The Treasure Tree

All right. I really don't intend for this blog to be just about kids and crafts and all.

But I was ASTOUNDED at what Travis did tonight.

I've talked before about our fondness for treasure hunts around here. Tonight, Travis created a treasure hunt all on his own.

Captain Hook stole Noah's bo-bo.

We were given this "treasure map", which was actually four different pictures. The pictures were of trees -- small ones, large ones, with roots below the ground and/or nests in the branches.


We were then directed to checkpoint one, where there were two smaller pictures taped to the wall. We were to pick the picture that matched the first picture from the treasure map, take it off the wall, and follow the directions on the back.

(It was important to pay attention to the number of roots in order to correctly match the picture.)

The directions on the back of the card consisted of just an arrow pointing which way for us to go (with an N at the top so we knew which direction the card should be facing).

Sorry Noah looks drugged in this picture. He wouldn't hold still long enough for me to get a good shot.

The arrow pointed us to a second set of two pictures, again taped to the wall. This time we had to match the picture to the second picture on the map. Another arrow, and another set of pictures.



After we'd matched the fourth picture, the arrow pointed us in the general direction of the hidden bo-bo, and we had to search in that area until we found it.

Noah located it under one of the kitchen chairs, and then immediately begged for another treasure hunt.

I had zero part in the whole thing other than to point Noah in the right direction of the arrows, it was all Travis's idea.

Kids are so flipping cool.

Duct tape does it again

I was standing with one foot on the Jeep frame, and one foot on the shelving unit in the garage. I thought for sure there was a roll of red duct tape somewhere on one of the top shelves.

I stretched upward, and moved a plastic tote to the side about a half an inch.

That's when it happened. I heard a CLANG!! and a clatter. And a loud whooshing noise. Like air leaking out of an inflatable raft. Or water spraying.

And I was being 'misted' by something.

Is that a water hose leaking? We don't have any water hoses hooked up in the garage. Do we? Did someone just throw a tear-gas bomb in here? Why would someone DO that?

All of this happened in a split second. Moments later, the whooshing stopped, and I gathered my bearings.

I slowly started to realize what had happened. My shifting of the tote had caused a can of spray paint to fall from the top of this shelving unit onto the floor of the garage. And the fall caused said can to indiscriminately release its contents.

The entire bottom half of my body was speckled with beige spray paint.

Better than neon green, to be sure. But still decidedly NOT AWESOME.

I checked the Jeep first. I didn't see much spray paint on it, but it did feel a little sticky. (Although, I'm not entirely sure the Jeep isn't always sticky. At this point in its life, it's composition is about 75% Bondo and 15% chewing gum anyway.)

A tarp near the bottom of the shelving unit suffered some residual damage. But it's a tarp. It's not designed to be pretty.

So, aside from my lower legs and my denim shorts, most everything in the vicinity was remarkably unscathed.

The day improved from there, certainly, except for when Ben called to say he'd be late home because he was in the shop with the truck to the tune of $350 worth of repairs, and then when I went into the kitchen to investigate that clinking noise, found that the dog was standing on the stove helping himself to Ben's broiled Parmesan tilapia dinner.

But, to redeem all the mishaps of the day, the kids and I worked on a craft we could take with us to Canada. We settled on these plastic 1-liter bottle sailboats. They're a big hit, and they actually float.


That was the reason I had been looking for the duct tape in the first place. I never found it, so took the kids to Meijer, where they got to pick out fancy duct tape instead of boring old red.



Oh, and Noah solved one of the mysteries of the universe: Mom, I think it's called duck tape because it sounds like it's quacking when you tear it off with your teeth.

I guess everything all worked out in the end.

Anger Management

Hi, we're the Davidsons, and we're Angry-Bird-aholics.

It's true. Angry Birds has been a consistent part of our lives ever since a co-worker innocently showed it to me in passing on her iPod Touch at work.

The kids love this game. I love the game. It's perilously addicting.

A few weeks ago, I happened to notice that they recently released an Angry Birds board game. Okay, it's not really a board game. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it.

Well, I can think of one way.

AWESOME.

I ordered it from Amazon (free shipping, I heart you Amazon Prime!) in time to give it to Noah as a birthday present. I showed it to Travis a few days ahead of time, and the excitement was almost too much for him to bear. But he did a great job of keeping it a secret until the big day.

So, Noah opened the gift at his birthday party on Wednesday. I'm surprised at how much better this game is than I even thought it would be.

The concept is that you have to build the structures yourself based on the picture on the card that you draw. Your opponent then tries to knock the structure down with the slingshot and the birds.

