Month: September 2017

Posted on

Labor Day 2017

Prologue

I said in the last post that summer was winding down.  We still technically have a couple of weeks left.  Well, actually, we have about a week and a half until the official end of summer.  However, last week was Labor Day (the unofficial end), and we are all back to school.  So, for all intents and purposes, summer is over for 2017.

Journal

Labor Day weekend is usually our time for one last big trip before we have to buckle down for the school year.  The last few years have been a trip to Emerald Lake in Vermont.  We didn’t go this year, but her parents are planning a trip in October.  While Christine understandably doesn’t want to take the chance of Vermont in October (we have experience of snow in Northern Vermont on Columbus Day as Grand Isle used to be our yearly trip that weekend), I had the idea this morning of maybe getting a hotel room and hanging at the campground during the day.  I know her dad will make fun of us, but we can make just as much fun of him as he freezes his butt off while we are sitting in front of a cozy fire or lounging in our hot tub bath.

Who knows if we will actually go through with it.  Personally, I would love to take the trip because Emerald Isle is one of my favorite places to visit.  Even thought it is right off of a highway, the campground, and especially the lake, are secluded in a bowl that gives the most wonderful views of the mountains while keeping the sound of traffic on the highway where it belongs.  Our other favorite campground, which we visit every year on Cape Cod, doesn’t have that same isolation.  You can still hear the highway and that is somewhat annoying, but it’s the only way that we get to take that trip every year, so we tolerate it.

Last year, especially, was a fun trip to Emerald Isle.  More specifically, the trip home was worth it.  We stopped at a waterfall fed swimming hole for about two  hours.  We were going to stop at a few more, but got what we wanted from the one, so we decided to save the others for another trip.  Alas, that trip wasn’t this year.

Don’t get me wrong.  I know that I keep mentioning the fact that we missed the trip this year and that it is one of my favorites.  However, I’m not upset by that.  I am intrigued by getting a hotel in a month.  We talked about doing that a few years ago for our Grand Isle trip.  Then, it ended up being unseasonably warm that year, so we didn’t need the hotel.  It really is hit or miss, though, and none of us want to camp in the cold.  We will see how things progress for the rest of this month and into October.

So, how did we celebrate the end of summer this year?  Well, in keeping with the theme of summer, we went with a laid back weekend with friends and family.  We opened the weekend with a cookout with Christine’s parents and her sister’s family.  In the past, this would not necessarily have been a quiet and relaxing dinner.  But, times change and people change.  The most stress, as it often is these days, came only from the news.  Hurricanes, earthquakes, politics, etc.  At least all of the bad news is made easier to handle by being with people who you love.

Another lesson that has taken far too long to learn.  I’ve always been the kind of person who was more comfortable by myself.  But, that might not have always been in my best interest.  Sitting on the couch, watching our five children play (a bit loud at times, so we yelled at them to go outside because, in my day!), discussing current events with my father in law, and eating food that wasn’t exactly healthy proved therapeutic on that particular day.  The only difference this time was that I wasn’t antisocial this time around.  Hey, better late than never, right?

I might be a slow study sometimes, but once I learn a lesson, it usually stays learned.  So, when Christine suggested that we end the summer with a beach trip, I agreed.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not much of a beach guy.  I will usually go when we are down on Cape Cod because I enjoy all of those beaches.  However, more often than not, I’ve been skipping the trips at home.  While she wanted to take one last trip to Cape Cod, that trip was going to happen the following weekend.  It actually didn’t happen either weekend, but the possibility of the trip made the trip to Laurel Lake a decent second option and a way to hold me over until we get back to a Cape Cod beach.  At this point, it is probably next spring or summer, but we have taken more than one trip to the beach in the winter, so maybe this will be the year that we do that trip again.

Aside from that, though, the trip to the local beach was with friends.  So, I got to see all of the boys playing together in the same way that they played with their cousins the day before.  This has led to games of Pokemon, promised games of YuGiOh, a couple of days of tossing a whiffle ball back and forth, and just an overall togetherness that the family hasn’t felt for a few years.

Epilogue

I know that I sound like a scratched record with these posts lately, but I’m just in awe of how things can feel so broken for so long.  There have been tragedies for all in the family.  We are not completely out of the woods yet in that regard, but things have definitely settled down.  Those stress inducing events chip away little by little so you don’t notice the effects of each individual stress.  Eventually, it just becomes too much to endure and you end up overwhelmed by it all.

As with most issues, you can’t fix them until you admit that there is a problem.  It took so long to even realize that something was wrong that coming to terms with the issue was far down the road.  The idea of therapy was considered more than once, but dismissed.  Looking back, it might have helped.  Seeing how this summer of togetherness has affected us in unexpected (but appreciated) ways, I can’t say that is so.

Posted on

Heath Fair

Prologue

Even though summer is winding down and we are all heading back to school, we still have some adventures planned through at least the autumn and hopefully we can keep the momentum going into winter this year.  Quinn and I, for example, took advantage of a nice Saturday last week to attend a local fair.  Not the craziest of adventures, but it was fun and worth the trip.

Journal

Quinn joined 4H this year.  He is our animal lover.  He is the kid who will point out and announce every dog that we pass, ask the owner to pet the dog, and then proudly proclaim to all listening that he just pet the dog.  He has mentioned more than one that when he gets older, he’s going to buy a house and buy a million puppies to live with him.  He even changed the lyrics to Lady Gaga’s “Million Reasons” song to “Million Puppies”.

