Tag: family

Adventure Time!

Dude, you’re going to Dells!

It was finally water park day. Beth got us four tickets to the Mt. Olympus water park in Wisconsin Dells, which seemed like a larger version of Branson. It was basically a series of water park resorts all in a long strip of land near the lake. Each resort was relatively small by itself, but every single place on the road had a novelty statue at the very least, and many places had indoor water slides.

Mt. Olympus was a bit smaller than I expected. We pretty well covered the whole park in just a couple hours. The water slide lines were mostly annoying, and it was pretty hot outside to add to the discomfort. The wave pool was small and tubeless, so you weren’t even allowed to swim out past where you could touch the bottom. I think we all really had the most fun climbing around the kid’s area where they had a couple tubeless slides and tons of random water falling everywhere.

After the park, we went back to Beth’s place to pick up what the girls had forgotten, and then we took Beth and Bryan out to dinner. It was a bit of a drive to Olive Garden, but I’m an expert at multi-lane interstate driving now. Dinner was pretty good, and afterward we had birthday cake for Eaddie and Beth back at her condo.

That wrapped up our evening in Wisconsin. We packed up most everything when we got back to the hotel, and we’ll head to Chicago in the afternoon. Hopefully Chi-Town will treat us at least as well as Madison.

Did you find your retainer?

Adventure Time!

Henry Vilas Zoo

It was a bit too cloudy today, so the girls decided against the water park. Instead, they found a nearby zoo. The Henry Vilas Zoo is a donation-only zoo that was just a few minutes away from our hotel. We stopped for lunch at QDOBA Mexican Eats, which was basically a Chipotle. Everyone loved it, so I felt validated for skipping the McDonald’s.

The girls really enjoyed the zoo. It was smaller, but probably the perfect size before being too big to enjoy in one visit. We missed the aviary that closed earlier than the rest of the park, which was a bummer for me, but otherwise it was a good visit.

After the zoo, we went by a Target to pick up some laundry detergent. It was a bit of a chore to get there through the university campus, but we made it. The Target was big enough to have a parking garage on the ground floor and escalators that carried your shopping cart back down for you. It was pretty impressive. Upstairs it was just the usual stuff, but parking was neat and unexpectedly easy.

Back at the hotel, Summer took laundry to a place just next door to the hotel while the girls and I went swimming. I’ve spent more time in a pool this year than probably the last ten years combined. It’s been fun, but my hair is over it.

That tallhorse is hungry.

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West Towne

We decided to go to the nearby mall today since we were expecting rain. We started with breakfast downstairs, and then headed to the mall. It was pretty big, and there were quite a few sales going on, seemingly due to the death of retail. We’ll probably be going back again before we leave, to visit the Boston Store that’s going out of business. Yet another store selling the fixtures out from under themselves.

Everyone got hungry for a late lunch, so we had some Chinese from the food court. It was really good, and it kept us all going until we got back to the hotel for more evening snacks and pool time. Overall another light, yet successful day.

I miss Russellville water.

Adventure Time!

Costco

I crashed pretty early last night after running on very little sleep over the course of our trip up here. I caught up on sleep well enough that I got up and around at a decent hour. Breakfast at the hotel was pretty good, and after a slow start to getting around, we went to pick up the girls.

I wanted to go to Costco with Beth to see if they had the Nest Hello and Google Home Mini bundle that was available online. We stopped and got Starbucks for everyone on the way. We didn’t spend very long in Costco before Beth had to run, and the rest of us went to another local store to pick up some things for her.

After dropping that off, the girls wanted to go to Culver’s for some burgers. That was good, but I think it made everyone tired. We headed back to the hotel to get unpacked before dropping Summer off at the gym.

The girls and I went to a closing Toys “R” Us to look for deals. The store only had a couple days left, and it was super depressing to see all of the fixtures being sold out from under them. The carcass had already been picked pretty clean, but we bought a couple things before crossing the street to Dick’s to kill some more time. After that we went to a comic book store, and then the Dollar Tree in the shopping center next to Planet Fitness.

When Summer came out, we went back to the hotel to swim for a while before crashing for the night.

Oversnacked

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Pupp Yup?

I only got about three hours of sleep, so I was dragging all day long. We survived the night without any permanent injury or loss. In fact, the shower was tall enough for me to wash my hair without bending over backwards, and it had more pressure than the one at the Red Roof Inn we stayed at the night before, so overall I guess it was a success. I still ended up paying over $15 an hour to sleep, but at least I had power and a shower.

We got up and went to Greenbush Bakery to pick up a bunch of donuts that were donated to Beth’s event. I guess I thought she was running the show, but she was one of several volunteers. We actually beat them there right at 6:30, so I felt good about that. Beth had a bit of a meltdown when she found out where they put her vendor booth, but we eventually got things set up to go. I was too tired to be of much help after that. I had no idea there was such a large community of people with concern for canine cancer awareness. It felt a little silly to me, but I understand it at some level.

We finally wrapped up around 2:00, and Summer and I headed to the AmericInn. It ended up being a pretty great score for us. It had good reviews at a decent rate. The breakfast photos looked quite a bit better than average, and as we walked in we saw a sign that they have a nightly manager’s reception with beer, wine, and appetizers. The room was nice enough, so I think for the first time since we got here, I felt like it could be a good week.

Still exhausted, we walked to the dim sum restaurant in the hotel parking lot for an early dinner. It seemed to be pretty authentic, to the point that the menus were in two languages, one of which was not Spanish. It was a kind of à la carte menu, and we ordered five items to share. I think all but one of them were steamed. The last was fried and seemed more Americanized. Overall it was pretty good.

