Noccalula Falls

Last weekend we took a road trip up to Noccalula falls outside of Gadsden, Alabama. It was one of those semi-cool and invigorating days where you finally notice that the humidity isn't the standard 105% and the temperature is finally slightly cooler than the surface of the sun. Those latter two weather attributes tend to describe most days (and some nights) during the Alabama summer.

We sat down to get a family picture while waiting for the train to tote us around the park for a quick sight seeing tour. Since I couldn't find a fence post or railing to get a true family picture, here is the best one I could get, with me safely behind the camera...out of sight.

Doesn't Bryce look enthused... What is it about 7 year old boys that make them unable to smile naturally? I see it everywhere...

Aiden loves the trains and was thrilled to pile in with his siblings. The giggling and wiggling crew of kids and the already tired parents took the train all around the park. Then we got off at the stop nearest to the little zoo which seemed a good place to start. While the kids looked at the animals, and we hurriedly chased the kids, I realized that they were using an advanced "divide and conquer" strategy against us. I wonder if they get together and write out plays on a big dry erase board in their rooms before we take them on trips like this. Someday I know I'm gonna find a board under the bed with tons of X's and O's with dotted lines around an amazingly accurate depiction of the park.

During this period of chasing them and yelling, "Stop! Don't touch that!" or "Eeeew...Don't put that in your mouth!" this children's "Learn to Read" story popped into my head. I think it's better than "See Spot Run" for sure...

Ahem.

Aiden was a boy.

He liked to run.

Aiden ran a lot.

He ran from a rooster.

He ran from a floppy lama. (and another chicken)

He ran from an Emu.

(I'm seeing a pattern here...running from birds? There has to be some rare ornithological complex that I can find to explain the behavior)

But, Aiden didn't run from the bunnies!

The End...

In fact we had to keep him from climbing in and joining the bunnies...

Yeah, I know I promised not to write any more children's stories after Squiddy, but I couldn't help myself.

While Aiden busied himself with running from all the pseudo-wildlife and birds, he fell and got the second large bruise on his forehead of the week. I'm sure that family services will be visiting our house soon.

Before the kids were completely worn out, Brenna and I decided to go and see the falls, so we bribed them with food and started off. We hiked down the trail and through the canyon to reach the waterfall. The canyon was filled with enormous boulders and old oak and poplar trees reached up the 30-40 foot cliffs on either side of the river. The river was fed by the pool at the base of the falls and looked very inviting even though the warning signs were posted about not swimming. We haven't had much rain in the past week, so the flow over the falls wasn't all that impressive, but it made quite a roar against the overhanging rock ledge as we walked. There was a recessed rock shelter behind the falls where we sat and ate lunch.

I used a timed exposure to make the water look like it had some movement to it rather than freezing it in time with the standard automatic settings on the camera. If you click on the image, it will expand to a much larger size.

My last image here is pretty random, but we all stopped to look at the colors. I had no idea that peppers came in that many hues.

I wonder if they were hot? I should have surreptitiously picked one. Oooooh...what a rebel.

New Pets!

I came home yesterday to a very excited couple of kids, meaning Bryce and Ansley. Aiden is always happy and excited, but we're not sure what its about most of the time. They had a surprise for me and had covered it with a hat so I couldn't see. When it was time for dinner, they told me to close my eyes, which didn't really matter since they had covered the surprise with a hat and my X-ray vision isn't working well these days. They whipped the hat off this unknown object with much fanfare I'm told since I had my eyes closed during the event. I then opened my eyes and found out, that we have two new pets. Small pets. Small swimming pets. With legs.



Water Frogs!



I'm sure there is some story of, "Hey Mom! Look what followed me home...in this plastic cube filled with rocks and water. Can I keep it?!?" Eventually, I'll hear that part of the tale of the two frogs, and I will certainly post it so everyone can enjoy.



During dinner Bryce and Ansley were all atwitter with excitement over the new members of the family. I, on the other hand, was rolling my eyes at Brenna since I didn't want to have to explain life and death to young kids when these things kicked the bucket...or whatever it is that dead frogs do. I was then informed that these frogs will live 3-5 years. Apparently the people writing such information haven't seen the statistics on pets that reside in my house. Oh well...