We've not actually played a real game according to the rules yet, but the kids LOVE playing with the birds and the pigs like little action figures, and Travis just likes to try to build the stuff on the cards. And, shooting the birds from the catapult is as gratifying as you would hope.

(There really ought to more games involving catapults, don't you think? Chutes, Ladders & Catapults would be way more exciting. Catapult Euchre, anyone?)

On a related note, I wrapped up the game for the birthday party, and Travis came up with the brilliant idea of having Noah do a treasure hunt for his birthday present. So I wrote up some clues and hid them around the house, and when their cousins came over, they went on a search.

Travis read the clues.

One was hidden in the Harold book

Noah listens patiently

Is that a clue in the Wii?

My present is in the dryer?!?

Happy Birthday Noah!

We also had a super-fun night of bowling, go-karts, and mini-golf with my sister and her family on Thursday night, since they weren't able to make it to Noah's party; then we wrapped up the week of birthday celebration with a camping weekend at Lake Michigan with friends. I don't have any pictures of that yet, but with any luck I can steal some from one of the gals that was dedicated enough to bring her camera to the beach. We managed to get sand in all manner of ridiculous places, but it was well worth it.

Brief Update: I just had to show how Sophie plays the Angry Birds game. This is so totally Sophie.

To Noah

Dear Noah,

This week, you will be four years old.

The time has passed so quickly. I cannot believe you are starting pre-school in the fall. I can't believe how much you know, how you can spell your name, and count to two hundred.

You're crazy and creative, funny, and stubborn. You learn from Travis, and teach Sophie. You fight, but you also make up willingly. You love attention, but only on your own terms. For as aggravatingly obstinate as you can be, above all, your caring and loving personality shines through.

Thanks for being so easy to love.

Happy Birthday.

And then, I fell asleep on a park bench in Soho.

For our anniversary, Ben and I spent five days in New York City.

It was the first time either of us had been to the Big Apple.

The thing is, for three of those days, Ben was in training from eight to five. Which left me touring the city solo for much of the time.

And it was fabulous.

I wandered through the financial district and snapped pictures of Wall Street and the Stock Exchange. I strolled through Battery Park and had lunch at a cafe at the South Street Seaport. I bought Broadway tickets at a TKTS booth. I took a bus tour of Brooklyn. I visited the New York Police Department Museum and the 9/11 Memorial. I shopped in Little Italy. I stopped at FAO Schwarz and played Heart and Soul on the big piano, just like Tom Hanks. I bought a cheese pretzel from a random street vendor. I watched the Today Show taping from Rockefeller Plaza. I walked through the Upper East Side and toured the Museum of the City of New York. I hailed a cab. I did a lot of people-watching.

Mmmmmm....cheese pretzel.

After my first day of solo-touring, I took a bus down to Soho where Ben's class was, to wait for him to get done with training. I did some shopping there, and then sat at a park bench outside of a small cafe. I got a strawberry-banana smoothie at the cafe, and sat down to do some people watching and wait. Next thing I know, I was totally dozing off.

I woke up thinking, ohmigod I am in downtown New York and I'm totally sleeping on the side of the street and I might as well be a hobo lying on a mattress and thank god I've got a pretty good grip on my bag because I've got three 'I-heart-NY' T-shirts in here for the kids plus an NYPD gift for my father-in-law and also a belt for Ben that I bought at Old Navy because when he got dressed this morning he realized how he'd forgotten to pack his belt and I can't believe I actually stopped in a freaking Old Navy store while I was shopping in New York but what could I do because for pete's sake they had belts on sale for eight dollars.

And then Ben got done with his class, and we hopped back on a tour bus and learned all sorts of random stuff about the city, primarily about how our tour guide's nephew lived on the eighth floor of a really crappy apartment in Greenwich Village.

Don't get me wrong. Ben and I also got to do plenty of cool stuff together.

We watched a real, honest-to-goodness Broadway show (on Broadway!), Jersey Boys, which I totally loved and made me actually like the Four Seasons, about whom I previously had no opinion.

We watched the sunset from the top of the Empire State Building.

We had our anniversary dinner at a totally quaint, awesome, dinky little Italian restaurant in Hell's Kitchen, Mario's Trattoria, which literally had only twelve tables and no tourists, but some of the best Italian food I've ever tasted.

We strolled through Central Park eating hot dogs from a street vendor.

We sat front-and-center in the Ed Sullivan Theatre for the Late Show with David Letterman. We ate Roseanne's nuts.

We rode the Staten Island Ferry, and watched the sun set over the Statue of Liberty. We ate the best dinner of our trip (and possibly our lives) at a nice little Spanish restaurant on Staten Island.

