Ultra Serious!

We went to a park on Memorial Day. As we drove in, the posted speed limit was 20 mph. I didn't find that too unusual. With kids playing near the small road and families playing ball, there is no need to drive forty plus toward your picnic area.
The part that caught that our attention was the sign below the speed limit.

"Radar Enforced"

WHAT??!!! These guys are serious. Is the park service paying an officer to monitor cars coming in? We imagined a cop hiding in the bushes, mounted on his bicycle. He would ring the bell on the handlebar.

"Do you realize how fast you were driving?", he would ask.
"Sir, maybe 23 miles per hour.", I would answer nervously.

On my way out of the park I would pay my ten dollar fine and have to attend driving school.

Because it was a holiday I knew they would be patrolling heavily. I drove with extreme caution and kept it below 20. We also took the beer out of Cari's hand until we parked the car.

The begining

My brother got married on Sunday. All the dresses were the right colors and nobody passed out. That really took away a lot of material for the blog.

Randy had a lot of fun at the reception by taking his name off our table and placing it at the head table. At first I didn't realize what he was doing, but then a groomsman came and sat at our table because his name card was at our table.

Since I really enjoy photography I was watching the photographer work. While at the reception I noticed the DJ talking with people and generally being the MC. Cari and I discussed who was ranked higher in the scheme of things. We agreed that the DJ is at the bottom of the rankings. The DJ just does as he is told. But the photographer has some control. He gives direction to people to set up a photo and he even was giving direction to the DJ at various times.

I'll be posting some pictures next week.

Oh NO!!

I killed a dog with my car yesterday.

Don't worry, it wasn't mine.

New Shoes

I got new shoes yesterday. Four new GoodYears. My old ones were wore down so much in the front they looked like racing slicks.
When you shop for tires there are lots of choices. I'm not a good shopper, so Cari ran this errand for me while I was at work. I asked her to get which ever set she felt was best. Any of them that were NOT Michelin tires.

"What's wrong with Michelin?", she asked.
"They are French.", I replied. "Any other tire will do just fine."

Driving to work today I could really feel the difference. There were a couple of corners that I used to slow below 20 mph because I could feel the tires slipping on the road. Not anymore. I can really push the car now. I can make it to work in about thirty seconds less time now.

Add that to the three minutes I shaved off my shower by only washing a 1/3 of my body a day, and now I can hit snooze one extra time every morning.

Free Air Show!

There normally isn't much air traffic around our house. Just the occasional small private plane.

I was caught off guard when I heard the roar of plane fly over my house. When I ran outside to see what it was (yes, I ran), I saw four planes flying in formation just over the roof tops. Of course I grabbed my camera in case they decided to come back.

These are two of the four matching planes that first alerted me to this show

While I waited for them to make another pass I heard the engine of another plane rev it's engine.

This plane was doing loops, flying upside down, doing nose dives, barrel rolls, and my favorite was a end over end double flip. How they did that, I do not know. Another trick I saw was when she would fly the plane straight up, then just let it tumble back down. There is no way she could know which way was up.

doing a nose dive, only to pull up at the last minute.

I hopped in the car and drove the two miles over to the airport. Our airport is small. Small enough there is a small building hooked to the side of the hanger. That's the airport. One runway, one room that was an afterthought. I don't think they have running water there yet.

I was able to stand at the hanger and watch the plane continue it's aerobatics directly over the airport.

Thanks to the smoke trail, this picture was more interesting.

I later learned that my pictures weren't worth much. Nothing but blue sky and a plane upside down. Turn the picture over and it looks like any other picture of a plane flying normally.

I was so busy trying to get pictures that I didn't even think about my video camera. I regret that now.

Meredith was home, so I drove home and brought her back to the airport.

Thumbs up, as the pilot poses for a picture before heading out.

One of the people in charge of this fleet said that they were practicing for an air show that one of the local manufactures hosted for its employees. After practice finished, he let the twenty of us there on to the pavement where the planes were parked. As we walked toward the planes, Meredith asked, "can I touch one?"
"Have you ever touched an airplane?", I asked her.
I already knew her answer as she replied, "no."
"Come on, let's go touch some airplanes!", I told her.

The punch line

Time for a joke.

