Spring Break 2014 - Home!

Raining again this morning. As we were packing our room, I was thinking on my post from last night and how I had forgotten to put some important color on it. After the mall, the three boys (Ethan, Quin, and Loudon) and I went swimming in the pool. After we had swum for awhile, a couple of young girls came in - I would estimate they were around 10 or 11 years old. At one point they went to sit in the hot tub, where Quin followed them. I didn't even notice he was gone... I was hanging with my nepphew, trying to show him how to float. A couple of minutes later, Quin comes jumping into the regular pool and asks me, quiely, "dad, where do we live?" I told him Oconomowoc, and he got out of the pool and went back to the hot tub. A couple of minutes later he did the same thing, this time asking what state we lived in... Then went back... It was kind of spooky how natural he was at working these two girls - I was at once impressed and taking notes.

This morning we got up, packed up, then went to Al and Araceli's house for breakfast with them and my parents. It was a wonderful breakfast and nice to spend time with the family before we headed home. The funniest part of the morning by far was when Quin asked Araceli, "Are you a Mexican?" She responded that she was, indeed, Mexican. He then asked her, "how did you get here?" I was somewhat mortified, but at the same time wanted to see where it went. She patiently explained to him that Mexico was just south of the US and even tried to show him on the globe that was handy. I think he lost interest... Still, it was pretty funny.

Fast forward 5 hours and we're home. We've been making a tradition out of saving the last day of vacation for when we get home. It's just more comfortable here and sometimes it's nice to pretend that you don't have a bunch of stuff to do but still be comfortable. So that's what we're doing now. No laundry, no cooking, just relaxing with our own stuff. We even went to a movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which I found quite entertaining. Might have been a bit much for Quin...

So that's it for this year's spring break. Tomorrow we're back to almost normal. We have some work on the house to do, need to pick up the dog, and then it's on to a weekend full of soccer, the first of MANY weekends like that. It's been fun, but now life must go on.

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Spring Break 2014 - Mall of America

The day started REALLY late this morning. The plan was to meet Uncle Bryce and Loudon at the Mall of America (MOA) at 10:00 to do rides and other fun stuff. When 9:00 rolled around and we were still having difficulty getting Quin out of bed, we knew we were going to have to delay a bit. It seems that vacation finally caught up to the 6 year old, who went to bed at midnight the night previous and hadn't slept much to date. He sure made up for it last night!

After a shower and a quick breakfast in the atrium (our hotel is pretty nice), we headed out of the room to travel to the mall. Not before we stopped in the lobby for some Starbucks, a vacation staple. While Jenny was procuring the sweet caffeinated beverages for us, the boys and I sat at leather chairs in the lobby having a quick business meeting where I insulted, fired, rehired, and ultimately praised them for their parts in our bunny business. It was a weird morning.

We got to the mall a few minutes early, so Ethan shopped for and purchased a new Jerry Garcia tie (he's obsessed), then the four of us hung out at the Microsoft store and played some XBox ONE. The hope was that we would ultimately convince Jenny that it was time to buy one of our own. Not to spoil the surprise, but we still do not own one...

At 10:30 we met up with Bryce and Loudon and took in the rides at Nickelodeon World. Loudon is a natural and loves rides, and it turns out Quin is as well! He's now tall enough (50 inches) to go on all the rides himself. Ethan was a very good big brother and older cousin today and went on all of the rides with his younger proteges.

A bit of lunch and more rides later, we were thinking of leaving. The kids convinced us that it was a good idea to go on the log ride one more time. We had gone on earlier and Quin and I had gotten REALLY wet - well, Quin got completely soaked, and I got really wet. Since I had gotten so wet the last time, I gave my phone to Jenny to watch while I rode this time around, which was good since we went on it twice in a row (it was a very slow day at the park). Jenny took some video of us on the ride, and once we were done, I found that my phone had completely discharged again. Luckily there was an Apple store only about 100 feet away, so I went there to find out what was wrong with my phone, only to find that I needed a new battery (I really need a new phone, the iPhone 5 is NOT one of Apple's best products, unfortunately).

After dropping off my phone, we took Loudon back to the hotel with us to take in some swimming, then we headed back to uncle Blaine's house for some home-made supper made by Grandma and Grandpa, who we haven't seen for quite some time (a correction from yesterday, we have seen them since November, in fact we saw them in January at Vince's baptism). It was quite a nice dinner and good to see the grandparents and Araceli again.

