Another Fun Way to Beat the Heat!

This week has obviously been hot - hot enough to warrant a full blog post earlier. We have been to movies and the pool, to the mall and to the couch in our apartment where it is nice and cool.

Yesterday we went to a place that would easily be counted as the coooolest - a cave tour!

Missouri is known as The Cave State due to thousands of miles worth of caves. There is a really big, really commercialized cave or two. There are a bunch of unmapped caves. There are some that are on maps, but blocked off to the public for safety/vandalism reasons.

Commercial caves are very expensive (would have run us about $50 today), and the unmapped ones are most likely unsafe when you have a small child in tow. I'm not a fan of forking out $50 for an experience that I am not sure that Abby will enjoy, so we had to find a middle ground one.

Yesterday morning we went to Meremac State Park for a tour of The Fisher Cave. It is not a commercial one, but is a big one that offers tours several times during the day. For $8 per adult. Total.

We had little to no idea what to expect when we arrived at the Park, and even less clue when we arrived at the Cave on the back side of the park. The website offers some of the history of the cave, but little clues about the tour itself. We always like to prep Abby when we go on a new adventure, so we told her as much as we knew:

• It will be dark
• It will be cold
• There will be lots of water
• There will be bats!

There were things that we found out when we arrived:

• No outside flashlights
• No outside water
• No Cameras

WHAT? No camera? Me?

They are dealing with a disease in the bat colony that is brought in on equipment that has been used in other caves. That have their own lights to use, so that was not a concern. In retrospect, I'm so glad that I could not bring the camera - I got to be absorbed in the Abby-shared-experience. It was actually a good thing anyway, based on our cave experience.

We were the first ones to arrive for the 9:30 tour. We arrived at 9:25, hoping that we did not have to have put in a reservation earlier. There is an 11:30 tour, so we figured that if we got bumped from the 9:30 we would just hike a little and maybe splash in the Meremac River. As it turns out, no one else showed up for the 9:30 tour, so we had a private tour with Tim the Guide!

The cave tour lasted about an hour, and we got to ask all sorts of questions and get all sorts of fun stories out of him. Anny was mostly interested in the chemistry of it. I mostly wanted to know how much exploring Tim has done when he does not have silly tourists on his tail! The cave was used as early back as 1904 for fun times, which they know because people wrote their names on some of the formations! A lot looked to be from around the time of the 1904 World's Fair, which is kind of cool. There was a massive room that people used to hike to for big, formal dances. That is craziness!

Abby was not sure if she could talk, which is one of those things that I guess we did not think to explain to her. Tim was talking about all sorts of stuff from the history of the cave to the types of formations we were looking at. He was in teaching mode, and we were in learning mode. Abby was just unsure, and at one point whispered to me "Daddy, when we have a moment could I talk too?" How funny!

(Turns out when she got her moment to talk, about ten seconds after she asked by the way, she just wanted to tell Tim that she is on summer break and will be going back to Ms Karen's house in a few weeks. Goofball!)

After our cave tour we went for a half-mile hike that circles, climbs and comes back down part of the mountain that we had just been inside. That part I was allowed to have my camera for. That is where I got this shot:

We could not tell if Abby had a good time in the cave, mostly because she had been so darned quiet, which is not her norm. As we were leaving for the day she declared "The next time we come I want to talk more and ask questions!"

Guess we will line up a trip again next summer!

It's Gettin' Hot in Here...

While I do not practice the "taking off all my clothes" to cool down, we have been spending a ton of time at the pool. Abby and I have closed the pool down twice this week so far, and will likely do it again twice more! We love our local pool and have made great use of the family pass for the summer. There is a lazy river to float in, and little-little kid pool (deepest might be a foot) and a bigger-kid pool. (There is an adult pool with lanes for lap swimming, but we never make it over there.)

Abby has been taking swimming lessons and is making progress with her confidence in the water, and is finally trusting her feet in the pool. She gets as excited about the slide as she does about floating on her back, and as excited about that as the is about the lazy river. Our pool is a perfect mix for the whole family, and we are especially glad for it on a week like this.

One more advantage to living in an apartment is that we do not have a garden that is dying in the heat! I am in charge of two outdoor planters at the office and they are not faring very well right now. Monday I added six gallons of water into each pot to try to perk them back up. Tuesday I cut it down to four and noticed that they needed much more. Today they each got four gallons of water, and I don't think it was enough.

I only care about the plants because we have some really cool hummingbirds and butterflies that frequently stop by. I keep thinking about taking my camera to work to try to get pictures of them, but I know that by the time I get the camera going, any non-human creature is going to be completely gone.