On our last day, we took a ferry to Liberty Island, then spent the rest of the day mastering the subway routes. We rode the subway to Greenwich Village and snapped a picture of the Friends' apartment. We took another train to the Upper West Side and got a picture of the Seinfeld restaurant, and strolled through the campus of Columbia University. We took another subway train to Grand Central Station for the walk back to our hotel, to gather up our luggage and prepare for the trip home.

All in all, I totally loved New York. There's something very comforting about being in a place where anything goes, and people from all walks of life are part of the standard tapestry of the area. I didn't feel any hostility from New Yorkers, and I was totally comfortable wandering the streets from Lower Manhattan to the Upper East Side by myself for three full days.

Some pictures below.

Thank you and Good Night

Ten years and eight hours ago, I married my best friend.

In ten years, we have seen a lot. We've fought, laughed, yelled, loved. We've seen the birth of three beautiful children, and cried through the loss of beloved family members. We've laughed at stupid inside jokes, and screamed about stupider family spats.

Through it all, there is one thing I've learned.

No one could put up with my crap better than Ben.

And for that,

Thanks.

Sorry that I suck sometimes. Thanks for loving me anyway.

And by the way, after ten years, no more contract negotiations. You're stuck with me. Trust me, the lease-break fee is NOT worth the effort.

I love you.

Destroying Tiki Tan

I need your help.

Super Team Awesome MUST defeat Team Tiki Tan.

In a video contest.

Click here, and vote for us (Team Davidson).



You see, the 3rd Annual Urban Adventure is coming up later this month. Ben and I have devotedly competed in this race each year since its inaugural run in 2009.

This year, there is a video contest where teams are encouraged to show off how they trained for the race.

Trust me, what you see in the video, is pretty dead-on.

Plus, it's funny.

What more could you ask for?

Just a Trim? No, Thank You.

I can't bring myself to cut Sophie's hair.

I don't even mean in a drastic way. I mean even a harmless little trim.

Her bangs fall shamelessly into her eyes, day after day, in a testament to my stubbornness on this particular topic.

Ben has been bringing up the subject more and more frequently.

Just a quarter of an inch.

-------[blank stare]--------

An eighth of an inch. You won't even notice.

Then what would be the point?

It will grow better. And it will lay better.

Oh aren't YOU just Mr. Style Expert all of a sudden.

I'm not sure why I'm so insistent on keeping her unruly locks in their current state of pandemonium. Maybe it's because with her hair in such disarray, she's more like a toddler to me. Every time we cut the boys' hair, they look noticeably older. Perhaps I'm not ready for Sophie to start resembling a pre-schooler, with perfectly brushed and neatly styled hair.

Maybe it's because I was a tomboy, and never a girlie-girl. And Sophie's inner tomboy is hard is deny. (Even though it is, admittedly, coupled with a love of all things princess. And when her fancy nail polish was washed away by the chlorine in a neighbor's pool, she looked down at her hands in dismay and pleaded, "you make me pink again?")

But she is a rough-and-tumble kid, no doubt about it. And I like that her hair reflects her semi-chaotic, carefree attitude. Her unkempt state portrays a messy lovability about her that, somehow in my mind, captures her spirit.

I'll give in some day. I told Ben, when she's three, I'll cut her hair.

In the meantime, she is my princess of mayhem.

And I love it.

Spider Senses to the Rescue

OH. EM. GEE.

We had the most exhausting holiday weekend that I'm getting tired even just thinking about how to talk about it.

Let me just say that we traveled overall about 600 miles (no joke), with a different destination each night, three different full-blown fireworks shows, lots of parties, one hot tub, a Spiderman appearance, a zoo trip, lots of friends and bunches of fun. Plus, we got to sleep in the camper for one night, which the kids always enjoy.

Oh, and you can't forget the obligatory Davidson "Moment of Idiocy". In general, on trips, we lose something, break something, forget something, and/or leave something behind. We're particularly notorious for leaving something behind at the Friends' house, and I joke that we do that so they always have a reason to hang out with us again.

This time, I think we managed to not leave something at their house. If we did, it's hidden well enough that they haven't located it yet.

But we didn't get out of there unscathed. We packed up and left the house, and then spent the day with the Friends and the Bersels at the Fort Wayne zoo. Our plan was to leave straight from the zoo to go back up to Ben's parents' house to drop off the camper.

The zoo was fun, kids loved it, we did pony rides and river rides and carousel rides, fed the ducks, played in the water, and otherwise engaged in general merriment.

After a long, fun-filled day, we pulled the kids in the various wagons back out to the parking lot to collapse in the vehicles for the trek home.

Noah and I were in the back of our little group, and when we finally made it to our truck, I saw Ben staring blankly into the truck window.

I left the keys in the truck.

Oh.