So, how here we sit again. A pretty low key evening. Quin's still up at 10:00, probably because he got 12 hours of sleep the night prior. Ethan and I are watching Friends while Jenny is watching something while "encouraging" Quin to sleep in the other room. Tomorrow is the last day in MN for us - we will be heading back home to WI for the final days of our vacation. Friday will be a vacation day despite the fact that we'll be home.

 

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Spring Break 2014 - The Museum

Ethan and I knocked one of our meager goals for this vacation off this morning, we had breakfast at Taco Bell! Yeah, we have lofty goals. We piled down a couple of waffle tacos and breakfast burritos each and headed into St. Paul to take in the Minnesota Museum of Science.

The MMS is one of the better science museums I've been to, quite honestly. We easily spent 3.5 hours there without even doing a movie! This included the dinosaur exhibit, which was very cool. I learned some interesting new things, in fact. I had no idea what a rennaissance of dinosaur discoveries we were in lately! I don't think I recognized a single dino in the exhibit, they were all new discoveries in the last 10 years or so. My favorite was an entire new class of dinosaurs, the "titanosaurs." Very cool name.

We spent the better part of the day there. Around 1:00 or so we decided we should eat something. Since it was nice outside (well, sunny at least), we walked around downtown St. Paul in desparate search of something to eat. I suggested we take on one of the hotdog vendors in the square, but Jenny insisted we find something else. After strikingo out at Paluzza (or something named similarly), we finally ended up at The American Burger Bar. After a quick round of drinks, a vacation necessity, conversation switched to more esoteric topics. One such topic was that of ninjas (of course). Quin stated that he was, in fact, a ninja. Ethan said that ninjas don't talk, so there was no way he could be one. I stated that there could be some such thing as a "verbose ninja." Ethan asked what that was, and without hesitation Quin told him, "A ninja that talks but just doesn't tell his secrets." I wrote that one down because, dang, what a great and accurate description!

Our original plan was to go to the zoo after lunch, but after eating, we decided we'd rather drive around a bit and hopefully get Quin to take a quick nap - he had gone to sleep at midnight the night before! So we tooled around Minneapolis for a bit, looked at all of the new sports arenas, saw the hole in the ground where the Metrodome used to be, and generally just farted around.

After an hour or so of that, we finally headed back south and checked into our hotel. Well, we first went to the wrong hotel, then checked into the proper hotel. Dinner plans were with the Johnson's, one of the girls we grew up with and her family, at a Brew Pub like place in Apple Valley. Though the service was slow, the beer and the food were good.

We transitioned back to our hotel for an hour or swimming, which brings us up to the present. Now, Ethan, Jenny and I are watching TV in one room while Quin finally sleeps in the other half of the suite (yeah, we went all out). Tomorrow promises rain and cold, so our plans have us inside most of the day at the mall. Hopefully Ethan and I fulfill the remainder of our meager goals, to see Captain America. Then it's off to see Grandpa and Grandma Grady for the first time since November as they stop off on their migration back to Neillsville for the summer.

 

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Spring Break 2014 - Minnesota

We departed Neillsville sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 AM, right on schedule. Jenny's plans didn't have us overtaxing ourselves today. The plan was to hit a couple of tourist stops south of the Twin Cities, then drive up to spend the late afternoon/evening at Blaine's in Inver Grove Heights.

Our first stop was at LARK Toys in Kellogg Minnesota. This was not our typical drive for a vacation as it involved ZERO interstate time. Highway 10 to Mondovi, then meandered south to the river, across the river, you get the picture. It was picturesque, or would have been if there had been any leaves on the trees. We stopped in Mondovi for a soda as we were parched, and were surprised at how WARM it was outside! I think it's been so long since we've felt warm air that we didn't know how to respond, but the day was beautiful!!

