Some catch up on general summer notes.<\/p>\n
Monday was our annual trip to the 4H fair where the girls\u2019 cousin shows pigs every year. As usual, they had fun walking through the buildings and viewing the pigs, cows, goats, sheep, and rabbits. No poultry this year because of the avian flu thing and the horses were not shown on Monday, so it wasn\u2019t quite as comprehensive a view of farm animals as in the past. We laughed because we clearly look like city people. As we walked through the stalls, kids would come over to our girls and ask, \u201cDo you want to pet them?\u201d and open the gate to their pen so the girls could get right in with the animals.<\/p>\n
M. also had her annual visit with Megan the goat, who we first saw as a baby four years ago and is now a momma goat.<\/p>\n
Their cousin earned first and third place ribbons before we got there, and when we saw him in the Showmanship part of the day, he advanced to the finals.<\/p>\n
The girls also got their picture taken with the Fair Queen. A girl my sister-in-law watches who hung out with the girls went running over to the Queen because \u201cI know her!\u201d When the Queen had a break in her ribbon handing out activities, she posed for a picture with the girls. M. and C. were kind of starstruck, not because she was a \u201cqueen,\u201d but rather because she was really pretty and had very distinctive, pale blue eyes. \u201cDid you see her eyes? They were so pretty!\u201d L. wasn\u2019t as awed but just thought it was cool the Queen took time to say hi to them.<\/p>\n
Our last swim meet was two weeks ago, but the season officially wrapped up last week with the awards banquet. We nearly skipped it, as that was the night of our backyard campout. We were glad we went, though. After final ribbons and team pictures were handed out, there were a few awards for each age group. M. won Most Improved Swimmer for the girls 9\u201310 group. She was pretty proud, as was I. She really worked hard this summer, which I hope is a good thing. She isn\u2019t always one to rise to an athletic challenge[1] but certainly did so this summer. One of my highlights of the break was seeing her win an individual heat back in June.<\/p>\n
The girls came up with their first grand plan of the summer over the weekend.<\/p>\n
They were playing with the neighbors when a dog from a block away wandered into our yard. The group grabbed a leash and walked it back home. By the time they had returned, the five of them had cooked up quite a plan: they were going to start a dog walking business and donate the proceeds to charity. Not just that, though. In order to raise funds for the supplies they would need to walk dogs, they were going to set up a lemonade stand.<\/p>\n
Neighbor dad and I opened another beer and began peppering them with questions. How much did they need to earn to start the dog walking service? How much would lemonade supplies cost? How much would they sell the lemonade for? What charity would they donate the money to? How long would each dog walk last? Who were their potential clients? And so on.<\/p>\n
None of the questions phased the girls. Rather, they just got more excited. By the end of the evening they had found ways to trim their opening capital needs and ditched the idea of financing it through a lemonade stand. They had printed up a flyer, come up with a name for their business (which has already changed twice), and decided their charity would be the local Humane Society.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve been in a holding pattern since then. So we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
M. assumed the role of treasurer and brought home a box of change they all contributed to the cause. She counts the money twice a day and records it on a ledger, just to make sure it\u2019s all there.<\/p>\n
Finally, perhaps my favorite moment of the summer so far. There\u2019s a cool park in our general vicinity we hit a few times each break. It has a small splash park, a decent-sized playground, football fields, a long trail, and a Frisbee golf course. It\u2019s a great spot to go without plans and see what the girls want to do.<\/p>\n
Anyway, last month we were there and I noticed a boy was throwing the football around with his mom. Not something you see everyday, but alone not worth mentioning. As I was keeping an eye on my girls, I thought I saw something odd, though, from the mom. So I kept my eyes on her. Sure enough, every few throws, she\u2019d lick her fingers before she threw another ball, just like Dan Marino. And she had a pretty good arm too. Each throw was a perfect spiral with some heat on it.<\/p>\n
I just thought the finger-licking thing was great. You don\u2019t see many dads licking their fingers before each throw when they\u2019re just tossing the ball around with their kids. I loved that there was a mom who wasn\u2019t satisfied with just lobbing easy balls for her eight-year-old to catch. She needed some grip so she could fire that sucker!<\/p>\n
