Man That's Really Cold

Catherine had a birthday party to attend today, but before she left the kids were outside bike riding for a bit.






Ginger took Catherine to the birthday party. It was with a bunch of kids from Catherine's class at school and was at a miniature golf place. I don't know what kind of score Catherine got, but from looking at the pictures Ginger took I would guess it was probably well over 100 for 18 holes.




While the girls were off at the party Quinn decided we should go to the pool. Quinn's been really excited about going to the pool since it opened last weekend. To make it more interesting we decided to bike over to the pool instead of driving over.


I didn't really think this through since I wasn't really wanting to get in the water myself. Once we were there though Quinn didn't really give me that option though insisting that I get in too. Did I mention the pool just opened last weekend? It was warm out (maybe in the eighties), but it still wasn't warm enough to make the water comfortable so the water was really cold. I mean really really cold.


The pool itself wasn't that crowded (probably because most people realized the water wasn't going to be that warm). So Quinn had the diving board almost to himself. I will say even though I thought the water was beyond chilly it didn't seem to bother him that much. And as yet another side effect of getting old I've noticed now that once I get out of the water my ear continues to feel like there's water in it well after I get out of the pool. It's a very annoying feeling.


On the way home we passed by a one of the parks in our area that has recently had the playground equipment renovated. It looks all new and spiffy, and they even have a faux rock climbing wall.


Catherine was a bit upset when she got home and learned that we had gone to the pool without her, claiming once again that it "wasn't fair" (it's there new thing, nothing is ever "fair" these days). She eventually got over it though after it was pointed out that she got to go to miniature golf and Quinn didn't.

Full Day

Quinn and Ginger were off running errands this morning (I believe they were buying presents for an upcoming birthday party or something), so while they were gone Catherine decided to do some chalk drawings. She made a really elaborate drawing inside the garage.






Later in the day Ken and Amanda came over. A lot of times when Amanda is over Catherine and Amanda will play together and Quinn gets left out a bit. So I took Quinn on a bike ride around the neighborhood while the girls were cooking in the kitchen.




Once we got back home, it seems all of them wanted to go bike riding. Luckily we still have Catherine's old bike from before she upgraded to Quinn's, so after slapping the training wheels back on that the kids were off and riding.




Then there was more chalk drawing, but this time they were having Quinn pull the wagon around the cul de sac while hanging out the back of the wagon and drawing a path. Needless to say this wore Quinn out after a while. Hope the neighbors don't mind all these chalks lines in the road.

Photo Thursday: After The Rain

Another post with just a couple pictures.

I Feel Like I'm Forgetting Something...

Today was a special day. And it's not just because there was a turtle on our front walkway either (even though there was). It was special because today was our Wedding Anniversary. Apparently both Ginger and myself forgot (which possibly calls into question the day's specialness). The good news is we both remembered it later in the day. Do I still have to acquire negative points for forgetting if she forgot too? Anyway, to celebrate we had dinner out at Sweet Water since that's what the kids suggested (they don't fool us though, the reason they like eating out is because that's when they get to play their DS's).

Spider-Man's Marriage Update

This is too rich. You may remember how a while back I ranted about Marvel Comics and how they decided to end Spider-Man's marriage by having him make a deal with the devil (because really, that's what heroes do, right? nothing like teaching the kids if you can't win, just make a deal with the prince of darkness). Marvel has stood firm on this even amid a severe backlash from fans. They're convinced the only way Spider-Man can be a viable property is if he's swinging single (pun intended). And they refused to have him get a divorce (because that would "damage" the character) and having mary Jane die and him become a widower wasn't an option because that would make him appear too old (and again, they really aiming for that younger crowd). They say these things even though the comic book audience isn't growing by the addition of any younger readers and they're getting by only on the older fans that have stayed with the hobby. And with the undoing of the marriage they've seen sales on their flagship title Amazing Spider-Man go from 123k per issue down to about 70k per issue over the last six months (with a minor blip on that one issue where they had Spider-Man meet Obama and it sold over half a million copies once you take all the various printings into account). The drop in sales hasn't changed their minds though, and they're sticking to the dissolution of the marriage. Now here's where it gets good. Spider-Man also appears in a daily newspaper strip, and the folks responsible for that, wanting to present a cohesive view of Spider-Man, dissolved the marriage in the newspaper strip also. So imagine everyone's surprise when regular folks (non comic book fans) complained (rather loudly it seems) about the change and suddenly in the newspaper strip Spider-Man is married again. It appears they pulled a Bobby in shower and claim "it was all a dream."

Memorial Day

Had a nice day off for Memorial Day. Ginger had to run to the store at one point, so while she was gone the kids and I biked over to the nearby school. I think this was the first time Catherine had ridden her bike that far. I didn't have anything to take pictures with except for my small hand held camera (which is my way of saying excuse the poor quality of the photos).




Once we were there we played on the playground for a bit, how the kids are doing on the monkey bars always impresses me these days.


Now I know a kid doing monkey bars isn't that big of a deal, but I find it fascinating considering that it wasn't that long ago that Quinn didn't have the upper body strength to do the monkey bars at all. Now he can do it with a little effort. I don't know whether to attribute the improvement to him growing, or whether the gymnastics class he's been attending has something to do with it (maybe a little from column A and a little from column B). Whatever the reason it's nice to see him progressing.


After that we left the school and rode a bit further down the rode to an area where there were a couple of baseball fields. After Quinn wore himself out pretending to play and running around the bases a couple times we started to head back. Once we got back to the school we took a break for the kids to have a drink. I could tell Catherine was struggling at this point though, so I called Ginger and she drove over and picked up Catherine while Quinn and I biked back. And even though we were only on bikes we managed to beat them back home. Considering Ginger had to put Catherine's bike into the car and add to that the fact that they stopped to look at the neighborhood pool that had opened on the way home and I shouldn't be surprised that we beat them (but I was anyway).