We pulled into Lark Toys around 11:15, parked, then went into the building. Quin still hadn't quite recovered from the prior evening's festivities, what with the tick and all, so he was cranky to say the least. What we found, however, was a nice toy store with a bunch of non-typical toys - things you can't find at WalMart! There were also a fair number of antique toys behind protective glass that was pretty neat. I had read the reviews the night prior to see what we were getting into, and the reviewer couldn't say enough about the carousel and how much fun they had having a "tea party" after riding the carousel. Well, I promised the boys that we would have an epic Tea Party, and Quin and I had that indeed. He was disappointed that there was no real tea, which he doesn't like anyway, but he was disappointed nonetheless. The reviewer said they spent 5 hours there and planned to come back 4 times a year. It was fun, but I guess if you don't have girls that appreciate the British afternoon custom for playtime, it might not be quite the same.

After "tea time" and purchasing some novelties that we didn't think we could find anywhere else, we got some lunch and officially started "spring break" with some umbrella drinks (as seen below). Ethan and Quin also got to ride the carousel, which was actually pretty cool, all of the animals were hand carved at the toy shop, and they were quite impressive!

We left Lark toys around 12:45, just shy of the 5 hours the Google reviewer promised, and headed north to Wabasha for the National Eagle Preserve on the river there. After paying our admission price, we were told that we could still get in on the 1:00 "show" where they told us all about their eagles and even fed one of them. We got in there just in time to see Angel, a 10 pound female Bald Eagle with a 7 foot wingspan, power her way through a raw rabbit carcass. Pretty cool.

Quin was pretty cranky by now, and we had seen enough eagle stuff - including a huge nest on the bridge crossing the Mississippi on the way over. So we decided to head north to Minneapolis, our ultimate destination for the evening. We arrived around 3:00 and had some time to burn, so we just drove around, a time honored tradition in our family. By 5:00 we called Blaine and hooked up with him and had some dinner at Ruby Tuesday, a fine establishment indeed. Blaine then bonded with his nephews while I took Jenny to a planned workout with a friend up here in the area - yeah, Jenny plans out workouts with friends in distant cities... While she was there, I headed up and visited with Bryce and the family - his boys are getting pretty big! In fact, Vincy is already 17 pounds!

Right now we're huddled around the TV in Blaine's living room watching Rush Hour (Quin is still up, Jenny's asleep, Blaine is in bed). Tomorrow we go to our hotel where our "real vacation" begins according to Quin. We're also looking to hit the Science Museum, the zoo, and a brewpub before we get the kids into the pool to burn off some much needed energy.

 

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Vacation - "The Emergency"

Vacation just isn't vacation until there's a trip to the E.R. So today officially started our vacation!

This afternoon was pretty nice outside. It was around 60 degrees, not too much wind, so the kids went outside and played baseball. They were chasing the balls all around the property, including through some longer brush and what-not.

After a long day of playing, and a long night the night before, Quin was pretty tired. So around 7:30 we decided it was time to start what we thought would be a quick descent into sleepy time, starting with a bath. It was your typical bath, even though it was in a strange tub. Once he got out and was drying off, Quin was feeling around and discovered something strange on the underside of his "special purpose." He showed it to me, and I confirmed - a tick!

I gave it a couple of quick tries, not knowing what the protocol was for a dad to be messing around with his 6 year old's nether regions, but giving it an honest try. It wasn't long before I admitted defeat, however, and called up his more nimble fingered mother. Jenny worked at it for a bit before she, too, admitted defeat, and resorted to using tools instead, so she employed a tweezers. That's when things started to go downhill!

She managed to get the main portion of the tick removed with the tweezers, but this little guy was in there pretty good! There were a LOT of waterworks, a lot of screaming, and a lot of convincing him that we needed to try to get the head out of this. It was a mess! We tried pretty much everything, but after all was said and done, Quin looked at us and said, "listen to me! You're hurting my skin, and you're hurting me! Please stop!"

So we started talking through what we should do next. Should we call the doctor? What did the internet say? Was it a deer tick? Was the head really in there (it was)? Quin didn't much like listening to all of this - he didn't want to go to the Doctor! Of course, after a bit of digging around, and telling him that it wouldn't hurt to go to the doctor, he WANTED to go to the DOCTOR, PLEASE!!!

We gave up. We got him in his jammies and I fetched my cell phone and called the number I remember so well from my youth - 715.743.3101. I asked for the nurse on call, then I'll admit, I through my name out there expecting some special treatment (I didn't get any). The nurse informed me that she thought we should bring him in so the doctor could look at him.

