Roads Go Ever Ever On

It occurred to me about a week ago (coincidentally when I was home alone for 5 days with no car) that we have lived here almost 15 years and Never Walked To Town. Today, we remedied this egregious oversight.

Our plan was to walk to The Grotto, Talent's fabulous pizzeria, but were very disappointed upon arrival to discover that they were closed for Memorial Day. We managed to walk a bit further and found an open restaurant for a late lunch.

I had thought that the kids would probably be done at this point and they would hang out with Emile while I walked back home to get the car and pick them up. Another short walk brought us to the library park where we lounged in the shade and did a bit of reading.

As it turns out, a short rest resulted in everyone being ready to forge homeward. We took a different way home on back roads, some of which we hadn't actually travelled before. It turned out that one of the roads from my not-so-smart phone's map was really a private driveway. We met Patches, the very friendly farmer, on his tractor and after a short chat he told us we were welcome to trespass any time.

The round trip was about 7 miles... definitely a new record for Larkin and Finn. I'm excited that I can now widen my hike parameters past the 3-4 mile hikes I had been focused on.

In totally unrelated news, the kids and I were recently waiting for some car maintenance at the mechanic. I was reading The Hobbit aloud (again!), Finn was playing on the iPad and (unbeknownst to Finn and I until later) Larkin was drawing Finn's portrait. She had picked up a crumpled, waxy piece of paper from the floor of the car and a random pencil.

I was pretty darn impressed with her first ever portrait effort. We stopped to pick up some better pencils and drawing paper on the way home.

Fun With Uncle Felix

Technically, a few other people were involved in some of this fun, but it seems like certain things only happen when Felix is around. We recently had a decidedly action-packed trip to the coast.

The visit started off with a real splash. Felix, Jim, Larkin, Finn and I went for a hike down to Jim's pond. There were rumors of a native newt we were hoping to catch a glimpse of.

At some point, the search devolved into a splashing contest between Felix and Finn. Unfortunately, my camera and I had moved on, but if you look closely at the above picture you can see the large stick Felix used to press unfair advantage on Finn. At some point, Finn stepped back to escape a splash and ended up (with what was reported to be a priceless expression) on his back in the pond. Felix hauled him out by his overall straps and they trooped back to the house somewhat sheepishly.

Shortly thereafter, Jim presented Larkin and Finn with a treasure map.

When they puzzled out the figure and adventured to the X, they discovered...

a potato patch! They were surprisingly un-disappointed and set about digging up their earthy treasures.

This treasure hunt reminded me that I had been wanting to design a scavenger hunt for Larkin and Finn. So Felix distracted the kids by responding to the sidewalk chalk insults left by the natives...

and I wrote up about 25 clues and hid them around the house and property. The hunt went quicker than I expected... there was barely a pause to read a clue before they were off to the next location.

Above you can see how well Finn contains enthusiasm. My moment of glory came when they discovered the penultimate clue:

Yes, I had snuck the final clue in Finn's back pocket while he was playing outside so it had been right there the whole time. Man, I'm good. As all good scavenger hunts must, this one ended in the rum cabinet.

  

Jim and Felix had managed to pull together a prize basket remarkably quickly... it is amazing what childhood treasures a junk drawer contains.

If you look closely at the photo of the loot, you'll notice an innocuous light purple plastic disk. When inverted and placed on a hard surface, it pops quite a ways into the air when it rights itself.

Felix, dutiful uncle, demonstrated that when the disk is placed on a soft, fleshy surface it creates a powerful suction from which it is almost impossible to break free. And thus, the term "hicky" was introduced into my children's vocabulary.

To be fair, Finn and Larkin were not the only ones bearing this mark of shame. When we went out to dinner that evening, Felix still had a faint circle in the middle of his forehead.

During one of their frequent wrestling bouts, Finn found himself held fast over Felix's shoulder, unable to break free. After a short struggle, he realized he had only one course of action left available to him: he reached down to Felix's waist and administered a mighty wedgie. Felix, of course, was in a perfect position to retaliate in kind and they proceeded to prance around the room in a dance of Mutually Assured Wedgie Destruction until a tentative truce was formed. I'm afraid I was not quick enough with the camera... in this case, a video surely would have been worth a thousand words.

After all this action, we were all ready for some down time. Some time for peaceful contemplation. Quiet retrospection. A nice, relaxing round of Hog-Tie The Children.

As it turned out, none of the adults could tie a knot that would keep either kid secure for more than a couple of minutes. Who would have thought this would be the most recent outlet for a little friendly sibling rivalry? "Tie me up now!" "No! It's my turn!"