I asked what they named their frogs and promptly heard, "Sally!" from Ansley. Bryce hesitated and then shouted out, "Stealth Fighter!" Some time must have passed as I un-crossed my eyes from laughing because Bryce was staring at me quizzically. I looked at him and asked where he got the name. He matter of factly said, "I named it after a plane."

Again laughing...

Well, that's it. Those are the official names, so I have devised a quick aide for all of us when we look at them. I would personally hate to be called by the wrong name, and I'm sure the same goes with water frogs.

This photo may also help the kids identify which is Sally and which is Stealth Fighter because they seemed to not really know either...

Off to School!

It's official, we now have two kids in school. Ansley was up bright and early for the bus ride to her first day at school. Now, if any of you know Ansley, you know that Ansley is the antithesis of "bright and early". She is more of an "Aw heck, let's stay up all night" kind of girl. In other words, 9am is a good time to begin thinking about opening the "peepers" and rolling out of bed to start the day. She begins her day the way a diver comes up from the deep murky depths of the ocean. Very slowly and carefully. Lord knows we wouldn't want her to get the bends by jumping out of bed too quickly...

I have yet to figure out how we ended up with two boys that find 5:30-6am a natural time to wake and how my daughter sleeps through all the ensuing ruckus. I wonder where she gets that...hmmmm...

But to memorialize the events of her first days of school, I captured this image of her standing up, with eyes open, dressed, and ready for the day at 6:56 this morning.

And off they run...

Will wonders never cease?

4th of July

This 4th of July we went up to our usual stomping (splashing) grounds at Lake Lanier in Gainesville, GA, but this year was different. I had one of my best friends come up and join in the festivities of family, fireworks, cycling and skiing. Now, when the two of us get together, general mayhem inevitably ensues. This year, we kept the mayhem to a minimum because Rick came bearing gifts that would leave a grin on my face and bruises on my feet. No, these types of results are not considered mayhem at all...seriously...

The addition to the water ski war chest? A barefoot boom.

Just days prior to travelling up to the lake, I got the go-ahead from the doctor to "lift some light weights" after breaking my collarbone into several pieces in March. I figured, "It's water? How can you get hurt with water?" With that, I decided to try to get back to skiing. Now this is pretty funny based on my past 4th of July water skiing performances. (i.e. 2 ER trips due to wake boarding)

I put all the negative thoughts regarding my old injuries out of my head, and climbed out on the boom. Before we took off, Rick taught me how to execute a quick tumble turn, gave some other vague instructions about hanging on for dear life, smiled mischievously, and hit the gas. I was immediately skimming across the water on my belly with white spray flying and the engine roaring.

At around 3,000 mph...I'm guessing here... he yelled "GO!", which was surprising since I have never heard any instructions from the driver of the boat in all my years of skiing. Being 5 feet from the boat is really cool.

I rotated onto my back and pulled myself around on my rear which was comfortably covered by the most unattractive pair of neoprene padded shorts imaginable. Unattractive, that is, until you are screaming along just under the sound barrier while hanging from a bar off the side of a Mastercraft. Then these shorts take on the aura of something Versace would have easily sold for thousands of dollars on the Paris fashion show scene. As a side note, Rick didn't seem to like the stylings of these fabulous shorts and developed a serious aversion to wearing them properly while rocketing across the surface of the lake...BUT...we won't go into that to protect the innocent.

To finish the story of my first attempt at barefooting, I planted my feet after tumbling around and I felt the pressure on the soles of my feet. It was amazing! I had enough speed to actually get my weight out of the water on about 1/3rd of each foot. I stood up and was up and going! The water hammering on my feet did produce a bit of pain, but it was so cool to try a new style of skiing after years of slalom, wakeboarding, wakeskating, I was up over and over again no matter the pain. I love learning to ski new ways.

Not bad for my first try if I do say so myself...

I took Rick for a tow and he showed us some really good "Feet Skiing", as Bryce would call it. I must say Rick really is good at this stuff! It's great to have him as coach.

Another benefit of a Barefoot boom is teaching kids to ski. The coach/driver can be right next to them and talk with them as the boat takes off. We got Bryce up for several hundred yards and Ansley even tried it too. Ansley would just giggle as she was pulled along. It was wonderful to see the family and friends enjoying the water.

