Pale Male

Luke and Michael have recently become very interested in birds of prey. Luke says he'd like to become a falconer one day. His current favorite bird is a hawk, so we checked this book out from the library:

 Then I found some photos of Pale Male, who is still alive and well and living on 5th Ave. in NYC. Here he is with his mate in 2009.

 Imagine the boys' surprise when they went out one evening and found these two perched in our play structure!

Luke named his Pale Male and Michael named his Hawky. Thank you Westerville Central High School for having the Warhawk as your mascot and for stocking the local Kroger with stuffed hawks!

Hyper Camp

This week, Luke attended Hyper Martial Arts Camp. I can't believe he did martial arts from 8am to 4pm and then came back for class a couple of times.  They walked to lunch at a local cafeteria each day. Luke was introduced drank Mountain Dew for the first time. By the third day, the teens who had introduced him to it were begging him to stop drinking it because they said it made him too hyper! Serves them right and can you ever be too hyper for Hyper Camp? Luke was the youngest kid registered for this week, but had a great time. He really loves working with the older kids. There are four students from Korea attending the camp as well and Luke really enjoyed getting to know them. Master Circle posted phots and videos every day on Facebook, which made mom and dad very happy. These are awesome pictures. Luke is now totally worn out from the week. Much thanks to Grandma Carole for co-sponsoring this camp!

This is what happens to young ladies . . .

. . . when they come to a house full of boys.

Too much clover in our yard to go barefoot, so I provide shoes. Well-worn navy blue crocs. I'm pretty sure Miss Lola has never worn navy blue shoes at all, much less crocs. Then I proceed to watch as Lola and Justin play at the water table and by "play" I mean get totally dirty and soaked. I take off the dress, but decide that I must send her home wearing SOMETHING, so . . .

I put her in Michael's t-shirt. It may be the first t-shirt she has worn?  Hey, it's almost a dress. A gray and black Star Wars dress. But, look, at least I did this:

 

 Jackson was pretty impressed with the matching shirts.

I may never be allowed to babysit again.

From the Same Folks That Brought You . . .

Terror at Curious George, Sad at Rooster in the Ambien Commercial, but Fun and No Problems with Harry Potter, Nightmare Before Christmas and any other number of age inappropriate movies. Now bring you 45 Minutes of Absolute Hysterics over the "Gary the Snail Gets Lost" episode of Spongebob Squarepants. Luke and Michael both. This was followed by Additional 40 Minutes Tearing House Apart Looking for Toy Snail to Pretend is Gary So Michael Can Sleep. Thank you, St. Anthony, for assisting in finding the snail in question. This was followed by Luke Calling Out 15 Minutes Later Saying that He Can't Get Lost Gary Thoughts Out of His Head and Needs a Book to Read in Bed. I think they are finally sleeping now. Mommy needs ibuprofen.

I thought something seemed familiar . . .

Camping, for real.

After our semi-camping experience a couple of weeks ago, Matt ordered a tent. We were itching to try it out, so in honor of our 11th anniversary, we took an impromptu trip this weekend.  We went down to a section of Wayne National Forest at Lake Vesuvius near Ironton, Ohio. Matt wanted to try this campground because it had tent-only walk-in sites, so you park about a hundred feet away from where you camp. I was sold on the fact that it had electric walk-in sites because it was HOT (but not as hot as it was in Columbus).

The view from our campsite. We'll go back in the fall and follow this trail further. It was too hot to hike too much this trip.

 

 The boardwalk path at Lake Vesuvius. I was disappointed because the road to the beach was washed out and that wasn't posted on the website. They said we could hike there and we tried, but it was way too far with the kids and the gear. We stopped and the kids went in the lake just off the trail, but it was kind of gross and stressful, so I didn't take pictures.

 Chillin by the fire.

 We're calling this weekend a learning experience. We forgot the stove, so we had to cook over the open fire, which wouldn't have been so bad except that building a fire to make coffee in the morning would have been easier after several cups of coffee.