Being Neillsville, we weren't expecting this to be too big a deal. It is only about a 10 minute ride to the hospital from pretty much anywhere in the zip code. Once we got there around 8:45, the parking lot was a bit fuller than would be expected. We checked in and were informed that it would probably be awhile - things were kind of busy. The waiting room had 2 other groups of people sitting already. We were lucky to have a television and remote to keep us company, and there was a baseball game on, so that worked out OK.

About 45 minutes later, we were the only ones left in the waiting area. I mentioned to Jenny that, unless there was an ambulance, we should be in shortly. It was quiet there, so we could hear the page coming in that the ambulance was inbound, something about shortness of breath, etc... Yep - bad luck!

Despite the ambulance's arrival, we got in around 9:45 and they started taking vitals, height, and weight. Quin is 50 inches tall (something the tech was unable to figure out, unfortunately) and weighed 60 pounds! After a couple of minutes, Dr. Stanga came in and was able to confirm the existence of a tick head on the underside of Quin's penis.

The doctor gave some orders and left the room. After numbing up the area, we were left alone with our little boy who had lots of questions. "Is it biting me? Why's it in there? Is it moving around?" At one point during our attempts, I explained to him that ticks had teeth that bit so hard that they wouldn't let go, to which Quin informed us that we should just "knock out it's teeth." "That would only hurt the tick, not me!" He continued on that line of thought at the doctor's office as well.

By 10:30, tick head, along with just a little bit of Quinton's tender bits gone, and with antibiotics in hand (they treat for Lyme's in all cases, I guess), we were on our way back to the Tibbett's. Quin took his medicine and he and I went up to finally go to sleep - he did manage to sleep for an hour while we waited to get into the E.R. Of course, he was a little charged up now, so we had some interesting conversation while he tried to fall off to sleep:

"Why is my penis so special?" he asked me, referring back to when I was explaining to him why we had to go to the doctor's. I told him that every part of us is special. Conversation averted, or so I thought. "What do we use our penises for, just peeing?" "A few other things," I said. "How many?" he asked. "Oh, I don't know, six-or-seven." "Well, which is it, six or seven?" This went on for a while...

"Why did they say that's a bad place to get a tick?" he asked me? I explained that there are a lot of nerves in that area, and that it typically hurt especially bad. That got us into a whole discussion about nerves and what function they served to the body.

After many more gripping questions (I'll include more if I remember them), he finally asked me, "can I mess around with my penis?" I told him maybe not tonight. Tomorrow would be OK, probably. "Well, tomorrow's kind of busy," he said. Never too busy to mess around with your penis... Maybe I shouldn't have said that to him, but I like to make a point of not lying to my children...

 

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Spring Break 2014 - Happy Easter!

Welcome to Grady Spring Break, 2014! The itenerary is quite extensive, to be sure, and the destinations exotic!

The trip started yesterday where we left the house in the van around 9:00 AM, heading north! Yes, you read that correctly, we headed NORTH for spring break. Didn't say we were all that bright! The first stop was probably just off of MTV's list of destinations for this year's spring break, Neillsville, WI.

OK, so we're sort of mailing in Spring Break this year. Rather than doing something exotic with lots of driving or flying, we're going to hang out with family near places that we know and enjoy. This weekend we'll be staying with Jenny's family. In fact we just got back from Easter Mass this morning, and got to spend several hours with Jenny's siblings last night where we ate too much and got some outside time (it's above 50 degrees, which means outside time in Wisconsin!).

Today promises to be a nice lazy day. It will be just the Grady's and Tom and Shirley, something that rarely happens. Tomorrow we head to Minneapolis by way of Waubasha, MN, where some gigantic toy store and some eagle place are beconing us. Tomorrow night we'll be staying with my brother, Blaine, and then heading to the real highlight, Embassy Suites near the Mall of America. Should be a hoot.

Ethan and I have two goals for this vacation. First, we want to eat breakfast at Taco Bell. Second, we want to see the new Captain America movie. Yeah, pretty ambitious. I hope we are able to pull it off!

Until then, I'll share pictures as I get them. I'm sure we'll be putting something together for more mass sharing as we get back and synchronize up from our big, non-internet connected camera. Below is a sample of what we're doing today - playing on our devices... That's kind of what we do these days...

 

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