I will post more kid pictures once I get the camera's memory card back from the lake house where I managed to leave it, so stay tuned for a second post!

Camping and then some...

It's not that there hasn't been enough interesting stuff going on in our lives to produce the inspiration for a post; there just has been almost too much going on. It's hard to be motivated to write anything family related, random, humorous or otherwise when one is falling asleep on the couch at 9pm. Certainly no writing gets done in the mornings because two very noisy and active boys are up at 6, and that's about the only time my brain seems to be functioning.


Ok...enough with the excuses. On with the silly family story!

It was a fine 96 degree day here in Alabama. I got on the bicycle with some of my teammates and rode just shy of 60 miles, and when I got back to the house...and napped...the idea of camping in the back yard came into play. We looked at the Internet to see if we were going to actually melt if we decided to sleep outside, and lo and behold, the temperature was going to drop to 88 (31 C) around bedtime, so SURE!

It's strange how living in the south distorts one's perceptions of what is a comfortable sleeping temperature...

Bryce and I set the tent up in record time in order to finish ahead of the routine evening swarm of mosquitoes. For Father's Day, I received a fantastic 8 person tent that actually sleeps my entire family. Once it was completely assembled and anchored down, the kids promptly went back in the house, literally filled a suitcase with stuffed animals and made a zoo in the tent. Part of this menagerie, naturally, were the mosquitoes that they let into the tent by going in and out of it for the next 2 hours. Telling them that they should leave the tent flap closed was completely lost on them.

Or the mosquitoes had extracted enough blood from them to make them loopy and oblivious to my sage advice...

Aiden loved the tent...


Now, I don't camp much, but back in my younger days, I would have thought that even using a sleeping pad was not "roughing" it enough, but now I wasn't about to sleep with 5 people in one tent without certain amenities. I hooked up two high speed fans in the tent and put two inflatable queen sized mattresses in it. Yeah...that's more like it.


At the end of the night came a fun display of lightning bugs, of which the kids caught quite a few, and then I pulled out the surprises... Glow sticks, or chem-lights, or whatever you call them. The frenetic swirling and twirling ensued and produced a scene that I haven't witnessed since clubbing in my younger days. The music was thumping through the outdoor speakers and the kids danced in the back yard. I think that I need to reiterate that we were actually camping. I wouldn't want you to get confused by the fact that we actually now seemed to have the entire house in the back yard.

Hey, it's just like being inside...only hotter and with more bugs! Wheee!

These are some 20-30 second exposures of the backyard "club scene".


Well, after being awoken at 4, 4:15, 4:30, 4:45, etc...I got up at 5 and went inside. Hence me having a moment to write up this post. I hope you enjoyed the foolishness and potentially take it as a warning if you value sleep! Now I have to go ride a bike, take the tent down and get ready for our afternoon entertaining 6 kids. 3 of which belong to some of our best friends who happen to be in Vegas without the children...obviously.

To say I envy them is an understatement of some unfathomable order of magnitude.

Tampa – Friends, Pets, and Kids

Bryce and I made a big father son trip to my old stomping grounds in Tampa. I must admit that I was also getting a big benefit out of going since I was able to reconnect with several friends that I don’t get to see often enough. Email and phones are great, but they just don't cut it when it comes to hanging out with people.

We took off from the office on Friday, and drove until around 2am…well, I drove whilst Bryce napped in the back. Fortunately XM radio had all the baseball games I could stand to listen to in order to keep me occupied.

Bryce loved the tower in Rick's boat. It's a jungle gym coupled with a boat! What could be better!!!

The plan was to show Bryce something that he didn’t get to do much. He really enjoys fishing at the lake every summer, and this would let him see something larger than brim and the offhand bass. We did as much as we could with the limited time a 7 year old can focus, even on really interesting stuff like tarpon.



Rick caught bait fish that were already larger than anything Bryce has caught in the lake. That was a bit of a new concept for Bryce, and he was wondering what size fish we would catch when the bait was that big.