 Justin did this a lot. He made and played in mud. The other boys did, too, but with Justin it was a repetitive full body experience.

 

 Which led me to do this in order to get Justin clean enough that we could ride into town to go for ice cream.

 And then Justin did it all over again. He played in the tub for like a half hour while we struck camp this morning. Then I put on the last clean outfit and carried him directly to the car where he sat (with the a/c running) for half an hour while we finished packing.

We endured a rainstorm, very loud cicadas and a nosy raccoon, but the campground was really great. Exactly what Matt was looking for. It was my first real camping experience and I'm pretty sure I complained non-stop all weekend, especially since the stuff I had planned didn't work out and I don't do well on the fly. But in hindsight, back in the comfort of my air conditioned, bug free house, I can say that it was pretty successful overall. We were only 10 miles from the Ohio River and we drove around a lot. We found a splash park to cool the kids off at since the lake was a bust. And we drove back and forth to Kentucky a lot just because the bridges were cool. On our way home today, we followed the river to Portsmouth and went through about a dozen little river/mining towns. Matt and I just think the river/hill/farm topography is really cool, although we are very glad that we don't live in any of those little towns! Some of them were whiskey tango yikes.

We were supposed to again camp in August, but I'm thinking of moving the reservation to September, so we can hike more and sweat less. Overall, though, I'm really glad we got the heck out of Dodge and didn't spend our anniversary weekend holed up in the a/c dodging the neighbor kids.

Dinosaur Camp

Finally, another blog entry. Yeah, I've been lazy and forgetting my camera. Luke did Dinosaur Camp at COSI this week and he loved it! I'm so happy that one of the counselors took pictures.

Here Luke is painting dinosaur eggs with two boys from IC, Brendan and Ben.

 They also got to explore the exhibits. This is inside the submarine at the Oceans display.

On the last day, they built their own museum. Here Luke is waiting for us to arrive, so he could show us all of his creations.

Thank you, Poppy and Nan, for a wonderful birthday gift! What a great week!

On to martial arts camp this week!



Dysart Woods

On Saturday, we went to Dysart Woods to hike. Dysart Woods is 50 acres of preserved old-growth forest. It's one of the only places where you can see what Ohio would have looked like before people got here. Ohio University takes care of it and uses it as a bio-lab. I had read enough to know that the hike would be challenging. They don't clear fallen trees and do everything they can to keep the forest undisturbed, so the trail is narrow and sometimes hard to follow.

 Matt is not a huge fan of toddler backpacks, but he agreed that it was a darn good thing we borrowed one for this hike! Thanks, Melissa! 

 There were tons of fallen trees to climb over. The red diamond on the log shows the trail. Sometimes, you really had to hunt for them. It was Luke's job to keep us on track.

 There were also quite a few scary bridges to cross. Yes, we crossed this bridge!

 To be honest, the ravine below was only a few feet deep, but it was still pretty cool!

It was a long 2 mile hike with very steep inclines and decline over tough terrain. By the last half, Michael was exhausted, so Matt ended up carrying two kids. When we finally reached the end, we were so hungry and exhausted that we just ate lunch right there in the parking lot rather than looking for a picnic spot. Hey, it was a grass parking lot anyway and we were the only people around.

Beaches

One of the reasons we chose Barkcamp was because it had a swim beach and my kids love the beach (maybe someday they'll actually go to an ocean one!). We went Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, but I only took pictures on Friday. It was a nice, clean little beach on a quiet lake with no gas motors allowed. On Saturday, there were lots of people, but it didn't feel crowded like at Alum Creek or Delaware.

On our way back, we went to Salt Fork State Park, which we visited a few years ago. It has a much bigger beach. Unfortunately, a colony of geese appears to have settled nearby, so the beach was kind of yucky. The kids still had fun, but I much preferred Barkcamp. I told Matt that I bet when I looked back at the Salt Fork post from 2008, Luke would be wearing the same bathing suit that Justin wore all weekend. He was. Luke was 3 in 2008. Justin is 15 months.

