Sledding
playing
Game Night
We only have so much time together as a family of four. L will graduate in a few short months, and then her time in our house will be limited to summers. I expect that soon enough, she won’t be staying with us the entire summer. She’ll be twenty, twenty-one years old. She’ll have her own life. She’ll have her own priorities. She’ll have a job that she’ll want to continue working over the summer. Or she’ll have some internship or other. So these evenings are rare.
Some things have, of course, changed, but for poor K, nothing has changed. She always has the absolute worst luck in board games. When we play Monopoly, we call her (and she calls herself) the Slum Lord because she can never manage to get anything other than the very cheapest of properties, and the three of us end up bankrupting her in fairly short order. Tonight’s game of Sorry was no exception. But one other thing stayed the same: we all laughed heartily about it.
Laughing as a family — few things are more precious.
St. Petersburg Day 2: Busch Gardens
Today was not actually a St. Petersburg day: we decided we’d do something un-Scott-like. We thought about this nature outing, we considered that nature outing, but in the end, we went full-on American and spent the day in Busch Gardens in Tampa, just across the bay from St. Petersburg.
K had never been on a single roller coaster in her life. Not one. Ever. So we were all excited to see how she’d like an amusement park with something like eight or ten coasters.
We arrived and went to the first coaster right out of the entrance, the Iron Gwazi. According to the park, it is
North America’s tallest and world’s fastest & steepest hybrid coaster. The award-winning Iron Gwazi takes thrills to new heights, plunging riders from a 206 foot-tall peak into a 91-degree drop and reaching top speeds of 76 miles per hour.
Having that as your coaster ever is like taking someone who has been a teetotaller who’s interested in having his first taste of alcohol and giving him a shot of 70% sliwowica.
This is what it looks like:
Such a film fails to capture the excitement of that first drop. It’s difficult to describe that first drop: you think it should be over because how long can you remain in a verticle (well, almost verticle: it’s 91 degrees steep) drop?
As we were waiting in line, we got to talking to the folks standing in front of us, a man and his son or stepson (I couldn’t tell–the language he used was a little ambiguous). He commented on K’s bravery for picking the Gwazi as her first coaster ever.
“You’ve never been on one and you picked this as the first coaster of your life?
K’s verdict at the end? “If I can do that, I can do any of these rides.”
Orlando 2024 Day 2
Yesterday there was a team from Texas who, I believe, lost all their games in straight sets. L has been there: she’s been on teams that leave a tournament day without a single win. The Texas team was up 11-8 at one point, but our girls rallied and beat them.
Today, it was more of the same: straight-set victories for the first two games, including a brutal second game with sets that were 25-10 and 25-11. “It’s good to be on this side of that score,” I said to another parent, “but we’ve been on the other side, and I know how that hurts.” It does a real number on your self-confidence, and soon, the bad mistakes (like the ones they were making: hitting serves out and sloppy serve reception) pile on each other. They reach a point that essentially, the team is just as much beating themselves as being beaten. Again, we’ve been there, too.
The final game was a bit of a different story. In the first set, the girls were quickly down 2-7, but the pulled it together and ended up taking the set 25-19. The second set started out much the same, but once again, they were able to pull back and then take the set 25-21
Today was Pink Out day, when all teams wear pink uniforms and I guess thinking at least in passing about the fact that women (and a few men) die of breast cancer every year. “Believe there is hope for a cure,” one shirt reads. It has a certain religious ring to it, but it’s antithetical to the whole enterprise of looking for a cure. While it is science and not faith, belief, or hope that will cure cancer, I understand the implied optimism in the shirt, certainly a critical element for anyone fighting cancer. One of the players I noticed yesterday is clearly just after chemo. A strong female outside hitter without a single hair anywhere on hear head, she stood out in more ways than one. Perhaps the pink encourages her. Hopefully.
As for today’s pictures, I focused on the setters, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. In a lot of ways, their the brains of the whole team: they read the defense, make quick adjustments, and then decide which hitter to set based on perceived weaknesses in the opponents’ defense. Their sort of like the steering wheel of the team, or the neck. “Brain” seems to take something away from the other players.
In truth, all the players are completely critical. If you don’t have good defensive specialists, you won’t get a good pass to your setter. If you don’t get a good pass to your setter, or if your setter is not on her game, you won’t get your hitters in good position to attack. If the hitters are attacking, you won’t be scoring (except from opponents’ errors and blocking, and the occasional well-placed lob to the empty back corner from the setter or a DS).
As for the evening, it was games, games, games:
Arrival in Orlando
We’re in Orlando for this year’s AAU nationals.
We’re staying with a couple of other families in a sizable condo.
We did some shopping ,
did some gaming, and had a generally lovely evening.
Back at home, Clover picked some blueberries.
Return for Pickleball
Playful Monday
It used to be something we did fairly frequently in the spring: all four of us would go outside and do something together: swings, trampoline, badminton, or just a walk. I guess we all took it for granted, but soon enough, schedules shifted, kids grew up, calendars filled up, and these evening family times disappeared.