After a stop at Egmont Key for some snorkeling and jumping off the old fort walls, we started to motor to another location. That’s when a group of tarpon rolled near the boat. We hooked up a bait fish and scanned the water for the group. After a search, we found the group of tarpon again and tossed a line near them as we drifted with the motor off. They were decent sized tarpon based on the shapes in the water, but you wouldn’t know how they got so big if you judged them by their eating patterns during our attempts to hook one. They didn’t seem hungry at all. I swear that Rick hit one in the head with one cast and it didn’t do anything. Of course, maybe that’s how they got big. They ate things that didn’t include a barbed hook! We also ventured out to Beer Can Island and had some fun in the water there. This island is the infamous location of a boat explosion last week where someone didn’t bother to run their blower while a generator was running in the engine compartment. Everyone survived, but some people were in pretty bad shape. The stench of burned up fiberglass and some boat parts were still on the shore when we walked by the site.



The day we had to make the arduous journey home was initially planned as another fishing outing, but a steady rain decided to get in the way. What was the solution for the day? Bryce and Rick went out to ride the wave at Adrenalina, and looked like they had a blast. Here is a short video of their exploits.




It’s seriously hard to do, but there was one big guy there that made it look easy. Honestly, there is always someone that makes it look easy...and then you try it.



Another part of the weekend was the collection of pets that have taken up residence in Rick and Jodi's house. 1 large semi-hyper dog, 1 chihuahua (or saber toothed squirrel perhaps), and a cat that has some feline identity issues. Bryce couldn't leave them alone, and they loved the attention. I could see this being a problem...meaning I might end up with another mouth to feed.

It was a great trip and I am seriously tired now. I think I’ll go to bed early for a change…

Your Mom would have said NO!

On one of our days in Mexico…


Yeah, yeah… I’m way behind on writing anything, but I just haven’t been into it with the broken bones and the office workload.

On one of our days in Mexico we decided to pack up the crew and head to Xel ha for a day of looking at animals, swimming, and goofing around. We weren’t sure what to expect, and the first raft ride we went on was really weak. Eric and I were looking at each other and laughing a bit over the lack of anything, including tour guide dialogue, on the tour. It was pretty half baked, but fortunately for all, it got better.

We went through several aquariums and saw loads of fish and sea turtles, which the kids really liked. Regarding the title of this post, here is one moment where I looked back and saw Bryce climbing through the display turtle shell. NO! There, I said it…a bit belatedly at best. It was hard to say it when it was happening because I was laughing.

Nope, I’m not going to get a gold star for my parenting on that one…

After lunch at the beach restaurant, the kids played in a salt water pool that had several schools of fish in it. The kids splashed around and tried to catch them for half an hour. I have no idea how they can work that hard for so long. Again, I should have probably said that they shouldn’t have been disturbing the fish, but honestly I didn’t care. NO! There I got that one out of the way too…

The highlight of the day was the cenote. We donned our somewhat poorly-fitted life jackets and waddled over to the entrance to the river. Two things we noted at that point but only one was of immediate concern. The water was in the 70’s since it was an underground spring-fed river which, for us tourists, is cold. I don’t care what you say. When you are used to 120 degree showers, 88 degree pools, and warm ocean waters on hot days, being in a cave in 70 degree water is chilly. We all stood on the precipice trying to decide what to do or who to push in first as a sacrificial offering to the cold. I opted for the “rip the band-aid off method” and dove in. As you can see, everyone else aside from my partner in crime, is still there on the steps when I fumbled around and got the camera shot.

The other part we realized was that we were going to be swimming in this underground labyrinth for an hour. We figured that they must be overstating how fast we would get through, so off we went. We floated and swam through tunnel after tunnel, and it was really a cool experience…quite literally at times…

Bryce and Ansley both had their goggles and snorkels, but within 3 minutes, they were off and Mom and I were carrying them. By the end Eric had lost his, and unbeknownst to me, I had dropped Bryce’s to the bottom as well. I had to take off the life jacket and dive to the bottom which was most likely only 12-15 feet, but in semi-darkness and with large jagged boulders littering the bottom perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas. I could hear my Mom in my head…you guessed it… NO!

The funny thing was that I was diving down and looking for Eric’s mask when I found Bryce’s.

Thanks E!

We all finally, and thankfully, found the end of the river and clambered out. On the way out of the park, Bryce wanted to go look at the hot chicks that we had seen on the way in. I of course said… YES!

What? A bunch of baby birds in an incubator wasn’t what you were thinking?