silver hawks

You wouldn't expect Mike's job to have a lot of perks, right? I mean, he works in a factory on the night shift. But one thing his company does offer is some interesting sports opportunities. They offer tickets to races, as you might imagine, but also to Notre Dame college sports and to see the local minor league baseball team, the South Bend Silver Hawks. We haven't taken advantage of it thus far, but this year we decided we would get our game on. It was really great, too! The company has a suite, so there are indoor and outdoor seats, and the view can't be beat. Plus they gave us parking passes for the lot closest to the stadium! My dad was able to join us tonight, which was a definite bonus for the boys. Hot dogs and nachos and popcorn were consumed, the home team was rooted for, and the boys even got a special visit from the team mascot. Not too shabby!

the champion!

The finals of the city tennis tournament were this morning, and Liam was playing against Nolan, a kid who clearly had a lot more tennis experience. We were hopeful but not overconfident when we got there and Nolan was already practicing pretty seriously with his dad. But once the game got going, Liam found his stride and breezed right through the first set, 6-2. He was on his way to doing the same in the second set and was up 5-2, but then he just ran out of juice, and Nolan hit the comeback trail to win the set 7-5. So they were tied at one set each, and the tiebreaker was a short round where the winner of each volley got a point, and the first one to get to 10 points was the winner. We were on the edge of our seats as they went 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, and so on. They fought hard for each point. But in the end, Liam prevailed, 10-7, becoming the city champion of the 10 and under group. We are so proud of him! Not just for winning, but because even when he was tired and he lost the second set, he never got frustrated or showed any kind of bad attitude. He just kept plugging away until he got his second wind, and he rode that all the way to the win. And after the game, he went out of his way to offer Nolan some kind words about what a good game he played and how well matched they were.

But really, I think his grin at the end says it all. Way to go, Liam!

tournament time

This is the second summer Liam has taken tennis lessons, and he really likes playing. Lessons ended this week, and (not coincidentally) the city tennis tournament started yesterday. In Liam's age group (the youngest group for the tournament) eight kids signed up to compete. Liam won his first-round game easily, 8-3. Yes, I know that's not traditional tennis scoring. I guess they just do one set, and play until the first kid reaches 8 points. Anyway, the second round was more of a nail-biter, but he won his match in that round too, 8-5. And now he's off to the finals! Tomorrow morning he will face off against a kid named Nolan who is (we hear) very good. We can't wait to see how it goes! Either way, not too shabby for his first time, right?

on the campaign trail

My Aunt Chris is running for state representative in Michigan, so this weekend a bunch of family members drove up to support her by marching in her town's Founders Day parade. I made the drive early (VERY early) Saturday morning with Liam and Max. The parade route itself wasn't terrible, but getting to and from made it more than four miles of walking, so it was a good thing we left Henry behind (but don't feel bad for him because he got a special overnight stay with Yami and Papaw). We had a lot of fun, especially at the hotel afterward. (It was an Embassy Suites, which I highly recommend for the price and amenities.) The best part was that the rest of the family (Holidays, Kruyers, Laizures, and Hoopers) were all on the same floor as us, so the kids could go from suite to suite with the older kids watching the younger ones, and the adults were free to enjoy the complimentary cocktails at the manager's reception and still keep track of the comings and goings because of the open layout of the atrium. There was also a lot of swimming and eating of Thai food. Plus the checkout wasn't until noon, so we had a whole morning to enjoy before reluctantly bidding cousins goodbye and heading back home. 

invasion...by door frog

Readers of this blog are no doubt familiar with my respect and admiration for our outdoor amphibious comrades, the door frogs. They reduce the population of annoying insects in the general vicinity of the porch lights, plus it's just neat to see a herd of frogs hanging out on the deck and front porch. Saturday night, I counted 11 frogs on the deck alone. Groovy.

The music took a different tone tonight, however, when door frog crossed a line. The boys are well aware of my philosophy regarding insects and arachnids:  If ants, spiders, praying mantises (yes, we have lots of those), bees, etc. are doing their thing in their natural environment (aka, outside), I have no issues. Live and let live. But if they come in the house, it's on like a pot of neckbones. This is human habitat.

Which leads us to tonight's incident. While decompressing after work, a flash of movement caught my eye. Lo and behold, there was door frog, climbing our living room bookshelves not two feet away from me. Why, door frog? The outdoor world is your oyster, and our outdoor lights are host to your buffet. Sure, you showed good literary taste, climbing from Neal Stephenson to Nick Hornby on the next shelf up, then moving laterally through the entire Tami Hoag collection to come to rest on Frank Herbert. But that doesn't matter, because door frog belongs outside, and you were inside.

So began the great door frog chase of 2014. It lacked the noise and excitement of previous critter hunts we've enjoyed (chipmunks and bats come immediately to mind). Door frog quickly evaded me, leading to several minutes of flashlight-assisted under-furniture searching that proved fruitless. Charlie was sleeping on the couch next to me, and when I turned to harass him for not getting up and using his nose of power to help me, I saw that door frog was sitting right on the dog's head. Man, I wish I had a picture of that, I'd never let the dog live that down. Charlie never batted an eyelash. Or woke up.

More chasing ensued, and I eventually cornered door frog in a corner between the wall and a stereo speaker, as you can see from the hastily taken pic above. He/she was quickly grabbed and released into the wild (aka the front porch), and the moment ended. Charlie raised his head and woofed, then went to the back door expecting to be let out for his late-night sabbatical. What a bum.