My brother is getting married in about a week. Meredith will be a flower girl in the wedding. This means we had to purchase a specific dress to keep her in "uniform".

Today Cari put some curls in Meredith's hair and put the dress on her. I took a few pictures and Cari said she wanted to send one to Becky (the bride).

Here's the picture:This started a string of e-mails.

Becky wrote:

So CUTE! She looks adorable!!

The dress doesn't look white though...is that just me?

Cari wrote:

It didn't look white to us either.

Becky wrote:

:/ I am a little worried that she won't match Amy...I'll forward the pic to Aunt Linda...

Oh well! I guess it's too late now if they don't match!!

Oh, her Aunt is getting involved. Time to send another picture.
This is the real picture. The first one just had a bit of photoshop.

So we have a bride that is a week away from the wedding. Do you think she has anything to do except worry about a yellow dress? After we sent her the real picture we got another e-mail.

Becky wrote:

...I freaked out...forwarded the pic to my Aunt Linda...called stores that carry the dress in Chicago to see if they have any in stock...

I am SOOO getting you back!! :-P

Haha...

Becky =)

Cari felt guilty after reading that. Initally, Cari didn't want to go along with this joke. It took a lot of prodding from me to get her buy in. After the first e-mail came back asking about the color being right, it took more prodding to keep Cari in the game for one more e-mail. I wanted to be absolutly sure the bride was falling for it. When I saw that the Aunt got involved I figured Becky was freaking out.

PERFECT!

Her very last e-mail to us tonight said we should sleep with one eye open at the hotel next week.
Wish me luck.

Cake

We were invited to a friend's house for dinner. We offered to bring dessert. As we pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, Cari told me that she was really looking forward to some carrot cake.

"Carrot cake?", I asked with disgust.
"Everyone loves carrot cake. That's what I'm getting.", she replied.

I wouldn't give up that easy.

The debate continued and I started pushing for German Chocolate. Both children were in the back seat and the word chocolate got their attention. Now both of them were whining for German Chocolate too. Cari couldn't fight the power of two children desperate for chocolate. She decided to go and buy a half cake of each.

After we ate dinner our hosts brought the two cakes to the table. They told us we didn't have to bring two cakes. "Oh, yes we did.", Cari said. That was her chance to tell them how I fought like a little kid for some chocolate cake.

After trying unsuccessfully defend my self it was time to eat.

Cari took a piece of carrot cake. Our host took a piece of carrot. His wife stared at the carrot cake. I started getting nervous. My entire argument for chocolate was that everyone would prefer it over carrot. After tearing up my nerves, the wife took a piece of chocolate.

Now it was my turn. Truth be known, I wanted a piece of carrot cake. After the huge scene I caused in the parking lot, there was NO WAY I could get anything but chocolate.

Until now, Cari never knew how bad I really wanted to eat that carrot cake.

Another video finished

Wow. This took too long to get on here. I changed software to make movies. Something that I felt would be more flexible going forward. That created a huge learning curve for me. Also, it was hard to find more than twenty quiet minutes at a time to work on this. I took about twenty minutes of video and got it down to a little over five. Whew. Maybe I could have developed this better, but working in such short spurts for a long period really hurt.

I hope you enjoy it. It's the process of removing a tooth.

click picture for video

Girl Upgraded

Guess where we went today. Give up? We went to Walmart. Are you surprised?
You shouldn't be.

While at Walmart Meredith decided she wanted her ears pierced. This is something Cari and her have been talking about for a week.

So we headed to the jewelry department. The lady at the counter was very nice. Meredith said she would be brave.

After we cleaned and marked her ears the first one went in. Meredith just had a blank look on her face. The Walmart employee got ready for the second ear. All of a sudden Meredith broke down crying. "It hurt!", she said as she climbed into Cari's lap. The employee looked at me with that "I told you so" look. She warned us ahead of time that she would do one at a time and sometimes young ones freak out.

Well, I gave her that "just do your job" look in return. She finished preparing her tools. This time Meredith sat in Cari's lap, still crying (Meredith, not Cari). The needle went in quick. We were done. Now Meredith is running around showing and telling everyone she bumps into about her pretty ears.

Next week we are getting her nose pierced. . . over my dead body.

Come down from there!

