Quick Trip Update

Howdy, I thought I would give a quick update from our summer vacation back east. Our trip east was uneventful and Melissa wisely dressed the kids (and me) all in orange so we stood out amongst the thousands of summer travelers.

We spent a fun few days at my in-laws the Durley's in Maryland. They live in Leisure World, a nice retirement community which caters to the active retiree, which they certainly are! We had a couple of activities as well as celebrating my mother-in-laws 80th birthday!

We took the kids to the National Zoo which was fun for the kids and good for us. We have not been since we were kids and it is nice to see the zoo is holding up well and continuing to improve the facilities.

I highly recommend it if you are traveling to the Washington D.C. area.

We also had a quick visit with Shari Elliker who is Melissa's long time and very good friend. She has a radio program called BroadMinded which is available on XM satellite radio. We hope to see her later in our visit.

We have now transitioned to my sister Beth's house in Charlottesville VA for a family reunion. I'll post more on that later.

Future Soccer Star?

Watch the future soccer star Lea in action! (I've just learned how to post video) She was playing in a summer soccer camp and on the final day they played a game, mixed boys and girls.

Here is the setup...

She is the one in the purple baseball cap moving behind the (future male star) dribbling the ball.

She sees the young gun making a break and falls in to support. When encountering traffic the young star goes down and Lea's competitive instincts kick in and she pounces on the loose ball.

Watch her keep her balance with her arms, maneuver around a defender, give a couple of toe kick dribbles and drive for the goal!

Unfortunately it is a 2 on 1 situation with two older boys defending a small goal or she certainly would have scored!!



She clearly has the killer sports instinct! As she said in a post performance interview "if it had been a bigger goal I could have scored daddy!"

As a parent it was very exciting!

John

Camping Adventures - Northern California Coast

We recently returned from our annual camping adventure with the Moxley clan. This year we chose to go to the Northern California coast and camp at great little state park called Russian Gulch SP. This was our third year camping with the Moxley's and we now have it down to a science. The kids know the routine, we have all the gear organized, and we have good estimates as to how much chocolate/wine is needed, etc.

When we arrived at the coast near Mendicino it was literally breath taking. If I had a dime for every time Melissa said "Oh my God! It is so beautiful" -- I would be rich, well not rich but if you added a dime for every time she said "John, I want to retire here." then maybe I would!

We arrived in the afternoon on a Sunday and quickly set up camp. This gave us enough time to explore the local beach and for the kids to get soaked in the cold water lagoon. We had a delicious dinner and then roasted marshmellows and made s'mores (a nightly ritual).

Melissa has posted her pictures on smugmug and Richard has posted a large number of additional photos here. Check out the photos he did in natural light around the campfire. They are most interesting.

On the second day we went to Glass Beach - which is effectively an old city dump.

Now that doesn't sound very glamorous (and it's not) but there is a small cool factor in that there are tons of wave smoothed glass beads for the kids to collect.


The next day we went on a very pretty 4.6 mile hike with the kids to a waterfall at the top of the park. We made it through to the end with frequent stops for snacks and looks into old Redwood trees. The downside was that Nicolas was unable to make it the whole way back so I carried him on my shoulders for 2 miles which at 30-35 lbs is a healthy workout.

On the final day we went to Jug Handle State Reserve to a beautiful beach with a meandering stream flowing down to the beach. The kids had a great time. We could peer through the opening in the cliffs to the crashing waves just outside. This way they could see and hear powerful surf -- from a safe distance.

There were so many other places along the Mendino Coast that we were not able to get to see. We will certainly have to go back some day. All in all it was an excellent trip and we look forward to next year and keeping up the Moxley-Kreisa camping tradition.

Potty Training 2 of 2!!!

Well as my Aunt Susan recently pointed out to me I have fallen behind on blogging so I'll try to catch up.

One effort we had undertaken was to attempt to potty train my 3 yr. old Nicolas. Boys can notoriously be slow to potty train but I am happy to report that Nicolas jumped on the bandwagon fairly quickly. We started 3 weeks ago and within a week he was starting to use the potty for #1 sometimes. We went camping with our friends the Moxley's (see an upcoming post) and brought his training potty to the woods to continue the process and to encourage him to go when he needed to. We set the potty outside the tent which was in the adjacent campsite to where we set up the cooking and play area. That led to Nicolas running off from time to time yelling "I've got to go potty!" which was really funny. He had an accident or two and didn't quite get the hang of making sure he was aiming in the potty but by in large he got it during the camping trip.