So what have we learned? Stay outside, door frog. Inside is no place for you. You don't see me hanging out on the siding, eating bugs that gather around the deck lights. I don't invade your space, so don't you invade mine.

animals of the georgia/northern florida coast

by Max

Hi, this is Max. I was going to do a post just about the animals of Jekyll Island, Georgia, but we went to a bunch of different places, so this is about the animals we've seen on the Georgia and northern Florida coast. [Editor's note:  we made liberal use of the Intertubes to identify many of these. We're not experts, you know.]

On Jekyll Island, we saw a big nest on top of a dead tree in the swamp. The birds on top were ospreys, which are like sea eagles that eat fish.

We saw several different lizards. We don't have lizards in Indiana, so these were cool to see. The first was a six-lined racerunner, which we saw on Amelia Island.

Here is a broad-headed skink, which we saw near the golf course on Jekyll. I almost ran it over with my bike!

There was another lizard at the sea turtle center, but we don't know what it was.

We also saw sea turtles there. This one was called David Buoy, which Mom and Dad thought was funny. He's under the water here.

On Amelia Island, we saw a snowy egret.

We found this giant beetle in our cottage. It was like 2 inches long! We're not sure, but we think it might have been a triceratops beetle.

There were many different kinds of crabs. This one was on the driftwood at Driftwood Beach on Jekyll.

We also found lots of hermit crabs. They were all over the place in the water at Glory Beach on Jekyll.

There were lots of cardinals. We have these in Indiana, but they were still cool to see here.

There were lots of mockingbirds, but we couldn't get a good picture of one. Here is one at the putt-putt golf course. It is hard to see. It had a nest in a palm tree in the middle of the course!

There were a ton of deer on Jekyll Island. Some of them were eating every night in the neighbor's back yard.

This is a great egret. It was on the south end of Jekyll Island.

Finally, there was this raccoon that kept coming up to the back door of our cottage. We think that maybe other guests had fed him, and he was looking for food. Dad threw rocks at him and scared him away. Then last night, we saw a raccoon (we don't know if it was the same one) on the side of the road near our cottage. This picture didn't turn out very well.

sunshine state

This morning, we added another state to the boys' "visited" list: Florida! Actually, it was my first time in the state as well, so firsts all around. We made our way two islands south of Jekyll (bypassing Cumberland Island, which is also Cumberland Island National Seashore and is only accessible by boat) to Amelia Island, Florida. After a quick stop for breakfast and some coffee (side note: WHY did we pick an island without a funky coffee shop? Even a Starbucks would be great! Take note, Jekyll Island city planners.) we made it to our first stop: Fort Clinch State Park. The fort was built for the Civil War (though it wasn't used in any battles) and then restored/rebuilt in the 1930s as part of the CCC.

We started in the little museum and checked out a Gatling gun, various sizes of cannonballs and other munitions, and a truly gruesome display of Civil War-era medical tools. Then we set off into the sunny, muggy morning to get our first glimpse of the fort. It was really impressive in size, and something about all those cannons pointing out over the water was very affecting. We explored a jail, guard area, and kitchen, and walked all along the ramparts, with the boys darting up and down stairs to check out various nooks and crannies.

The plan was to check out the fort and then head to the beach area around the half-mile-long fishing pier in a different area of the park, but we got a little bit sidetracked when we realized we could follow a path right down to the ocean where it meets the sound right in front of the fort. I had read that the shelling was good in the park in general, which is seriously underestimating the situation. We found tons of great shells, including a dozen (!!!) lettered olives and an auger, plus a whole bunch of cockles and mussels and a few snail shells and whelks. There was such bounty right in front of the fort that we ended up staying out there hunting shells for a long time, until we were all sweaty, slightly sunburned messes. (Note: Florida is HOT!!) Thankfully, unlike some other times on this trip, we had the foresight to pack a cooler full of water bottles, and let me just say that it was probably the most satisfying drink of water I've ever had. We were all seriously parched.

After the beach, we took our sweaty selves off to the town of Fernandina Beach. We spent some time meandering the historic areas of the village, browsing some shops and getting a few little souvenirs for the boys. Then we had lunch at Tasty's, a burger place housed in an old gas station. Great atmosphere and excellent burgers and dogs. And we topped it all off with ice cream cones at Fernandina's Fantastic Fudge -- chocolate for Liam and Max, salted caramel for me, and "Superman" (vanilla ice cream in bright red, blue, and yellow) for Henry. Yum!

putt-putting around

After our sunrise jaunt to Jekyll Point (aka Shell-stravaganza), we came back home, ate breakfast, and decided on our beach for the day. We went back to the South Dunes area, and got there via the Glory Boardwalk. The boardwalk got its name because it was built by and for production of the Civil War movie Glory. A fort was built on the beach, and a major battle scene was filmed there. After filming ended, the fort was taken down so as to preserve the area ecology, but the boardwalk remained.

The water in this area was ... less than ideal. Max has been calling it "brown beach" because the water had this weird rusty color. It kind of made us (the adults, anyway) not want to swim in it. Which turned out to be fine because it was low tide, and the boys discovered that the area was rich with hermit crabs. So they spent most of their time catching hermit crabs and transferring them to a small pool they dug a little way away from the water's edge. The water would absorb into the sand, and then the boys would fill the hole again. They stayed busy like this for over an hour. Meanwhile, I hunted for shells and had some luck, though nothing like the early morning trek.

In the afternoon, we all puttered around the house while Henry took his nap, then we headed out again. Mike took the boys for their very first trip to a miniature golf course, while I did some unencumbered shopping (a real luxury). Whether it was the afternoon heat or the putt-putt itself, Henry did not enjoy himself and threw a giant fit around hole 6 and refused to play for the rest of the round. Liam and Max, however, loved it SO much that they all went back out for a second round (half price for a second round on the same day!) with Mike after dinner while Henry and I took in some quality cartoons. I think it's a safe bet that the second time around was a much smoother experience without him.