Camping Trip

This weekend we went camping at Barkcamp State Park in Belmont, OH. I know to most folks it wasn't "real" camping, but I come from a completely non-camping family and it's going to take me a few trips to figure out how to be "camping mom."

 This was our campsite. It was a Camper Cabin site. Inside, there were 4 bunks and a mini-fridge, plus some wall outlets, so we could have a fan, etc. Then there was a covered picnic area and a fire pit. The latrines and water was a short walk away. It was perfect for what we needed, mainly somewhere with a place to put a pack n play for Justin and the fridge was helpful because our cooler isn't great.

 Thankfully, it wasn't very hot the first night. The boys loved roasting marshmallows. Justin went to sleep fine in the pack n play at first. But once everyone got settled in the cabin, we had a VERY rough night. Justin kept waking up crying and screaming (teeth? diaper rash? who knows.). Matt and I got zero sleep. Luckily, Luke and Michael seemed to sleep through a lot of it. I was afraid we bothered other campers, but the sites on either side of us were vacant and the folks further down were mainly in rv's anyway. It was certainly not an ideal night.

This is Justin at 6:30am the next morning, none the worse for wear.  

We had to pack so much baby gear and beach supplies, that we didn't have room to bring many games, so the boys had to create their own entertainment around the campsite. They invented a game they called Road Rally where they loaded the strollers with stuffed animals and then ran around like crazy people. 



I am pleased to report that the second night was much smoother. Justin fell asleep at 7pm. The older boys were exhausted from a very full day and went to bed at 8pm without much argument. Matt and I didn't even bother trying to get the tempramental fire restarted when it went out and just went to bed at 10pm. Every slept like logs. In fact, Luke slept like such a log that he fell out of bed at 2am which woke Justin, but Justin babbled himself back to sleep and nobody got up until 8am this morning!

We really like this and may do it again with the same kind of site in the fall. By next summer, we should be ready for tent camping!

Having Three Boys Means . . .

 . . .having a perfectly good couch that no one sits on properly.

4th of July

After several years of attending 4th of July parades, this year we were all in one! Yes, all the Ponesses marched in the Westerville Independence Day Parade.  For some reason, Westerville starts its parade at 1pm rather than first thing in the morning. That made for a very hot parade.

Matt and Michael marched (or rode) with the Blendon-Westerville Little League. Michael loved waving at everyone and kept telling Matt "Look, we know them, they are waving at us."

 Luke, Justin and I walked with Koguryo. It was a small group at this parade because most of the teens were in the various marching bands and lots of folks were out of town. Luke marched, cartwheeled, kicked and jumped for 2 miles in 90 degree heat. Master Circle's wife was driving the jeep and she thought Luke was awesome and looked like Koguryo's very own drum major.



 Justin rode, whined, poured water on himself and collected flags as the bigger kids got tired of carrying them. He had six by the end. It was a LONG parade. I barely made it. Then we were off to dinner with at the Martinezes, which I didn't take pictures of because I still felt terrible from the parade and Justin was a wreck. However, by 8pm, back home, Justin had recovered a bit, so we did this:

 We drove to a field with several hundred of our closest friends to watch the fireworks. They were AWESOME!! Thumbs down for a miserable parade, Westerville, but thumbs up for great fireworks!

Luke was 4 before I let him stay up for fireworks. Michael was 3. Here is the napless 15-month-old thirdborn at 10pm eating a lollipop the size of his head.

Looking for Eagles

The boys have been very interested in bald eagles since their trip to the zoo last week. This morning, we went to Highbanks to look for the Bald Eagle Family that lives there. We think we saw one flying high in the sky, but the nest ended up being too far a walk for us today. We are going to do several short hikes around town this week to try and get the boys ready for our camping trip next weekend.

Summer!