Last week (the week after camping) he used the potty for nearly everything and happily graduated to "pooping" on the potty!

So in what was really just 2 full weeks we went from no interest in using the potty to completely done! He is even dry at nights and gets up and goes first thing in the morning.

I must say that there were several keys to the process for us. First we never got upset when he had an accident, just encouraged him to keep trying. Second we bought a ton of "big boy nickers" with all of his favorites, spider man, Thomas the tank engine etc. and put him in those as a continued reward for doing well. (one funny aside, some of the underwear had spider man on the back only, causing Nicolas to wear them backwards which was quite humorous because he tended to get a bit of "cheek leak" in the back because of is ample behind!)

I am happy to say that not only can we see the light at the end of the diaper tunnel we are standing in it!

Potty Training 1 of ....

So we are trying to potty train our 3 yr. old son Nicolas. For those of you who have tried this you know it can be a challenge. Children vary wildly in terms of when they are ready to learn to use the big boy potty and both of our girls were "relatively" easy.

The process basically let them run around either naked or in "nickers" so that they learn to recognize the feeling. Nicolas has shown basically no interest in potty training but we have a very busy summer so we decided to try to make summer travel and events easier.

So last weekend we tried to introduce him to the concept and although he was excited about the "big boy nickers" he missed the concept somewhat. For example Nicolas and I were out and did the drop by to our friends Darren and Carol last Saturday and i encourage him to go before we left, even held him over the potty and encourage him but nothing. So we went down stairs to leave, he put his hand in a fountain and instanly pees in his pants. Nice try.

Then we went to Target, again I encouraged him to go to the potty while we were in the store, no dice, we went to the car and he went #2. Ugh. No diapers, no more extra clothes.

We then added another dimension to the task. We enlisted the girls to help encourage Nicolas by offering them a licorise (same reward Nicolas gets) when he uses the potty. This as it turns out has shown some early success because the girls pester him to use the potty very often and he has shown more interest!

More later!

So we continue to try.

Running with an escort

I mentioned an earlier post that my 5 yr. old has been very interested in fitness to the point that she has been getting up and riding her bike with me in the early morning to "get strong muscles". Usually when I return from a long run I'll go back out with her on bikes to help her meet her goal of getting exercise.

Yesterday I took her on a ride that was the length of a typical moderate run to see if she could make it and handle the sidewalk with the multiple intersections and other obstacles along the way. I am happy to say she did great and that particular run takes me past a small nature area where we saw wild rabbits feeding in the field which of course was very exciting and news worthy to the rest of the house when we returned.

Well the stories of the rabbits motivated my older daughter (7) to want to join the fun so this morning I went out for my run with a full escort of my two daughters on their bikes. They did really well and I even extended my run slightly going onto the levy near the house to create a loop.

We did get quite a few smiles as I jogged along and even several comments from the other runners we saw out in the morning. Maybe I was looking more tired than I thought because one even suggested that I was running with my medical team in tow! Har Har!

Philisophical Day with the kids

With small children every now and then they catch you off guard with their questions and observations. I remember the time my oldest asked my wife and I "who made God?" which if you are not prepared (who is really) can leave you stumbling for an answer.

The other day I got a double whammy from my kids. To start off the day i was riding bikes with my middle child (5 yrs old) early in the morning (the time of day and her desire to exercise is worthy of another post) when she looked up to me with her big blue eyes and said "I wonder what the last two words will be I will say before I die?". "I think they will be 'good bye'." I was of course taken back, way back! I thought about it for a second and then told her that there were many more things for her to do and to worry about before she had to worry about death. To that she said "like getting grey hair?" I could only laugh.

Of course if that were the last of it that would still be note worthy however it was not. Later that morning as I was driving my 7 yr old to school she declared that she no longer wanted to be human because humans pollute. Now you have to know her, she can be quite introspective and in fact chose to be a vegitarian from the age of 5. She is very concerned with how humans treat animals and the world in general so she may be more evolved than some. She was very upset about pollution this day and feeling very bad. I encouraged her to use her energy to try to help humans be better and pollute less. This seemed to satiate her for the moment and she went off to school pondering the situation.

That to me was a very interesting way to start a day!

Next post - we are at the moment trying to potty train my 3 year old son before the summer gets into full swing and he is showing no interest but it is a funny process to watch.