Along those lines, after going on one, short run through the neighborhood with me last week, she decided she had no interest in cross country this fall. So we signed her up for kickball for the fall. \u00a0\u21a9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some catch up on general summer notes. Monday was our annual trip to the 4H fair where the girls\u2019 cousin shows pigs every year. As usual, they had fun walking through the buildings and viewing the pigs, cows, goats, sheep, and rabbits. No poultry this year because of the avian flu thing and the horses were not shown on Monday, so it wasn\u2019t quite as comprehensive a view of farm animals as in the past. We laughed because we clearly look like city people. As we walked through the stalls, kids would come over to our girls and ask, \u201cDo you want to pet them?\u201d and open the gate to their pen so the girls could get right in with the animals. M. also had her annual visit with Megan the goat, who we first saw as a baby four years ago and is now a momma goat. Their cousin earned first and third place ribbons before we got there, and when we saw him in the Showmanship part of the day, he advanced to the finals. The girls also got their picture taken with the Fair Queen. A girl my sister-in-law watches who hung out with the girls went running over to the Queen because \u201cI know her!\u201d When the Queen had a break in her ribbon handing out activities, she posed for a picture with the girls. M. and C. were kind of starstruck, not because she was a \u201cqueen,\u201d but rather because she was really pretty and had very distinctive, pale blue eyes. \u201cDid you see her eyes? They were so pretty!\u201d L. wasn\u2019t as awed but just thought it was cool the Queen took time to say hi to them. Our last swim meet was two weeks ago, but the season officially wrapped up last week with the awards banquet. We nearly skipped it, as that was the night of our backyard campout. We were glad we went, though. After final ribbons and team pictures were handed out, there were a few awards for each age group. M. won Most Improved Swimmer for the girls 9\u201310 group. She was pretty proud, as was I. She really worked hard this summer, which I hope is a good thing. She isn\u2019t always one to rise to an athletic challenge[1] but certainly did so this summer. One of my highlights of the break was seeing her win an individual heat back in June. The girls came up with their first grand plan of the summer over the weekend. They were playing with the neighbors when a dog from a block away wandered into our yard. The group grabbed a leash and walked it back home. By the time they had returned, the five of them had cooked up quite a plan: they were going to start a dog walking business and donate the proceeds to charity. Not just that, though. In order to raise funds for the supplies they would need to walk dogs, they were going to set up a lemonade stand. Neighbor dad and I opened another beer and began peppering them with questions. How much did they need to earn to start the dog walking service? How much would lemonade supplies cost? How much would they sell the lemonade for? What charity would they donate the money to? How long would each dog walk last? Who were their potential clients? And so on. None of the questions phased the girls. Rather, they just got more excited. By the end of the evening they had found ways to trim their opening capital needs and ditched the idea of financing it through a lemonade stand. They had printed up a flyer, come up with a name for their business (which has already changed twice), and decided their charity would be the local Humane Society. We\u2019ve been in a holding pattern since then. So we\u2019ll see. M. assumed the role of treasurer and brought home a box of change they all contributed to the cause. She counts the money twice a day and records it on a ledger, just to make sure it\u2019s all there. Finally, perhaps my favorite moment of the summer so far. There\u2019s a cool park in our general vicinity we hit a few times each break. It has a small splash park, a decent-sized playground, football fields, a long trail, and a Frisbee golf course. It\u2019s a great spot to go without plans and see what the girls want to do. Anyway, last month we were there and I noticed a boy was throwing the football around with his mom. Not something you see everyday, but alone not worth mentioning. As I was keeping an eye on my girls, I thought I saw something odd, though, from the mom. So I kept my eyes on her. Sure enough, every few throws, she\u2019d lick her fingers before she threw another ball, just like Dan Marino. And she had a pretty good arm too. Each throw was a perfect spiral with some heat on it. I just thought the finger-licking thing was great. You don\u2019t see many dads licking their fingers before each throw when they\u2019re just tossing the ball around with their kids. I loved that there was a mom who wasn\u2019t satisfied with just lobbing easy balls for her eight-year-old to catch. She needed some grip so she could fire that sucker! Along those lines, after going on one, short run through the neighborhood with me last week, she decided she had no interest in cross country this fall. So we signed her up for kickball for the fall. \u00a0\u21a9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,14,170,30],"class_list":["post-5160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-family","tag-parenting","tag-swimming","tag-youth-sports"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13984,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160\/revisions\/13984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}