Fun with Deadly Firearms

My company has a shooting club (who knew), and I joined last week. My last good memory of shooting a gun was with my dad in the scouts. We won the “Turkey Shoot” that year. Great memory.

I was more than a little intimidated to be honest. I was a little surprised at myself. We went to Bill’s Gun Shop in Robbinsdale, which was crazy busy. They have 23 lanes and all of them were rocking.

The company did a great job of safety. I really felt like I knew what I was doing, and there was an NRA certified trainer assigned to me to make sure I didn’t… I don’t know… kill or maim anyone.

They started me out with a 9mm, which was fun, but by the time I got to the 45, I was having a ball. I’m still not a bad shot… I still remember the breathing that dad taught me.

By the time I finished, I was feeling comfortable enough that I shot this 232 Scar. Big, big boom!

I’m looking forward to going back and to teaching Jake and the girls.

Cub Scout Camp

I took Jacob to scout camp this month. He scored most of his badges for the upcoming year, and a very, very tired dad.

From the outset they do a pretty good job of keeping everyone in line. I started off pretty grouchy about all the 13 year-old kids barking orders at us… boy scouts appears to teach a good job of being prepared, but not a great job of teaching people skills. To be fair, they really do a great job of organization.

The weekend (Friday night through midday Sunday) is non-stop scouting: archery, physical training, firearm safety, sports, swimming, fishing, et cetera.

Jacob’s favorite part was learning how to make fire and about the four recognized boy scout fire types (which he has shared often with his family:

1. Pile Fire
2. Teepee Fire
3. Lean-to Fire
4. Log Cabin Fire (Jake’s favorite)

Here’s a little lesson from Jacob:

We slept in a yurt (think of it as a huge tent) with ~17 other pairs of dads and scouts. Lots of snoring. They dad who had the bunk next to us had a definite Frank Burns (movie version of M*A*S*H) thing going on, wearing the dad’s boy scout uniform all day and creepy stuff at night.

It was a lot of work to get through the weekend, but I got to spend the whole time with my little boy. He was so well behaved (even when he was tired) and I was very proud of him.

Tara Month

My wonderful husband coordinated an entire month of events to celebrate my birthday. It’s been an amazing and fun month…and it’s not even my birthday yet. The month started with a really awesome trip to visit Amy and Jamie in Atlanta. It was an extraordinary trip. What a way to start. We had a family dinner with the Halls, date night with Thiel’s, movie night with the Larson’s and family fun night at Big Marine Park. There was a yummy wine tour and dinner cooked by 2 personal chefs and there is still an evening of mommy alone time and then dinner for my birthday at Marx. What a month!!

Tara’s Birthday Party

What an amazing husband I have. He planned a truly amazing and unique party for my to celebrate my 34th birthday. Our afternoon started at St. Croix vineyard where we were treated to a tour of the vineyard. St. Criox Vineyard is co-located at one of those Stillwater classics: Aamodt’s Apple Orchard. I was lucky enough to take a tour with Emma and her pre-school class of the orchard, so it was fun to see the vineyard side.

All 3 kiddos were with us and it was very hot out, so given the circumstances, the kids were really well behaved.

Emma was the resident photographer and she took a lot of interesting photos…especially before I told her to look through the viewfinder to see what she was photographing.

After the tour, we did the wine tasting which was really yummy. I love their wine. It’s all great. Who knew there could be such great wine right up the street! We finished our afternoon at the vineyard with a few bottles of wine in the orchards.

After our wine adventure we headed home where 2 great chefs were preparing an amazing meal for us. How cool is it to have a private chef cook dinner at your home.

It was so, so yummy!! The dinner was ribs, jicama salad, chipotle potato salad, fruit, veggies, cheese and crackers. Everything exceeded our expectations. The food was yummmmmmy!

We were also treated to an amazing chocolate torte for dessert. It was so pretty it didn’t seem we should eat it…that thought passed quickly. Everyone enjoyed the amazing dessert.

What a fun and unique party. Kudos to Larry for coming up with a new party idea that I hadn’t thought of yet. What a great celebration. Thanks to the family and friends who celebrated the day with me.

Family Fun Night: Pumpkin Carving

For Family Fun Night (our second this week) we did some pumpkin carving.

We talked a little about how carving pumpkins in a lot like what God does for us:

1. First, he pulls us out the pumpkin patch and cleans us off.
   
2. Then he opens us up and scoops out all the bad stuff (i.e. fear, doubt, anger).
   
3. After that, he puts a big smile on our faces.
   
4. Finally, he puts his light inside of us for the whole world to see.
   

We made some really yummy pumpkin seeds with a recipe that had sugar, cumin, pepper and cinnamon. Not sure how this fits in the analogy, but that sin sure was tasty!

