Early in the week we were stuck in a stormy, wet pattern. Wednesday morning we got three inches of rain in an hour, which set off our sump pump alarm at 6:30 AM and flooded the low point in our front yard. No water in the house, thank goodness. The next night we had another big downpour that put as at nearly six inches of rain in a 36 hour stretch.

Most summer nights you can hear frogs in our neighborhood after dark. All that rain must have forced all the frogs out of the ground because they were insanely loud Thursday night. It sounded like the Brood X cicadas of a few weeks back. At one point I realized they sounded much closer than before. Our garage door was still up, and when I opened the entry door, sure enough, there was a big, fat frog sitting between our cars. I grabbed the pool net and forced him outside then shut the garage door to keep him and his buddies out.

That was followed by two nearly perfect days, with cool nights, days in the 70s with low humidity. And then the normal July heat and humidity hit on Sunday for our Fourth of July gathering. The week ahead looks hot and muggy, so we’ll probably be doing a lot of sitting around in either the pool or remaining inside in the AC.

There were several gatherings over the week. A few informal ones around the pool during the days so the young ones could swim. Another of our local families hosted dinner and s’mores Friday night. We hosted the annual July 4th pool party for about 30, that included lots of food, drink, and Uncle D’s fireworks. We splurged for the extra-large Target fireworks kit this year. Monday we hung out with all of S’s partners around one of their pools for a few hours.

A pretty good week all around.

We have a quiet week ahead and then my in-laws arrive Saturday. My two brothers-in-law are flying down to Jacksonville Friday to load up a U-Haul while my in-laws fly up to Indy. Sunday we’ll all get them moved into their new house.

Weekend Notes

June 1, 2021 /

One of our more laid back Memorial Day holiday weekends is now in the books. Unlike most of the past decade, when we would either go to the lake or host a pool party, we had no major plans this year. We did have some friends over for dinner Friday, but it was cold and rainy that night so the adults stayed inside while the girls got into the pool for just a bit after I cranked the heater up. Almost all of our local family were traveling to one place or another so that eliminated the option for a gathering of relatives.

We did get some things accomplished, though.

S got the inside of the pool house painted yesterday, with some help from L.

Oh, and we bought a new house.

Wait, what?!?!

No, we did not really add another property to our list of holdings. Rather, we helped my in-laws buy a new place.

They’ve been in Florida for five years now, I think. Covid shutting down most of the things that drew them to Florida – thank goodness they live in an area that takes it seriously – and helped them to realize they want to be closer to most of their family. They looked at a few places in December but weren’t 100% sure about making the move back then. They visited in April and looked some more, but with the market so hot they couldn’t find something that met their needs before another buyer snatched it up. They looked into building but between delays and higher costs, that did not seem like a good option.

In a perfect world they would have hung on another 6–12 months and hope the market cools and more inventory opens up. But the Florida summers are a lot for them and they had their realtor keep a search open for them.

A couple places popped up this weekend. S took M to drive by a couple Saturday morning and S thought one was a possibility. She called her stepmother, talked it through, then set up a viewing with their/our realtor that I tagged along for. The house was a model home in a new neighborhood. We really liked it. After walking through and discussing with the realtor, S FaceTimed her stepmom and gave her a tour.

They made an offer that night and it was accepted Sunday afternoon. Looks like my in-laws will be back in Indy in about a month. I believe their plans will be to still get out of Indy for a few months in the winter as long as their health allows them to.

It was kind of fun to see S get that house shopping look in her eyes. Especially when it wasn’t us who were buying!

And, for the record, I do not understand the housing market at all. It makes no sense to me how it can be so blistering hot when the economy has been battered for the past year and the US population is fairly stable. Where are all these people coming from? What happens to the old homes/apartments/condos that these people are leaving?

We refinanced in February and our closer said he was genuinely worried about what’s going to happen in a couple years, after pretty much everyone is locked into insanely low interest mortgages and rates finally rise. No one, he suggested, is going to move unless they absolutely have to.

I see his logic, but there is no rational explanation for why the market is so hot now, so I’m starting to believe that, like the stock market, the housing market operates under different rules than all you finance types learn about in school.

Oh, one other thing happened this weekend: I got my first cold since before Covid hit. M brought something home last week and I was the first to pick it up. Like a couple years back, when I went two-plus years without a cold, it has knocked me on my ass. I suppose I should get tested, but since we’re not really going anywhere right now, as long as it passes in a couple days I don’t really see a need to do that. It’s just been a bad cough and sore throat for the past three days, but my sinuses are beginning to fill up so I guess I’ve got a couple days of that to look forward to. L started sneezing last night.

During the Indy 500 we took the girls to a new area downtown to eat lunch outside. We sat down just as the flyover was passing overhead, walked around a bit, then got home about halfway through the race. I promptly turned the TV on, laid down, and napped until there were 10 laps left. Which, given how fast and uneventful the race passed, was pretty much all I needed to see. Pretty cool to see Helio Castroneves finally get his fourth win.

Now it is summer. The girls all get to sleep in today. C starts her summer school gym class tomorrow, meaning she and I will be back to the 6:50 alarms for the rest of June.

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