For dinner we did the traditional grilling out (I think that's like a Memorial Day requirement or something).

Blue Door

Ahh, a day to just take it easy. We went out to eat at Sweetwater since the kids wanted to eat out, and as a bonus it keeps Ginger from having to cook.

Viva Vienna

We attended the Viva Vienna festival today. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun, but personally I'm not sure how many more years we can continue to go to this. We got the all day pass for the kids, and they actually rode enough rides to cover the cost (yes, we counted). But a lot of the rides are geared towards younger kids. Don't get me wrong, that didn't stop Quinn and Catherine from riding them, but I have to wonder how entertaining the ride that just goes around and around like a poor man's Merry-Go-Round can really be. There are other rides at festival that are geared towards older kids, but for now they don't meet the requirements for those rides, so they're currently stuck at a stage between the kiddy rides and the more adult rides.




These swings are an example of a ride that I feel the kids are a bit too old for personally. That didn't stop them from riding this several times though.








Another ride the really enjoyed multiple times was the mini roller coaster. It hesitate to even call this a roller coaster though given how small it is.


Then there were the extreme kiddie rides. The ones that they would simply sit in and it would got around in a circle. I really don't understand how they were staying entertained on these rides. In fact, I seem to recall they would almost immediately look bored after it had gone around twice.


The scambler was the most adult ride we did and I went with them on that. We briefly considered the Ferris wheel, but decided against it.


There were a couple of rides where in addition to going around in a circle you could spin the thing you were riding in. They went on a bunch of these. Given how fast they made the things spin I was glad I wasn't in there with them. Being old now I can't handle that as well as the kids. For this particular teacup ride I really wish I had a video camera. Catherine had it spinning faster than any of the others and I swear I thought she was going to make herself sick. But she didn't, and in fact right after riding it Quinn came over and she rode it again with him (although they didn't have it spinning as fast combined as she had it going when she was by herself).

Maybe If You Squint?

When we were at the birthday party last weekend the owner of the house pointed out this tree stump and said how much they liked it because it looked like a face. I don't see it myself. Looks more like a hermaphrodite to me.

The Bamboo Is Always Greener

As I expected I'm going to be making multiple visits to the hardware store. The good news is that I lucked out on buying the right piece for the toilet, so I was actually able to finish that one off. The sink upstairs though is another matter entirely. Turns out the replacement pieces I bought were chrome (the ones we had before were brass) and as such they've already become tarnished and stained. So that was a wash. Get it? Wash. Sink. No? Oh well, moving on.

I Start My Second Career: Plumber

Over the weekend we found a slight problem with Ginger's sink in the bathroom. Apparently it's got a small leak somewhere. It's already gotten a majority of the stuff under her sink wet. My guess is it's been doing this way for a while now since a lot of the stuff under her sink had suffered some water damage. This means I get to play the part of a plumber again and try to fix it. This invariably means many many trips to the hardware store in my future. I don't know why but whenever I attempt one of these projects I can never seem to finish without at least three trips to the hardware store. To make matters worse, the toilet downstairs has started spraying water out of the top of the basin when you flush it. I guess when it rains, it pours (or if not when it rains, apparently when you flush).

Come On Baby Light My Fire

A non people photo from the birthday party on Sunday.

Attending A Backyard Birthday Party

The kids attended a birthday party today. It was a backyard birthday party complete with inflatable moon bounce / slide, a zip line and pony rides.


The fact that there was a birthday only came up during the cake for about five or ten minutes. All the rest of the time was all the kids running around and playing.


The party was for one of Catherine's friend's and Quinn's previous classmate. He was, besides the birthday girls brother, one of the oldest kids attending the party.


At the end there was a piñata for the kids to break, but it was apparently made of titanium since they had all the kids take three swings at three separate times and it still didn't break open. They eventually switched over to using a metal baseball bat and after about five whacks with that it finally opened (they actually had two piñatas, but given how long the first one took they just broke open the second one rather than try and have the kids break it).






Afterwards it was kind of late, which is too bad, because Ginger had wanted to head back to the art festival over in Reston. But that wasn't an option since by the time the party was over the festival only had another half an hour before it closed also.

Art Festival

We attended the 18th Annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival on Saturday. Pete lives in that area so we met him for a bit. Lots of artwork on display. At the prices being charged I need to get Will to open a booth here next year so he can sell his wares.


I really liked these glass works. They have color planes inside so the color disappears and changes at different angles. The piece above was about 4k though, so it's a little outside my price range.




We got to visit Pete's place and the kids got to go up to the roof of Pete's building and check out the view. Neither of them seemed particularly bothered by the height (in fact on Pete's balcony I was the one pulling them back a bit since I was starting to get what felt like vertigo looking over the edge).


Later we met up with Ken and Amanda and visited the tents set up for the kids to work on their own artwork. Above they would take some water color, put a big blot onto the paper and then blow it with a straw to make designs. If you try this at home I suggest lots of paint cloths underneath, or do it somewhere you don't care it gets paint everywhere.




Quinn got bored with the art stuff, so while Catherine and Amanda were working on other items he was out running laps. He did briefly head back in to join Catherine and Amanda as they all worked on their junk jewelry.


We saw Pete again later as he was purchasing some paintings.


And this is Catherine with her final collection of art. We had to leave shortly after this due to inclement weather that was approaching. So we headed off to Red Robin with Ken and Amanda for dinner.