Keeping Lady Sparkling

On long trips, the boys like to wash Lady (our van) every time we stop for gas.

As you can see, they are into quality workmanship.

Indian Lake Water Fight - July 2007

So Grandpa, as a witness to both the melee and the capturing of the pictorial record, has requested that more of the water fight photos be posted.

Ask and ye shall receive....

Saturday fun

The boys love to play on the Vienna Caboose, parked permanently along the W&OD trail in Vienna's Centennial Park. This makes Saturday mornings in the summer even more fun when we ride our bikes to the Vienna Farmers' Market, get some fresh donuts and kettle corn, then buy whatever is fresh and in season to make for lunch and dinner.

After we load our purchases into the bike trailer, the boys climb onto the
caboose and play train for a little while before we ride home to make lunch.

Woo.

Indian Lake July 2007

A dozen or so years ago, my parents discovered Indian Lake, a man-made lake in Northwest Ohio. Because it is man-made it has a lot of shoreline and little inlets, and it's very shallow. This makes it perfect for pontoon boats, which are essentially floating porches.

The combination of the pontoon boat, fires in the firepit every evening, s'mores, fishing, boat rides for fresh donuts in the morning, boat rides for ice cream cones in the evening and getting to stay up to all hours makes Granny and Grampa's house at Indian Lake the perfect summer adventure for the boys.

Traveling in style

When I went on long family car trips, we would read until we were sick, then were bored in 5 minutes of looking out the window at endless corn fields. The remainder of the 9 hours and 35 minutes consisted of whining and bickering with my brothers.

Erich and Matthew, on the other hand, have wireless headsets for the DVD playing in the ceiling of our van, and pretty much every animated feature film released in the last 6 years.

I can't wait to hear what they tell their kids about how rough they had it when they were kids.

Fun at Indian Lake

More to come when we get back home, but here's a couple pics of a couple of the favorite Indian Lake activities: fishing and going to the Donut Shop for coffee and fresh baked doughnuts in the morning.

Woo.

Jeff

Go Nationals!

When the DC Ohio State Alumni Club announced a group outing to a Nationals game, we decided it was time to go.

We invited Liz, our babysitter and newly minted R.N., and Jason and Caroline to join us. Liz and the core Team Norton rode the Metro, which was great since it was a straight shot to RFK from Vienna on the Orange Line.

Although the seats were way out in the center field upper deck, I caught a ball (my first ever at a Major League game). The boys, although impressed with the ball, truly got into the real reason for going to baseball games, the cotton candy.

June 2007 Ohio Visit

A few pics from the recent visit by Heather and the boys to Ohio.

Skiing (and a game that we will never discuss again)

So when Ohio State made it through the season undefeated and beat then #2 M!(#!&@n to get to the National Championship game, we looked into buying tickets. After some quick searching, we realized that we could take the entire family skiing for the price of one ticket. So we rounded up our fellow alumni and friends and headed to the slopes.

The boys actually skied!

Sea World

Heather and the Erich on the Shamu Express roller coaster at Sea World

Funniest article ever . . .

BCS Determines No Team Worthy Of Facing Ohio State In Championship Game

COLUMBUS, OH—In what many BCS officials are citing as "proof that their flawless system indeed works," no Division 1-A college football team was found to possess the sheer excellence required to face Ohio State, the No. 1 ranked team since...

Sure to fuel the partisan flames. Woo. Go Bucks!