Back in the Summer of 2010

Give yourself a sticker for surviving Summer 2010 because it is gone. I don't care what the calendar says, it's over. I know this for certain because on my daily drives to and from work I don't have to dodge fourteen boats piled high with tubes, kids, and coolers as they head for the lake. I am not seeing as many people roaming around Wal Mart in their swimming suits with armfuls of potato chips and sunscreen. Our little town has slowed down again for the winter. It is nice, and to top it off we have even had rain for three straight days.

To further cement the end of summer football has returned to our lives. The Razorbacks won their first game and have climbed to #14 and #15 in the polls. This Saturday Arica and I are heading off to our first football game of the year. We will see friends, have fun, and call the Hogs on their way to another blowout victory against a former directional Louisiana school that is now simply ULM.

Even with the joy of football season beginning we will mourn the passing of another summer. There are good and bad things about every summer in Arkansas and this year was no different. Really the only bad thing was the oppressive heat. The temperature was over 100 degrees for nearly the entire month of August. That leads to huge patches of dead grass, nearly zero outdoor activities, and high energy bills. But even the heat can't keep us from having fun.

Now it is time to recap the good things about Summer 2010 aka Braden's second summer.

This year was the first family vacation which included Braden's first Cardinals game and a trip to the zoo. We also took Braden on his first of hundreds of lake trips. We went to water parks with and without the little man. Arica and I snuck in one trip that ended with a free Billy Currington concert. God is great. Beer is good. And people are crazy indeed.

There were plenty of other little things that were equally as awesome as vacations, water parks, and free concerts. For example:

We introduced Braden to snow cones.

Braden learned to help feed the dogs, and now he loves to do it every day. He has even developed somewhat of a friendship with the old hounds.

And finally there is one good thing that all this heat brings, besides all the water activities. It gives you a great excuse to run around the house in your underwear.

So that is it Summer 2010. It seems we hardly knew you. Until next Memorial Day when I fire up the grill and pop in the Saving Private Ryan DVD, I hope you enjoy your trip to the Southern Hemisphere.

Obama Is Following Me

We are back from Cleveland, and apparently we have started a hot new trend. Even President Obama is following in our footsteps with a visit to the city. I am sorry to inform you Mr. President, but we have already gone.

Thanks go out to Weasel Momma for providing us with this fun getaway via her giveaway on World of Weasels. If you don't know her by now then stop by and say hello. She is sure to keep giving stuff away now that she has a taste of giving away showcases like Bob Barker.

For now I will wrap it up with my new updated Top 5 things about Cleveland list.

1. Downtown Cleveland is packed with great places to eat. We had a great meal every night and could have continued that trend for weeks to come. There are all sorts of different cuisines and settings right in the downtown area. We even saw my friend PJ Mullen's hero Michael Symon's restaurant "Lola" on Sunday, but it was closed. With a little better planning we could have eaten at an Iron Chef's restaurant.
2. If food is number one then beer has to be number two. Great Lakes Brewing Company, located in Cleveland, makes several fine beers. While I couldn't try them all I did manage to try a Burning River Ale, a Dortmunder Gold, and an Eliot Ness. All were excellent.
3. Downtown Cleveland is nice. Tons of places to eat and drink within walking distance of our hotel. Also within walking distance are the home fields for the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Indians. If they could field a decent team with either of those franchises then they would really be on to something. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is right there too.
4. The Christmas story house still makes the list. I liked the place. It is the leg lamp capital of the world.
5. The Rock an Roll Hall of Fame was cool. I am not the biggest museum guy in the world, but any place that honors the best of the best in Rock in Roll is like the Hall of Fame for cool people, so it has that going for it.

Yes I dropped Lou Brown and his troops off the list. I felt since I have actually been to the city that I should focus on the real parts of the city. Major League is still one of my favorite movies and the best thing about the Cleveland Indians franchise.

Also the weather stunk. I froze to death for the entire weekend. It was windy and cold. At least it seemed cold to me being from the south. It reinforced my thinking that if I ever leave Arkansas I will be moving somewhere closer to the equator.

Cleveland, The Bumpuses, and Lou Brown

Friday morning Arica and I are leaving for Cleveland. You may have heard that we won a free trip from Weasel Momma a few weeks back. Well in an effort to miss the fewest days of work possible we are cashing in on the trip this Labor Day weekend.

We are to some degree breaking the rules of the trip giveaway. It is supposed to be a all expenses paid family vacation. We have already had a full one week family vacation this year, so we are turning this into an adults only weekend. It will be nice to have some time for each other.
Arica and I are anxious about leaving Braden for an entire weekend. Arica has never been away from him that long before so I know it will be hard for her. I have been away a lot longer than that, but I will still miss my little buddy terribly.

