vacation

Summer Vacation, Day 73: BFF and Stuff

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Cooked breakfast for the masses this morning, then met some dear friends, Matt and Laura, in Big Rapids for a couple hours. Played in the park with their two boys and met their twin daughters (age 2 and a half already!) Then on to Todd and Suzette’s place.

There are friends, friends, friends, and friends in this world. Some you’ve known forever and love to see. Some you’ve grown with – as individuals, couples, families. Some you meet over the years, unexpectedly, and hit it off with – something new forms in a strange place!

And some transcend all of that. Maybe we’re just lucky – but we have friends who are like soul-mates en masse. We love each other like family, celebrate like friends, and trust each other completely. God has blessed us with people like our own. It’s so good to see them!

Summer Vacation, Day 72: Gang’s All Here (Belated)

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Been sleeping on the houseboat with the full moon for a night light. Jill and her kids (plus her boxer) came up to the lake, too, and the boys (minus Trevvy) went fishing. Lots of too-small walleye.

Then Brendan finally hooked something. The pole bent double. The drag whined as line was pulled out against the reel’s wishes Dziadzi was ready with the net, and Gabe and Kyle were cheering him on … and it spit the hook. Oof. We all felt terrible, and Dziadzi shouted something it’s best I don’t repeat here.

Brendan took it in stride. He imagines a massive fish and tells a good story. Dziadzi tells him his great-grandpa caught few fish, but always caught the biggest. He sees himself in that light.

Gabe suspects the fish was “Old Mocker” – the fish who’s been jumping on all sides of the houseboat this entire trip. Gabe imagines a wise and clever fish who, like Moby Dick, can show up in one place and then somewhere else entirely nearly simultaneously.

He called the fish “Old Mocker,” of course, because it continued to mock us each time we set out …

Summer Vacation, Day 71: Home Free

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Jodi and I are at my folks’ place today. The wee ones are fishing with Busia and Dziadzi (wish ’em luck!), while we chill, blog, do laundry, and assorted other everyday chores, kid-free.

We plan to have a kid-free visit with a couple of old friends, a kid-free lunch with another friend, maybe do some kid-free napping, then enjoy a kid-free supper with some couple-friends who, completely coinicidentally, are also kid-free.

I hope Bren catches a fish. Beyond that, I’m soaking the quiet.

Summer Vacation, Day 70: Gone Fishing (Belated)

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Spent the day at Hardy Dam, and the kids learned a bit more about fishing and camping – namely that, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, you never know what you’re gonna get. Bren, Gabe and I went fishing with Dziadzi early in the morning and caught seven or so small walleye (8 to 13 1/2 inches; minimum to keep ’em is 15). I caught a 22-inch pike (minimum is 24 inches). So, no keepers, and Bren didn’t catch any at all!

Jodi and Busia went to town for groceries (our family changes the entire feeding dynamic at the camp site) and the kids decided to read (Bren = The Silmarillion; Gabe = The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen) or nap through a good part of the afternoon, so Dad and I read (East of Eden continues to be a masterpiece; Dad is reading Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising). When the ladies returned, we took the kids to the beach, but a steady breeze had blown a thick layer of pea-soup muck into the swimming area. The kids played in the sand, instead, and I went with Dad to install two more bunks in the houseboat.

Afterward, all of us set out to go fishing, only to be blown in off the lake by a rapidly advancing storm. We barely got the houseboat docked again before the rain began – the cabin catches a lot of wind! So we went into my folks’ fifth-wheel to eat supper and watch the Olympics. Oh, and we learned that smallmouth bass are quite good to eat – cousin Kyle had left one behind. Not really what we planned, but it all worked out. Amen.

Summer Vacation, Day 69: Tuesday (Belated)

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Didn’t get to visit Jacqui – sick kids and craziness conspired against us. This made me sad.

In the happy column: made it to my parents’ log house before noon, in plenty of time for the kids to ride Polly, dad’s wonderful sorrel mule, and to see Katie, his Morgan mare, and Extra Bold Joe, her colt, who is the color of strong coffee. Then we headed to Hardy dam, set out on the folks’s houseboat, and I hooked a 13-inch smallmouth bass, while Busia (my mom, Polish for “Grandma”) caught a couple of small walleye (one of which caused a double take as we tried to decide whether it was a baby walleye or a jumbo perch – on the hook, it was hard to tell …).

Just enough fish to get the kids excited, without the work of cleaning and cooking them. All in all, a good first day.