Beatles Rock Band

We bought Beatles Rock Band the other day. It’s been a lot of fun for the whole family. We’ve all played together a few times. Mommy and Daddy on guitar and Jake and Emma trade off drums and vocals.

The kids favorite songs are ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’, ‘Yellow Submarine’ (which I secretly loathe) and ‘Taxman’ (which I told them is about Obama).

Emma kind of be-bops through it, but Jake gets frustrated if he isn’t perfect (or at least better than Daddy). I’ve not been able to teach him that failure is good if you learn from it.

I’ve kind of had to laugh at the concept of a video game focused on The Beatles… 17 year old Larry would not have done well in school if this game had been around. Too fun!

Books from Mom-mom

Mom-mom bought a couple of books for the kids the other day.  I have great memories of my grandmother buying books for me…  only rule was that we had to read them.

Emma got “Knuffle Bunny Too” which she has been begging for…

…and Jake got a crazy cool Star Wars pop-up book that explains the whole Star Wars universe.

We have had a ton of fun reading them.

Thanks Mom-mom!

Fun Daddy Time

After Abby’s birthday party, Tara had some errands to run, so I took the kids to a fun indoor play place to run off some energy.

The kids mostly wanted to play with Abby which was great for me on two levels:

1. I didn’t need to chase them everywhere (soooo tired from the party), and
2. I got to watch them play so carefully with their baby sister. Generally, it’s Emma who is super focused on Abby, but Jake was really into her.

We played “restaurant” for a while. My meals looked a lot like red rubber balls. I had no idea that I could eat so much: hamburger, hot dog, hamburger, cheeseburger, hot dog… whew!

Abby loved the ball place. The kids were so great with her in there. It’s fun to watch them all play together!

Afterward, to our suprise… the ICE CREAM MAN was by our house! Yeah! Treats for everyone!

Eggs and Teddy Bear Park

Tara had a happy hour at work, so I took the kids to Teddy Bear Park. It was fun, but dern near exhausting.

It started normally enough… went to pick up the kids at Grandma’s, got them into the car and buckle them into their car seats, got ready to go. Then Karen came out.

“Where’s the son of yours!”, she says, grinning from ear-to-ear… “He’s got my eggs!”.
“You’re what?!!? You’re eggs… are where…”

Too late, she was already grilling Jake (and laughing): “Where’s my eggs, Jacob?!?”.

Come to find out that Jake decided to hide a dozen eggs in the house… or so we thought.

So, off we go to Teddy Bear Park. And we almost make it there, but then my phone rings… it’s Karen. We come to find out that he hid some of them in Shelly’s room… and two in his BACK POCKET. I was heart sunk… they MUST have broken. We’d have to go home, get clean pants, clean up the car. Ack!

But low and behold, the eggs miraculously survived. Yeah, off we go to the park.

Jacob had a lot of fun with the slide.

Jumping!!!

Our fun was cut a little short when Emma’s bare foot managed to find it’s way to a dog’s leftover droppings. Leaving dad with the fun job of hold Emma in my arms, while her feet are dangling in the bathroom sink, while trying to direct Jacob to direct Abby to stay away from the toilet and the trash can… while washing the poop off with my bare hands. A father’s job…

We finished our evening at DQ Grill. The kids each got a value meal (which includes an ice cream treat). Abby got a little crabby so we headed out to the candy store, where Jacob got a Gummi Rat.’

Fun evening… but like I said… exhausting.

Abby’s Birthday

Abby turned one on the fifteenth. Both Tara and I are in shock! We just brought her home from the hospital and now are little baby is one.

Ever since Emma’s 2nd birthday, we’ve used a polka-dot themed door display for birthdays. She loved it and Tara and I enjoyed watching her play with them. The little dots just proved too much for her to resist.

That night, we had a small family dinner at Acapulco Restaurant in Stillwater with family. Her big party is this weekend. She got a few presents and got to spend a little time with her great grandma. It’s a great family place and now that Adam works there, it works well with the family.

Jake is helping Abby with her new toy.

Jacob had a little homework to do and Uncle Adam got him some bottle caps for his collection if he finished it. He’s been doing great in school and we’re happy with the progress. He’s reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level.

After, we went to Nelson’s (home of the ridiculously large ice cream cones) and Abby got her first taste of Ice Cream. Jake’s friend Hunter was there and they got to hang out.

Jacob and his friend Hunter.

All told it was a nice family time with everyone: Grandma & pappa, Grandma McCloud, Adam, Shelly, Emily & Kelly, and our family. Very nice to have a relaxing day ahead of big party on Saturday.