Anny and Abby have been making rounds on some of the cooler places around - the mall and The Magic House have been visited. They have gone to see a movie (half price when the thermometer hits 100!) and are likely headed to another this week. I'm just saying cool by bringing my own lunch to work so that I have NO reason to go outside. (Other than to water the previously mentioned flowers...)

My in-laws are going to be here at the end of next week and have already requested, several times, that we make sure it cools down before they arrive. I don't know that we are going to be able to meet that request, but we ALL sure hope it breaks soon!

Animal Adventures with Abby!

On Monday evening we were sitting at the table having dinner when I noticed something in the window - a bat! It was perfectly positioned between the storm window and the screen, with it's claws in the screen while sleeping! Abby was almost as excited as I was. I pulled out the video camera to capture Abby. This was her second time telling me about bats, so she trailed off a bit.



The bat was alive and well, just chilling in our window. We checked on it after a trip out of the apartment after dinner. Abby was elated that he was still there.

Anny and I were glad to know that it had safely departed our particular window before we went to bed, and also glad he is still not here. We do not mind bats and such, just are a bit more aware with Abby around. Her recent braveness might have led to something less than helpful for her or the bat, and we do not want anything to happen to either of them!

Photo Tales Tuesday: I Wanna Be Like You

Two years ago for Father's Day, Abby's teachers in daycare got a little white dress shirt and a cute tie to take pictures of each of the children as "dad" for a gift. It was absolutely adorable, despite the newspaper in the picture. (Mostly for comedic effect, or so I'm convinced!)

On Friday as I was getting dressed Abby kept asking to wear one of my work shirts. Since I was clearly already running late, I told her no, but promised she could put one on over the weekend. I don't have any true-white shirts, which is what she wanted. I pulled out my cream-white shirt, and that was good enough for her anyway. I don't know if she was remembering the old picture or if she really just wanted to be like me. I am going to choose the latter of the two, just as an ego boost.

After picking a shirt, Abby chose a tie that she likes. Abby knows my ties, so she asked for this one pretty specifically. Once she was ready and in her getup, she wanted a pad of paper to write on. She got tired of that pretty quickly and moved on to Anny's laptop. I love this picture the most (of the 30 I took) because she looks SO angry with whatever she had just typed!

Be sure to check out the other participants in Photo Tales Tuesday over at Laugh until you Cry:

2011 Summer Camp!

Funny to realize that before I went to work at Camp Glenkirk I had zero experience at summer camp. I had been camping with my family, and had one awful scout camping experience, but I have never been to summer camp. In 1997 that all changed, of course, and changed my life forever. I met Anny there. I married Anny there. I did not have a history before Glenkirk, but I now would not imagine a history without it.

This summer we began Abby's summer-camp journey by going to Mound Ridge, the local Presbyterian Camp and Conference center, for Family Camp. We were really close to signing up last summer (it was about three weeks after we moved last year) but opted out of that for some getting-to-know Saint Louis stuff. I am glad that we waited.

There were a bunch of families of all varieties at the camp for the weekend - some families of several generations, some families with just one kid or other with a few. One church brought a handful of adults and a bunch of teenage campers, which was cool. There were families that have been coming to Mound Ridge for decades and others like us that had not been there for camp. There was one child younger than Abby, but for the most part the children were on the school-aged side.

When we asked Abby what her favorite part of summer camp was it proved hard for her to answer. She really liked canoeing, but loved playing in the river even more than the canoeing! She liked the food at meals, but loved the dessert even more! Abby's attention span was not long enough for the vesper-type worship, but she liked running around a bit during energizers.

I mentioned last week on my blog that I might not take my camera, but I ended up taking my most-recently-retired camera, since we I had no clue what to expect and was a bit concerned about breakage. Big mistake on my part. I got some okay pictures, but the m-r-r camera is now going to be the thrown-away camera as the Macro setting is shot and it killed a few pics that I had lined up perfectly.

Doing our best Mowgli and Baloo:

Classic Grumman canoes in the morning. Nothing beats the sounds of these on the water!

I have a feeling that these nametags are something that we will keep for a long time.

We checked off some Parenting (our style) Boxes this weekend in Abby's first canoe trip and first summer camp experience. I was really proud of how outgoing Abby was, as well as her openness to trying new things like bug-hunting with the older kids. Abby had a blast, and Anny and I had an absolutely wonderful experience, too. We will definitely be going back next year, and hopefully for many years to come!

Children Are Funny #1

So, a friend of mine has two kids who are beyond funny, especially in their conversations with each other. She has a running series on her blog that is up to like 56 entries just based on funny things they have said. Seriously, go check out Amy and her blog, paying close attention to THIS grouping of her blog posts. She suggested that I start such a series on my blog as well when I asked for post suggestions.

The thing is that what Abby says IS funny, but it's all in context and I do not pretend to be eloquent enough to capture context. That being said, I thought I would share some funny/sweet things from Abby's words and life recently...