The fact is that in order to be the best parents we can be for Braden we need to take care of ourselves as well. Mentally and physically exhausted parents do Braden absolutely no good. So we are taking a short little getaway to recharge the batteries. Hopefully after some R & R (both rest and relaxation and Rock and Roll HOF) we will be fully refreshed and ready to conquer the months to come.

I know absolutely nothing about Cleveland. I would have never taken a trip there, but that is a cool thing about free trips. You get to see a part of the country that you may never have considered otherwise. When I return I will have plenty of pictures and  a few stories to tell about all the things I learned about Cleveland.

I thought it would be fun to do a "Top 5 Things I Like About Cleveland" list before and after the trip.Here is my very uneducated before list.

1. Cleveland is the home of the Cleveland Indians. I don't care about the real version. I am talking about the Hollywood versions consisting of Rick Vaughn, Jake Taylor, Willie Mays Hayes, Roger Dorn, Eddie Harris, and the late great Lou Brown.
2. Even though I always thought it should be in Memphis, Cleveland is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
3. I recently found out that Cleveland was home to the Christmas Story House. That is beyond awesome and moves Cleveland way up the list. The only thing that could be better is if the Bumpus family dog kennel was located next door. And if you hear that the leg lamp has been stolen, don't look at me.
4. Cleveland is on the shores of Lake Erie. I have only seen Lake Michigan but I think the Great Lakes are pretty cool. They are like giant fresh water oceans in the middle of North America.
5. I am going with Jim Brown, former Cleveland Brown here. He was one of the greatest football players ever. He is a notoriously tough guy who, frankly, scares the crap out of me. And he was in the movie "The Dirty Dozen" that I watched many times with my Dad when I was growing up.

Wordy Wednesday

Much of the Dad blogging community participates in Wordless Wednesday. This requires posting a picture on your site and that is all. I am not one of those Dads. I figure if I wanted to have wordless posts I would have started a picture album rather than a blog. To each their own I guess.

Still this is the third straight Wednesday that I have posted pictures from our vacation. This vacation ended a month ago, but I am still reporting like it is breaking news. When you have a cute kid and a talented photographer for a wife you have a lot to share.

So here is the final installment of our vacation pictures. They include Silver Dollar City Theme Park and the water park.

This isn't the water park, but Braden insisted that he wear his swimming suit that day. Turns out he knew what he was talking about.

Braden having yet another Coke on the trip. Vacation is meant for fun. He hasn't had one since.

Me and Braden shooting some ball gun thing. I had to beat up three kids to get a gun.

Arica and Braden riding the water gun boat. I stood along side and shot water at the boat.

All three of us after several water gun battles.

Braden at the water park.

Braden in the water tunnel with a shirtless man lurking behind.

What's Your Favorite Animal?

George Costanza was once interviewing candidates for a scholarship from the Susan Ross foundation. This was something he didn't really want to do, and his methods were interesting to say the least. Here is an excerpt from one of those interviews.

George: Quick, what's your favorite animal?

Candidate: I don't know...Frog?
George: Frog?
Candidate: Well...I...I..
George: Frog is wrong.

We went to the St. Louis Zoo on our vacation a couple weeks ago and I got to see my favorite animal, the tiger. Below are pics of that and much more, including Braden's favorite animal the "mummy".

Braden looking at a live version of a mummy.

Braden checking out a mummy picture.

I have seen Madagascar 2 way too many times on HBO. I kept imagining this zebra talking like Chris Rock.

Braden did the Build-a-Bear thing.

Except he built a Penguin. His choice.

.

Later he picked up this girl. She just climbed right in his ride. I was beaming with pride. You can see my right arm and leg beaming in the picture.

Don't worry. It's not the peyote. Braden really is sitting on a giant blue frog.

No comment. I just liked this picture.

Here we all are at the zoo for photographic evidence.

The little man finally just gave out from animal overload.

Catching Up

I was gone on vacation last week. I haven't quit blogging just yet. Yesterday, I did write a farewell post, but I just couldn't bring myself to post it. Quitting is not in my blood. Even when I want to quit sometimes it's still impossible.

So for now I am still here pounding the keyboard. Feel free to start a Save the Otter internet campaign. Get me enough love and I may continue doing this for a long time. Who knows?

Today I will touch on a few subjects using the Life of a New Dad favorite bullet style.

