Tag Archives: Kevin

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Bugs

We went to a great Fish Boil today, an annual event held by a friend of Sandy’s. We’ve gone for the past few years and the food is just great every time. It was just as great this year. The only problem we had, which seems to be getting worse, is Kevin’s fear of every little bug he sees and even plenty of those he DOESN’T see! Anything moving around him small enough to maybe be a bug frightens him.

In thinking about it, it explains a lot now. Kevin never wants to go outside and play with his friends any more. We figured maybe he just doesn’t feel like it whenever his friends are outside, but now I think it’s actually his fear of bugs. He just can’t concentrate outside at all without whipping around, back and forth, constantly checking his surroundings for any sign of a bug. We continue to explain that most bugs are totally harmless, try to get him to look at them more on the computer and in books, etc. Hopefully he’ll just outgrow this problem, but it’s pretty disturbing at the moment. ParentCenter.com had this to say on the subject:

For now, your job is to acknowledge his anxiety and help him feel more comfortable with creepy crawlies. Encourage him to talk about what scares him and reassure him that you understand why he’s frightened. Resist the urge to laugh even if his fear of flies seems a bit silly. If he has had an unfortunate encounter with a bee, he’s got ample ammunition for his aversion. Recognize that contact with some critters can indeed hurt, but do so in a calm, matter-of-fact fashion.

Be sure to point out examples, such as fireflies and butterflies, which are beautiful and harmless. Check out bug books from your local library, then sit down together to read about the wonders of the insect world. The more he understands about spiders and their habits, the less fearful he’s likely to be. Taking a trip to an insect exhibit at a natural history museum is another “safe” way to expose your child to beetles and bugs. You can also casually introduce him to insects on your walks together — just don’t overreact when you encounter something that stings. Say, “Look at that lovely blue dragonfly.” And, “Watch out for the wasp.” In their own time, most kids combat this angst and go on to become fascinated with everything six-legged and small. Your child may wind up keeping worms or collecting cocoons for pets. So if a moth lands near him now, go ahead and help him shoo it out a window. Eventually he’ll learn to appreciate these creatures of nature.

So there you go. It sounds like good advice. We’ve taken him to the museum many times and focused on bugs, looked at their parts under the microscope, etc., so we’re doing what we can. We’ll see how it goes I guess.

News

Independence Day 2004

We hope everyone had a great and safe 4th of July! WE certainly did, and all without leaving the house. We had a small assortment of fireworks I picked up from Extreme Fireworks on I-94. It’s a great fireworks store with a nice buy-one-get-one-free deal every day. I only spent $20 on the fireworks, and it was still way more than we could do in an evening ourselves. We ended up giving some away to the neighbors after we were thoroughly exhausted ourselves, and we still have a ton of bottle rockets, Yellow Rose Texas Rockets, and Snaps left over! We especially enjoyed the colored torches–they’re just like sparklers, only they come in various colors like red, blue and green, and they look closer to road flares than sparkers. They burn pretty much the same though, and Kevin had a blast with them. I got a few nice shots of everyone enjoying themselves, so take a peek if you want.

We didn’t want to bother with all of the traffic and hassle of the big show at the lakefront, so we stayed home and had our own little show here. As it turned out, watching all of the neighbors shoot their fireworks off turned out to be very exciting anyway! We were surprised by how many there actually were, and they were going off in all directions from our house, so we were never sure where to look next. We had some minor ground spinners, a couple of parachutes, sparklers and torches, but a few of our neighbors seemed to have the real deal–they sounded like cannons going off, and then there would be a full bloom or several blooms above the houses. Really neat.

Oh, and don’t forget the Fireworks For Fun link in my links list if you’d like to play around on the computer with your own fireworks.

News

The Circus

Last night we went to the Circus in Union Grove. We had ticket for a free child admission and another one for a free adult admission with a paid adult, so with Kevin, Sandy and I we only had to pay for one adult ($20). Before the circus, however, they had pony and elephant rides ($4 and $6 respectively), so Kevin took a ride on a pony named “Blackey.” He was an all-black pony, and I told Kevin he looked just like Socks. Then he noticed a tan-colored one and said it looked just like Peanut. I had to walk with my arm around him around the circle as he rode, and I think we did about 10 laps–quite the workout for me. After that we were in line for the main event.