Long Term Goal #1

Abby is a big fan of Pinkalicious - even leading us to create her birthday party around that book as a theme. In the latest book in the series is Silverlicious, which is about Pinkalicious losing her first tooth and her Tooth Fairy experience. You can imagine that chaos ensues, or it would make for a pretty lame book.

Since the day we bought her the book, at a release party at a bookstore nonetheless, she has been fascinated about losing her first tooth. For at least a week she was introducing herself as such - "Hi, I'm Abby. I am going to lose a tooth soon!"

Here's the thing: She's Four. Unless there is a big ugly incident, she's not losing a tooth any time soon. Strangers give her a look and are excited for her, and she lets them think it's going to happen, and soon!

We have convinced her that she will not lose a tooth any time soon, and I think she's finally okay with that. She is still fascinated by other children that are gap-toothed. She stares. She asks them how they lost their tooth and about the Tooth Fairy. It proves funny, because the older kids think it is not a big deal now, but she has such aspirations to become one of them!

Long Term Goal #2

Abby is pretty clear on the main physical difference between girls and boys. Following the in-bottom and out-bottom conversation, she later declared that "Boys have hoses and girls do not." At least we are getting closer, right? Anny has also gone into childbirth stuff after Abby asked if babies come out of belly buttons. She likely got more than she bargained for from that particular question...

Anyway, over the last month or two she has become very aware of the difference between going to the men's room and the women's room, publicly. She's NOT happy to go in with me anymore, insisting that she would be fine to go to the ladies room by herself. "I'm a girl dad, just like the girl on the picture," she says, pointing at the stick figures on the door. She also promptly points to a urinal and reminds me that those are for men, and sit down toilets are for girls. (Funny for me, mostly because I sit at home. I clean bathrooms and have no patience for spray!)

I have come up with a compromise that she seems to be okay with, though. I have told her that she has to wait until she is six and when she reaches six I will let her go in by herself. Given her affinity for pooping in public places and still preferring help wiping in such situations, I think it is just as well.

I'm already dreading her sixth birthday and the number of public pissers she is going to want to go into on that day!

Sweet and Sweaty

We went to the Missouri Botanical Garden this week for a concert that ended up being rained out. Before that, though, we had a blast at the garden. It was the first time that Abby and Anny had been since we went in February, though I was there last week. It was hot and humid out - which should be expected in July. As we sat down on our blanket to have a picnic dinner Abby got "the look" and declared she needed a trip to the potty. After rolling my eyes, mostly because I suggested she go before leaving the apartment in the first place, I walked her up and over a hill to the cleanest men's room I've seen in a long time.

On the way back to the blanket I was trying to rush a bit so I tossed her on my shoulders and huffed it with an extra almost-40-pounds. I was dripping with sweat, and my shirt was pretty humorously soaked through. Abby was "being four" and grabbing my shirt and trying to pull on me. I assured her it was WAY too hot for that, and asked her to chill out. After going through that bit three or four times Abby looked up at me and said, with the sweetest voice, "Daddy, I just wanted to pull you close so we could smile - cheek to cheek!"

All grabbing forgiven, replaced with welcomed/ing kisses!

4th of July Weekend!

Hard to believe it, but there are things that happened this weekend that we did not do. What we did this weekend was:

• Behind the Scenes tour of The World Aquarium. (It is no National Aquarium, but it was nice)
• Family Movie Night watching Megamind for the first time
• Church and catching up with folks we have not seen in weeks
• Fair Saint Louis to see a local band we like (Cut short because of fun storms)
• 4th of July Parade 
• A Carnival for lunch and fun, including Abby's first Ferris Wheel ride!
• Dinner/party at a friends house
• Fireworks with a perfect view and fun company

Glad I had an extra day to the weekend, this would have been too crazy for two days!

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

One of the petting places at the aquarium! We also go to feed Otters and an Armadillo. Very cool experience for all of us.

Just a pic I like from the Fair.

A picture of (part of) the Arch as the storm approached. We were soaked by the time we got to the car, but since it rained for about 12 hours after it started, we are very glad we left when we did!

Abby waiting for the Webster Groves parade - she was mostly patient. It was wet so the parade was delayed, but fun once it got going.

Abby and I on the Ferris Wheel - her first and my first in as long as I can remember!

Fireworks in Kirkwood. We walked, which was nice because we did not have to deal with traffic. We met up with a friend from church and her little girl - glad we had company since the fireworks did not get started until 9:30! The girls frolicked and ran around while we waited.

Next weekend we are going to summer camp together! I don't think I'm going to take the camera, though. I have never actually been to summer camp as a camper - I'm looking forward to taking it all in!