From there we went back to the room where I took a nap until the manager’s reception. They had nachos, popcorn, two kinds of wings, and lil’ smokies to go with the wine and beer. I couldn’t get into either of the wines, but the Spotted Cow beer was pretty decent.

Any time is a good time for sarcasm if you’re brave enough.

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No-tell Motel

We slept in late today after a pretty rough night of sleep for me at the Red Roof Inn. It took us another nine hours or so to get where we were going after all the extra rest stops. We stopped just before St. Louis for some pretty great barbecue and were waited on by a kid from Hector while we watched competition level cornhole on the television. Several hours later we finally landed in Sun Prairie just after dark, and then went through the arduous process of finding a place to stay.

I don’t know what was happening in town, but virtually every place we went to was booked solid. We did find a $200 hot tub suite, but passed since we only had about five hours to use it before we had to be up to go to Beth’s event. That was also news to me. After both calling and driving all around greater Madison, we ultimately crashed at a tiny motel just a couple blocks from Beth’s place. I just knew we were going to be robbed and murdered. I was wholly reliant on Summer’s intimidating looks and extensive karate training. It was exactly the kind of place you stay when you shave your head and the random girl you’re with dyes her hair in the sink because you’re both on the lam with some kind of government conspiracy-proving evidence. I’m pretty sure Bruce Willis was in an adjacent room.

To add to the disappointment, the front desk clerk was the first person I’d encountered on our entire trip that spoke with any kind of an accent, and it was thick Indian. Apparently Wisconsin forgot it was a northern state and people sound the same here as back home.

THUGS WON’T STOP
TO WAIT FOR A COP
GUNS MAKE SENSE
FOR SELF DEFENSE
BURMA-SHAVE

Traditions

What are Traditions: Father’s Day 2018

We got up early this morning to go to Conway for Father’s Day. Before that, we went to Harbor Freight to pick up a trailer hitch cargo carrier. Julie was running behind, so we left about 45 minutes than we planned. Mom and Dad wanted me to drive, so I got us to Red Robin for some burgers. We managed to squeak in with a relatively short wait time, and made it out just in time to get to the other side of town for the movie.

With just a few minutes to kill, we ran to Harbor Freight across the parking lot so I could get a moving blanket to wrap stuff on the cargo carrier, and then we went in to watch Incredibles 2. I don’t know if it was because I was so hot and tired, or if the movie just had a way slower pace than I expected, but I had trouble staying awake during the first half. I wasn’t the only one though, because Mom fell asleep and then woke up screaming about how she couldn’t see anything.

After the movie, we came straight home and I started putting together my cargo carrier while Summer went to the gym. As I was finishing up, Lelan texted and wanted to know if I could help Stephen with a Mavic Pro drone they were having trouble flying, so I met him at his office to see what I could do. We managed to get it airborne, and he flew it around in their big lobby area because it was a bit too windy outside to be flying near an airport. Once he was satisfied with that, I came back home to meet up with Summer for dinner and The Office.

Don’t be koi.

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Caress Your Balls

A brief interruption in power woke us up really early this morning. I didn’t feel particularly tired, so I got out of bed pretty early for a Saturday. Most of this morning and afternoon was just a lazy day. I spent some more time fighting with my media server, and Summer napped for a while. We eventually got out of the house to meet up with Ronda and Steven for some Fat Daddy’s.

On our way out the door, Summer checked the mail and found my free pair of glasses from Zenni Optical, courtesy of EyeQue. They seem to have a lot of glare, even from the reflection of my own eyes on the back of the lenses. They’re fine for near-sight, but looking at anything far away seems way blurry at first. My eyes will adjust eventually, but I think they’re giving me a headache. It’s definitely time to go back to the eye doctor to find out my official prescription anyway.

After dinner, we all went to the bowling alley for a couple games. I don’t think any of us had been bowling in quite a while, but it was a good time. It went by faster than I expected it to. Steven won the first game, and then Summer squeaked by me for the win in her extra frame at the end of the second game.

We stopped by the Walmart Neighborhood Market on the way home because Summer wanted some cake, and we watched The Office until bedtime.

Yakety yak!

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Dine Together; Work Alone

This Friday was in rare form. I was left by myself all day without any group work, so I finished running my 10 lines from the library to the switch closet, terminated and organized where everything came into the switch, and started setting up new computers in the library. I was pretty happy with how it all turned out overall. Summer joined a big group of us at Brick Oven for a long lunch. It took over 40 minutes to get our food, which seems typical for a party of four or more there.

Ben let me go at 2:30, so I headed home before picking Summer up at the shop. They still couldn’t find anything wrong with the A/C in her car after tinkering with it for a while, so I took her on the bike to pick it up again, then went to my parents’ house to see what they wanted to do for dinner. We landed at Pasta Grill, where Erica seated us next to an overly excited baby shower. The food was pretty good for anything I’ve had in town.

When we finally got back home, I guess my house had misunderstood a command and ended up heating the house for a little while, so it took a bit for the air conditioner to get things back to normal. Now that it’s cool again, I’m exhausted and ready to go to sleep.

One more week.

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The Long Way

We got a ton of cable in today, and they finished the floors on the east side of the junior high, so it was my time to run nearly 4,000 feet of cable. It was a relatively easy run to the library, but splitting the lines up to run down individual tubes of conduit got a bit hairy. We spent literally all day working there, with a break for lunch at a barbecue cookout/vendor meetup at Elliott Electric Supply.

After work, I came home and got the house cleaned up before Summer brought Noah over. He wanted to spend the night, so she brought some Domino’s home and we watched When We First Met and the first episode of Black Mirror. Just before bed, I ran into some trouble with my file server. I’m hoping I can recover without too much trouble, but it seems to be an issue with some software. Ironically, if it had been a hardware failure with a drive, I would have had no trouble at all.

Computers are stupid.