It makes sense.  He was partially raised by Christine’s cousin, who moved to the small town of Warwick on a huge plot of land to build and maintain a farm.  He helped feed and raise pigs and cows while in her care.  She also has two dogs and a family of barn/house cats that he loves very much and mentions often.  He is an animal lover to his core.

He even loves extinct animals.  For a couple of years when he was younger, he told us that he wanted to be a paleontologist when he grew up.  He got a costume for Christmas one year along with an excavating kit, which was basically just a plaster cast with some fossilized poop and a bone or two.  But, he put on that costume and “dug” for his treasures.  Living, dead, it doesn’t matter.  He loves them all.

It should come as no surprise that we used animals to convince him to join 4H.  We knew that he would have a great time.  However, he is often reserved when it comes to social situations.  Usually, we let him have his space.  In this case, though, we knew that 4H would be a perfect fit and not only because of the animals.  He also enjoys crafts, gardening, reading and watching shows about nature, and being outdoors.  But, we needed a hook and the animals provided it.

The reason for this lengthy interlude about 4H is that it relates to our attendance at the fair.  His 4H leader suggested that he go to a fair or two over the summer to get an idea of what they involved.  We usually attend a larger fair at the end of the summer (coming up this weekend or next, actually), but saw that the 100th anniversary of the Heath Fair was being celebrated this year, so we made plans to attend.

He was psyched about going.  His first fair was a couple of years ago and he went with just me and Christine.  It was the Franklin County Fair.  He had fried dough with strawberry jam topping and loved it so much that he wanted it for his birthday cake the next year.  He saw pigs race, giggling as they ran across the track and into the pool.  He still talks about getting to pick a pig during the race and that his pig won one of the races.  It was a great experience and he has been excited about fairs ever since.  Our second time was as a family and it was a trip to the Big E.  Even with Big in the title, I don’t think that it emphasizes just how huge this particular fair is.  Just for starters, there are 5 separate buildings that house food, drink, and other tourist events from each of the 5 New England states.  There are also a ton of carnival rides and games.  If you have never been and you want to get an idea of the scope, check out the web page.  Last year, there was a tent with the Budweiser Clydesdale horses.  It is massive.

I wasn’t sure how he’d react to a smaller fair after having experienced two of the largest in the area, if not the state.  He remained enthusiastic, though.  He kept talking about seeing the bunnies.  Not only did we use animals to lure him in, but those animals were bunnies.  Yes, we may just be the most diabolical parents.  But, we are effective.

Christine and I were both going to go with him on Saturday, but something interfered with those plans and she had to work on Sunday, so that’s how it ended up being just the two of us.  I’ve got to say, the price was right.  8 dollars for me, he was free, and a buck to park.  Once in the fair, he did get to see his bunnies, and chickens, and cows.  There were also horses, but I don’t think they were show horses.

After wandering through the show animals, we went to the other side of the fairgrounds.  There was an amphitheater and I wanted to see what was happening.  They were doing oxen pulls.  On the way, I noticed that they were also registering cars for a classic car show.  I really wanted to see the cars, but he wasn’t interested, so I figured we could come back.  He did want to see the oxen pull teams, so we watched that for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Then, he got hungry, so we went in search of food.  He said that he wanted sausage, but then only ate one bite of that.  He did eat a basket of french fries by himself over two sittings.  We wandered into the bunny area again, checked out the arts and crafts, watched a parade that he called the best he’s ever seen, watched a firefighter land what I assume was their new toy (a drone), and finished the day with french fries and more crafts.

I said in my last entry that this summer has been less about exploring places that we haven’t been and more about connecting with ourselves and each other.  While this particular fair was one that we hadn’t visited before, so much so that I had to input it into the GPS and still wasn’t exactly sure where I was or where I was going, it was still familiar territory for us due to our past experiences with fairs.

We have a massive trip planned for next summer to Florida and maybe more on the east coast.  Perhaps this summer was just a refueling mission to prepare us for that massive undertaking.  Granted, Christine has been to Disney enough times to start saying out loud that she’s sick of it and I’ve been twice, so it’s not a completely new trip.  However, the boys have only been once and Quinn was very little during our last trip, so he’s never been.  It promises to be a fun trip, but it will be one of those vacations that we will have to take another vacation when it is over.

So, this year was about going to the Cape to find ourselves.  It was about visiting fairs to remind ourselves.  It was a summer just for us.  The last few years have been stressful and chaotic.  I’m not going to tempt fate by saying that will change, but if this summer is any indication, we are turning a corner.  The boys have played well together, even though Quinn is left behind sometimes by the bigger boys.  Christine is rested and seemed to conquered some of her demons.  I’ve renewed my commitment to being a better father and husband.

 

Epilogue

You read about these life changing summers in books and watch them on movies and TV shows all the time so much that they are cliche.  Also, I wonder if you can be so self aware as to realize that you are in the middle of one when it is happening.  However, if the cliche is based in reality and you really can recognize when the universe is realigning more to your liking, then this has definitely been one of those summers.

And so, it seems, that life most often changes not in huge and immediately recognizable ways.  Though, those happen, too.  I’ve experienced maybe more than my share of earth shattering events such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces.  They’ve scarred and healed me accordingly.  I know that physical scars don’t every fully heal and the same might be true about emotional ones, too.  However, if they do heal, even if not fully, our summer together as a family has done much to accelerate that healing.