ugggghhhhhh.....A Month!

Hmmmmm....I've been busy. We have been busy. All of us have been busy.

Here we go...the recap....in Reverse.....

Tonight, 6/16/09, my son had his piano recital. He did fantastic! The pictures, and video, are here. Since he leaves to go to his mom's on Saturday, I will pick up his lessons like I did last year. All the students tonight did a great job, and since the piano is my favorite instrument, I could have sat there all day to listen to the children play.

This past weekend was not great. It would be a stretch to say it was even fun, but some parts of it were. Friday afternoon was very interesting for the SGG and I. SGG is my girlfriend. Her name is Chris. I would bet that in a million years you could not guess what SGG stood for! :-) So, on Friday SGG was hosting a gaggle of cub scouts for a backyard tent bonanza. I went to do my upper body workout and then went on to surf for about 2 hours. My goal this summer is to get up and surfing and I put in a honest effort Friday. After surfing I took my son out for sushi and then we went to keep SGG company for a bit. Saturday morning I got up and did another hour and half of surfing. I actually got up and road about six waves for more than 5 seconds. It is actually sort of like a rodeo. It wasn't a great idea because I was still physically recovering from Friday evening. SGG also got up early and took the cub scouts out for a hike at Seashore State Park here in VA Beach. I think she deserves a medal for what she did Friday night and Saturday.

About 2pm Saturday we finish packing for an overnight camp at Kiptopeke State Park on Virginia's eastern shore. We have four kids (still trying to figure out where the fourth came from), a canoe, three tents, fishing poles, crab nets, boogie boards, skim boards, sleeping bags, bug spray, sun block, and much more. SGG and I started setting up the tents. By some freakishly strange alignment of the planets, I managed to trap a bee between my sandal and my middle left toe. That bee stung the snot out of me. I haven't been stung by a bee since I was 9. GRRRRRRR. Now my foot was hurting and swollen. We finished the tents and then I went to the store to get some Benadryl, compresses, band aids, baking soda, and some Coke for the Rum I was going to buy at Liquor store next door. As it turns out, I got Children's Benadryl by mistake, so I chewed up four of those things right away.

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing and swimming at the beach...though I really mostly slept. SGG has some friends there and we hung out with them for dinner and conversation until 10pm. I can tell SGG needs some time away from her children...every time she left camp for something she was gone for an hour and a half! :-)

While Rachel and Dr. Leah of singlemommyhood.com would espouse the benefits of dating people without kids....if you are not a parent you might not fully appreciate the next part of this story....

SGG and I get the kids in their tents and threaten them with eternal restriction from all electronics if they make a peep. We lay down in our tent, on an air mattress, and start watching a South Park episode on my ipod. We are both more or less instantly asleep. Deeply asleep. At some point in the night a shivering twelve year old boy is saying "Dad. Dad. Dad" in his most hurt and pained "i need help and sympathy right now" voice. He is on the verge of tears. He is very cold. His ear is killing him. His nose is stuffed up. SGG and I are now both out of the tent. I am not so patiently telling my son five time in a row to put his shirt on first. Then we walk down to the bathroom. Then SGG gives him Ibuprofen for his pain. I happen to have a fresh supply of children's benadryl, through my own unfortunate providence, and I give him some to help his allergies that were exacerbating the ear situation. It has the added bonus of helping him sleep. I also ask him if he would now like the sleeping bag he so adamantly stated he didn't need earlier. He does, is grateful, and soon warm and asleep.

Not too long after that, another child awakens our now not so restful slumber. This one is ten and his stomach hurts. The two adults are slow to respond, addled really, until the ten begins to vomit at the opening of our tent. SGG is barely not screaming at the ten to move away from the tent and to direct the unpleasant upheaval somewhere else. It takes the ten at least two heaves to comprehend and act on the instruction. Having lost my sanity, I lay back and just start laughing inside, because if I laugh out loud I was going to get hit. I am also thankful that the wind was blowing west to east and carrying the smell away from the tent. SGG gets the ten settled and we get situated again.

In the morning, SGG goes out for breakfast for everyone....and is gone for an hour and half. :-) We get our act together finally and get the crab nets and fishing poles situated for the boys. One of them, mine, has wandered off as he want to do, and SGG has gone to pay for the pier pass...and is gone for an hour and half. I finally find my son...who has been swimming at the beach, and he and I go to the beach to swim some more and then I lay down again. My foot is throbbing and swollen and I am really tired from all the joyful parental experiences I got to participate in during the night. About 1pm I figure I've had enough fun for the weekend and we pack up everything to head home.

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Ok so that was kind of painful...but maybe it was needed to balance out the weekend of 6/5/09. On this weekend we were planning to drive to Charlottesville, VA for SGG's 20th college reunion at UVA. Friday night was a bust as we had intense thunderstorms come through and a tornado. We decided to leave in the morning. Leaving in the morning was the right choice. We made it into Charlottesville just in time to start meeting up with SGG's friends. We went through her old hangouts, had some drinks, and then attended the ROTC cocktail party. While I didn't know anyone there, turns out we knew some of the same people and I got to have a lot of interesting conversations. One of the people had a room on the UVA Lawn by the Rotunda so we went back there to have some more drinks and look out over the lawn. The evening was amazing. The weather was perfect, the company was great, and the band was The English Beat. We spent the night in Afton at a friend of SGG's. Some of the pictures below are from her friends house, and some are from out hike up Humpback Rock. Humpback rock is a truly remarkable hike and vista.

Pictures
Slideshow


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The weekend of May 29th was spent playing at the beach, surfing, and playing volleyball. :-)

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Memorial day weekend was spent resting. Believe it or not.
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The weekend of the 15th started off in an interesting way.

We were going to camp at Northwest River park for the monthly Astronomy Association demo night. We had a group of cub scouts with us. I was going to be late because I do my workouts in the afternoons after work. Brandon and I got packed up and were getting ready to head out when SGG calls and says she needs a favor. She wasn't expecting to 'Start', but did, and needed some 'supplies'. I say no problem and we detour for Target.

In the parking lot, Brandon is anxious to get to the campsite so he wants to know why we are going to Target.

I take a deep breath. We just had the 'Talk' a few weeks prior to this. He is actually mostly mortified about the whole thing and gets dreadfully embarrassed when I bring it up. But, he did ask why we were going to Target. He regrets it now. I begin asking him if he remembers our talk, and how we talked about women and menstruation. My son is at this point red from head to toe, and can't seem to look up from his feet. We are surrounded by women in the parking lot and it really isn't all that easy for me either. I tell him SGG needs some tampons and we are going to get them. We were also looking for a coffee press, but we never found that.

After giving up on the coffee press we headed to the tampons. This is where I become intrigued. What a variety. The specific request was a small box of regular tampons. If you have looked closely lately, that product line was obviously phased out some time ago. There are generic and name brand versions. Quantities start at "a lot" and go up to "a hell of a lot". There are a wide variety of different absorbency levels too. Some even have flushable applicators. They are stacked in Target over 6' high and extend down the row about 8'. 48' square feet of menstrual mecca. I'm not actually counting the pads either. My son is sulking and lurking about a few aisles over while I diligently read EVERYTHING in search of the specifics that SGG gave me. I had a few women come by to offer condolences and support...sort of. So, I settled on a variety pack that seemed to embody the quantity request while offering an assortment of absorbency capabilities for which I'm sure SGG could find a 'regular' in.

At the checkout counter, the woman clerk said "Awwww, you are a good guy aren't you?"

And then we were on our way to camping, geocaching, fishing, and tick pulling fun. :-)