• First I have some business to take care of. The nice folks at Dove sent me some free soap. I get offered free crap from time to time, but this was different. I need soap. I use it every day. How could I turn down a free bottle of something I needed. So I am trying a new soap. Arica said it smells good and that is pretty much enough for me. I feel clean when I use it, but I didn't get out the microscope to check. I am confident enough in my clean sensing skills. I don't like the "Active Clean Shower Tool" though. It is just a loofah wrapped in a rubber housing with an exterior pad. It doesn't fool me. I don't wear pink. I don't wear visors. And I don't use loofahs. So I recommend Dove Men +Care if you like to be clean. I don't know what it costs though. If you go to buy some and it costs $7 a bottle then complain to Dove not me. Mine was free.
• We took Braden to an amusement park, a water park, the zoo, Grant's Farm, and his very first Cardinals game on our vacation. It was a great trip. We have plenty of pictures that I might get around to sharing some day. At the end of the week it was nice to be home though. Braden agreed. He went around the house digging out all his toys to make sure they were still there.
• Grant's farm must be one of the only places in America that has a petting zoo, a carousel, and free beer. I say America because I imagine they have places like that on every corner in Germany that also include sausage trees and BMW bumper cars.
• We had a mouse. I stress HAD. He is now gone from the ranks of the living. Our furry friend had been wreaking havoc for quite a while. I kept forgetting to buy traps. I am an out of sight out of mind kind of guy. Finally I got traps two days ago. I opted for the glue traps like an idiot. I guess I felt like they were now the industry standard for mouse killing. They were also the cheapest traps. Yahoo! I saved a dime! They must be for city mice because our country strong mouse woke me up at 4:30 am banging around under the stove while escaping from his sticky demise. Last night I placed an old school snap and kill trap right back in the same spot. This morning we had a dead mouse. People have been using dead fall traps for thousands of years. Why in the world didn't I try them first. Let this be a lesson to all of you. If you want to kill animals go for the most vicious forceful type of trap you can find.
• I had a job offer this past week. I went in to quit my job yesterday and ended up getting a promotion of sorts instead. See above about my trouble quitting. Now I get to keep my same relaxing position with a promise of zero travelling unless it is an absolute emergency. I also got a raise and some profit sharing guarantees. Now I might need to stop blogging so much and try to make some sales.
• The week before we went on vacation, right before I had two job interviews, we put our house on the market. It is not a great time to sell a house, but we are trying anyway. We don't want to live in a two bedroom palace anymore. We need a larger palace in which to store our wares.

As you can see we have been quite busy lately. Wish us luck selling our house and in returning to our normal workaday routines.

Vacation at Home

Today is the second day of my vacation. I am enjoying some Sports Center, coffee, and the world wide web. I have not taken a vacation since the week Braden was born. Since virtually all my readers have children you can understand that the first week home with your new baby is not much of a vacation. So this week is my first week of true relaxation in well over a year.

What will I do with this golden opportunity. Will I go travelling? No. I am leaving the country next weekend so home is where I want to be. Frankly, I have no plans other than spending time with my family. I want to soak up every minute that I can with them.

This week is as much a vacation for Arica as it is for me. She will have help with Braden every day this week. I will be able to give her some much needed rest. I hope I am a good assistant.

Being on vacation leads me to think about the future vacations I will take with our little family. We are already planning on going to the beach next year. If you are from Arkansas the beach means the gulf coast a.k.a. the redneck riviera. That seems to be the thing everyone around here does with their small children. I love the beach so I plan on keeping the tradition. Jimmy Buffet is one of my heroes. I have always dreamed of living the beach bum life much like the leader of the parrot heads. I could wear shorts and flip flops every day. I could drink fruity drinks at the tiki bars. Life would be relaxing. Since that is very unlikely a beach vacation seems like the next best thing.

Of course at some point we have to take Braden to Disney World. I need to start saving now to make that dream come true. Maybe I can forgo a few fishing lures this year to get the savings ball rolling. I went to Disney World when I was about seven years old. I don't have a lot of memories of the trip. I want to wait until Braden is at least that old before going. I might even wait until he is a little older to make sure he remembers some of the good times at the happiest place on earth.

When I was a kid we didn't take many vacations. I played baseball every year and it always lasted nearly the entire summer. Even with the busy schedule my Dad and I always tried to find a weekend to go to St. Louis and watch the Cardinals. I certainly plan on keeping this mini vacation tradition. I hope to take Braden and Arica to a Cardinals game next summer. While in St. Louis we will visit the zoo as well. They have a great zoo, and I look forward to seeing Braden's reaction to all the animals.

Those are a few of my vacation ideas. I don't plan on packing the family truckster every year to trek across the country. Some years we will take shorter trips or fly to maintain our sanity. I do plan on doing my best to vacation somewhere every year. Hopefully our family will be able to forge some wonderful memories that will last us a lifetime. Even the Griswold-esque disasters could give us fun stories to tell forever. I am excited already, but for now we will start with a vacation at home. After all, nothing can be better than spending a week of quality time with my two favorite people.