It was time to leave the top of Stone Mountain. On our way up we talked about taking the skylift back down. Meredith was a little nervous about it and Cari said that it wasn't her favorite idea either.

We headed toward the building that was the skylift terminal. I watched for a while to see how this thing worked. A box with windows came up from the ground, hanging from a steel cable. Workers shoved as many people as they could into this box, and sent it back down to the ground.

Sometimes Cari and I speculate how good we would be on the AMAZING RACE. Ziplines, climbing, boating are all things I could do. Bungee jumping and eating non food items are on my 'no' list.
Now I'm staring at this box on a wire wondering when the last time they checked the cable for wear might have been. I wonder if the employees realize how windy it is up here.

We step inside and they shut the door. I whisper to Cari, "We could still walk down if you are nervous."
She laughed. "You would NEVER make it on Amazing Race.", she replied.

Neither of the kids were bothered by this ride. In fact they pushed toward the window to look outside during our decent.

The ride was a smooth one. The car didn't seem to be swinging in the winds.

Down at the bottom there was a long line of people waiting to go up. I hope they check the wear on that cable soon.

1,683 Feet above the sea!

Walking up to the top of Stone Mountain means following a 1.3 mile trail over the granite surface.
From the top we were able to see the buildings in Atlanta. It was a bit hazy the day we went and the picture doesn't show the buildings as clear as I had hoped. Atlanta is roughly 15 miles away from the park. Randy and I had hiked this trail in dense fog the last time we visited the park. This time all four of us decided to head up.

So how do you get a four year old to walk 825 ft up a mountain?
You dangle a carrot in front of her. We replaced the carrot with a piece of candy for better results. "When we get to the top you can have a piece of candy.", we continuously reminded her.

We went to the hallway that is formed between two huge rocks. In the hallway is "gum rock". Seems every hiker that has ever taken this side trail left their gum stuck to it. Last time Randy and I left an 'E' and a 'C' made of gum on the rock. When we returned we found our green 'E', but the 'C' was gone. Maybe someone ate it. We came prepared with sticky, sugary, gum and all four of us made a blob of chewed gum next to the 'E' that Randy and I had crafted the first time.

When we finally made it to the top, she was excited. "Can I have my candy now?", she screamed. There is a fence to protect you from falling off the edge. Just in case you really want to go down, they installed this gate. It was loosely tied with a rope.

The forced march up was over. Now to get down. Was this the best option? Who would be brave enough to use it? I'll tell you in my next entry.

How to fight a Goose

There were a lot of Mallard ducks in the water next to our camp site. The four of us had fun throwing bread and watching the three birds eat. After a few minutes three more showed up. Then two more splashed down and swam over. Word about our camp got out in the duck community quick.

We took a break from feeding them to feed ourselves. Most of the ducks swam off with bellies full of bread. After we finished our own dinner, we looked back toward the water and saw two Canadian Geese sitting on the edge of the water. Several of my readers are Canadian, so I'll refrain from making Canada jokes tonight.

Cari decided to feed the geese. They stood close to her and would just about eat out of her hand.

When we had exhausted our entire bread supply on the birds, we moved on with our evening. The birds wouldn't leave. Maybe they were still hungry.

I shouted at them once or twice. It didn't chase the geese off, shouting only earned me strange looks from neighboring campers.

I had to be smarter.

Earlier I had watched those Mallard ducks. The larger ones would fight the smaller ones for the food. One thing that stuck out was how they would wiggle their tails. I don't know if this was out of excitement over the bread or a threatening sign. Either way it always seemed to work.

I approached the geese. Not slowly, but very deliberately. I started wiggling my butt at them. This was my move to intimidate them. They needed to know I was serious. My kids fell on the ground laughing at this tactic. I was teaching them how to deal with nature.

The goose that was standing on the shore started backing up. IT WAS WORKING! I continued to move toward the geese while shaking my butt. Both of them were now back in the water.

The second phase of my plan started as I verbally taunted the geese. I was trying to embarrass them.

"****(Canadian joke edited out of this space)****", I shouted.
They didn't reply.

The geese had left our camp. A very important lesson was learned. What was learned will be based on who you ask. What I will tell you is that I taught how to deal with nature. You have to deal with them on a level they understand.

Cari has a different view of what was learned. If she stops laughing long enough, maybe she'll tell you.