I did it on purpose. They're bulky and I didn't want to carry them. But now the keypad doesn't work.

Oh?

Because the battery is dead.

So....we can't get in the truck?

Nope. We have to break in. I left the windows cracked and the sunroof up for this very purpose.

Okay. That's a little weird. You knew this was going to happen? Why didn't you just take the keys then?

Well I didn't KNOW the battery was going to die. But if I leave the keys in the car I always leave myself some kind of a backup.

Okay....so what do we do now?

Well....the windows aren't down enough for us to be able to reach in there. And since the battery is dead, even if we COULD reach down there, pushing the unlock button won't do us any good.

Hmmm. This doesn't sound like such a good backup plan.

By this time, the Friends and the Bersels had been alerted to our dilemma, and as much as I'm sure they were tempted to clamber in their respective vehicles, wave goodbye and say, "sorry 'bout ya," they instead committed to helping us break into our truck.

Dave asked if we had any type of hanger or other 'stick'-like object.

Normally, of course, the answer would be no because anything we had would have been in the truck.

But today, we were pulling the camper. And we generally don't lock the teeny camper door. And just inside the camper door were our metal roasting sticks for hot dogs and marshmallows and any other food that strikes your fancy to poke with a stick and shove into a campfire.

We retrieved the sticks and unwound them. Ben shoved one through the window and pressed the unlock button, for good measure.

He was right. Nothing.

Finally, they figured it out. Ben managed to hook the passenger-side door handle through the window, but didn't have the leverage to actually pull the handle up. Shawn used the second roasting stick through the sunroof to hook onto Ben's roasting stick; then with Shawn's Spiderman-like strength, he was able to pull the door handle up.

We were inside!

Of course, our truck battery was still dead. And as resourceful as the Davidson-Friend-Bersel clan has been known to be, none of us had any jumper cables.

Not to worry. The nice gentleman in the pickup that just happened to pull up at this very moment was able to come to our rescue.

Disaster averted.

Here are a couple other pictures of the zoo trip and other weekend festivities:

Kids in the wagon.

Ten thousand internet points for you if you happened to notice that the little girl in there is actually not one of ours. She makes a good Sophie-stand-in, though. Thanks, Audrey.

Noah and Gayle

Travis the navigator

Us on the river ride. Oops, Sophie's not there AGAIN.

Oh right, there she is. Whew.

And again, playing drums with birthday-boy Ganon.

Awesome pic of Spidey and the kids at the birthday party.

The gang on the ride back from (night 2 of) fireworks.

Getting ready for fireworks (night 3) at Newton Park with the Langleys

By the way, I have a theory. I'm guessing that roughly 90% of times the phrase "grand finale" is uttered.... is at a fireworks show. I never hear it any other time, but on fireworks nights, everyone says it. Sometimes twice. Or if you're Ben, six times.

Get ready for the grand finale.... you don't want to miss the grand finale!.... OOOoooooohhh, look, it's the grand finale!

Think about it.

My Shins are Revolting

Wait.

Let me rephrase that.

It sounds like I'm saying my shins are disgusting, and while they are not models of glamour or anything, they're not half-bad. In fact, my lower leg may be the one body part I most favor.

So let's put it this way. My shins are enacting mutiny.

They're all, what's up with all this running crap, D? This is kind of taking a toll on us. How about let's sit down and watch a movie instead?

And I'm all, but shins, this is good for you, trust me, you'd much rather be supporting a runner's body than a mid-thirties-working-mother-of-three-body-whose-metabolism-has-caught-up-with-her.

Whatevs, D, we just want to go back to an easier time when the most you would ask of us is to balance in a pair of heels at some work outing.

But shins, I've been running since last fall, I was training for a mini-marathon for pete's sake, and you never once acted up then. I had hip trouble and the occasional ankle pain, but I thought I could count on you guys to hold up. Why now?

Well, D, we kind of thought this was some kind of passing phase, like the time you took up knitting, or when you stopped drinking soda [snicker], but you just won't stop and quite frankly, we have had enough.

So yesterday, I went to a running store with a friend, where they did a gait analysis and got me a new pair of super-awesome Brooks running shoes. And another pair of Zensah compression sleeves so I can always be sure to have a pair handy.

I like the compression sleeves; I wore them on my 5K run this morning, and I do think it helped.

Here's the problem.

When I'm not wearing compression sleeves at any point within 12-15 hours after a run, my shins turn into whiny crybabies.

Listen D, we're pretty much the only part of your body that almost never gets to wear tight-fitting clothing, and since we don't think you're the kind of person that can pull off leggings, this is pretty much our only hope.

So, yes, I'm rocking the Zensahs under my casual-Friday jeans at work today.