But we still have the net up from Easter; and we still have two kids who enjoy badminton. So all four of us were out playing, though never at the same time — that schedule thing again.
First I took on the Boy. He’s getting so much better, but he flubs some that should have been fairly easy. No pictures of that one.
Then K came out and played with the Boy. I snapped a couple of pictures, but not many — not even one of K playing.
Then the Boy went inside while K and I played a bit. We’re down to two working rackets, so options were limited.
Finally, the Girl returned home from getting crickets for her Australian Tree Frog — I don’t know that we have a single picture of her, but L has had her since eighth grade.
She plays with the Boy for a while, but then I suggest I take the Boy’s part and the Boy take the camera.
And so I promptly have fun while making a bit of a fool of myself. L wins at everything — it’s time we face it.
K, for her part, was inside, studying.
When will the stars align again for such a day?
Game Night
Family game nights are rare these days. They hit a peak during the Covid lockdown, I think, and then as everything slowly returned to a semblance of normalcy, our evenings filled back up with obligations and promises.
Tonight, though, we played a game.
One evening, it will be the last time we play a family game with everyone at home. Will we know it’s the last?
Side-note: My most recent musical discovery
Lake Day
Sunday
More pictures from our lovely Sunday.
Out Front
Playing Cards
Games
Bowling and Cards
Traveling always risks bad weather; coming to Poland, for us it seems, just about guarantees it. After several lovely days (how many? four? five?), it’s supposed to rain. Every day. For the rest of K’s and L’s stay in Poland.
Still, we make the most of what we’ve got, like using leftover meat from rosol to make pierogi for lunch, or using the rainy weather to chop a little wood for Babcia.
After lunch we met with K’s brother’s family for some more bowling. This time, we took two lanes, and the adults played as well. That was a mistake: my long-injured finger began aching again, and I made it through two frames before I decided that it might be less painful to have my finger in a vice than roll even the lightest bowling ball available.
Afterward, we all headed back to Babcia’s for games and conversation. Hearing the cousins laugh and argue and joke together is a lovely bit of chaos.
And finally, I talked the girls into the first of several photo recreations. The original image is from 2008, when L was a year and a half old and S was a year older. They barely fit into the tub together now.
Monopoly
Some of E’s friends came over for the day. They ended up playing Monopoly — at last, someone to feed the Boy’s addiction. I always feel a little guilty not being willing to play that game with him, but I swear we’re all so sick of it that we’ll be happy if we never play it again. All except for the Boy.
Dice
For whatever reason, the Boy has become interested in dice — as in, the game. As in the gambling game. I’m not sure where this came from. He just came back from a trip to Target with K (or some other store) with a pack of six dice.
He learned how to play by watching a video after he bought the dice.
“How do you even play?” he’d asked.
“I’ve no idea,” I admitted.
So he’s learned and been playing betting with Monopoly money.
It’s been entertaining watching him celebrate when he wins and get playfully frustrated when he loses. We’re glad to see he’s not really taking it too seriously — that might be problematic for all kinds of reasons.
Today, I picked up where K left off in their game and promptly lost all my stash of $500 bills I’d inherited from K. “It’s not real betting: why not just go crazy?” I thought.
And then I promptly won them all back. And then all his $100s. And his $50s. And his $20s. In short, all his money. His response: “Well, happy Father’s Day!” with a smile.
The Boys in the Creek
E’s best friend came over for the afternoon today. At first, they did what boys these days do: play video games. However, we have no gaming console in our house at all. No Xbox, no Play Station, no Nintendo Switch. In fact, I only know those things exist because I hear students and teachers talking about them at school. And of course, E brings them up occasionally.
And it’s a little surprising, to be honest, how many adults with no children or with grown children still invest time and money into gaming systems. To each his own, I suppose, but I always thought there was a time when people outgrew video games.
Not having a gaming system has several advantages, not the least of which is the simple fact that since we don’t buy games for our PC either, E’s gaming options are severely curtailed. Which means he and his friend grow tired of them eventually and head outside to find other things to do.
Like catching minnows in the creek behind our house.
As for the Girl today, she was out of the house for most of the day: physical therapy, volleyball strength training, and driving instruction took almost all her day.
After Dinner Play, Redux
When your kids ask if we can do the same thing after dinner as we did yesterday, and it involves laughter and the dog, of course, you say yes!
Playing Cards
K has been teaching the Boy how to play tysiąc. He’s getting the idea, but in the end, he still prefers a good game of war.
Just like he played with Babcia:
Snow Days 2022 — Day 1
Take 1
I could hear the ice striking our windows in the early morning. “It’s not supposed to start until early tomorrow afternoon,” I thought. Still, I got up and checked.
We had about three inches on the ground already, and it was still snowing.
The Boy had only one thing on his mind: “Daddy, when can we go out? When can we go out?” Since it hasn’t really snowed since about 2018, this is the first snow he’s experienced since being in kindergarten.
He certainly made the most of it during our morning session.
Take 2
In the afternoon, the girls finally joined us.
And the dog had a chance to play.
Take 3
Evening — one must take a walk in snow in the evening.