Is it me, or does the circus seem more and more like just a money scam each year? This year the tent seemed smaller than last year, much less seating, and less equipment-intensive acts. This year even the human cannonball act was moved outside the tent and performed after the show as sort of a grand finale as everyone stood around the parking lot and watched before leaving. There also seemed like many more “money schemes”– a “official” circus coloring book sale for $1, in which several coloring books contained “hidden surprises” with coupons for either a free balloon, popcorn, or cotton candy (Kevin won the cotton candy) which was offered during the first 15 minutes of the show and not even during intermission, a photo op with either a giant snake or baby tigers, and even a peanut sale in which a tiny bag of peanuts sold for $1, again with many of them contain coupons for prizes (Sandy won nothing). The latter, of course, was no-doubt also a tool used to sell more drinks!

In addition to the tent being much smaller this year, the acts were much smaller as well. The trapeze artist/hoola hooper/stunt girl was a small child, maybe 9 or 10 years old! She exhibited some neat skills for a girl her age, no doubt. The balance of the show included two elephant acts (not sure even these were the same elephants in both acts though), a couple dog acts, a monkey act, some “clowning around” in-between acts, a lady doing rope-climbing tricks, and the human cannonball finale.

We enjoyed the dog and elephant acts the most I think. The dogs appeared to all be either Jack Russell Terriers or something similar. The appeared to be slightly larger than Chihuahuas. They looked like they were all from the same family too, having very similar appearance. I think there were 6 or 7 of them in the largest act. They’d jump through hoops, walk on their hind legs, slide down a slide, etc., and return right to their stand afterward. One of them even walked on his front legs! The other dog act was much simpler, and consisted of several dogs of completely different breeds with various stunt skills.

The elephants were fun to watch too, especially in the much smaller tent–they appeared to be that much more enormous! They did some dancing, handstands, and various other tricks that seemed next to impossible to do within the small ring they were in, but they performed flawlessly.

It all seemed smaller and shorter than the year before though, but I don’t think Kevin noticed one bit. He got a toy–a cool spinning ball ($10) with various LEDs of different colors inside that flashed at different times while spinning, which creates a very neat effect! I’ll have to try to snap a night-shot of it to post on the site, and he got his cotton candy, popcorn, and sno-cone, so he was very happy. As we were leaving the parking lot he was asking when the next one was, so he’s ready to come again, as usual.

One ticket to the circus…. $20
A toy…. $10
A ride on “Blackey”…. $4
Box of popcorn…. $3
Sno-Cone… $3
Bottle of water…. $2
Circus coloring book…. $1
Bag of Peanuts…. $1

The look of joy on Kevin’s face as he watched the performance…. PRICELESS

News

Old Car Lovers Show

Kevin and I walked over to the car show at Baker Park yesterday morning. Take a look at the photo highlights. Kevin seemed pretty much disinterested, however. He seemed to be just tagging along, not thrilled at all by all the old cars, except a slight perk-up when he spotted a bright yellow one (his favorite color) and a flashy purple one with flames (mom’s favorite color). I was thinking maybe the car show would touch a nerve with him and spark some interest. He has expressed an interest in cars in the past, hence his collection of hundreds of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, but that seems to be fading these days.

I’m always searching for that one thing that’s going to thrill him to no end, to pique his interest enough to spark some sort of direction for him. For me it was computers and electronics. Once I found that, which happened at around 9 or 10 years old I believe, I was hooked for life. I’m hoping to help Kevin find that one thing too. I’ll wait as long as it takes. And until then we’ll try to expose him to as many different things as we can, giving him the opportunity to find his niche for himself. One thing is true though–he loves going “places.” No matter where, he just always wants to go to more places. Take him to school, then shopping, then swimming, which fills out the whole day, and he still says “I wanna go to more places!” even though he’s half asleep from exhaustion. He seems to just want to experience more and more of what the world has to offer. Perhaps he’ll be a traveler of some sort when he grows up, who knows.

But the car show was nice. As you can see by the photos, there were some awesome vehicles there, including the Prowler and several “Deathmobiles”, complete with coffins and–in some cases–skeletons. Kevin was afraid to approach the hearses with the skeletons and body parts all around them. I told him, “Come on, it’s not real, it’s make-believe” but he wouldn’t get close, so we moved on.

We had lunch there (hot dogs, soda, and ice cream), Kevin played on the slides and swings a little, and then we walked home. Later in the afternoon, Kevin, Sandy and I went to my dad’s to visit for Father’s Day. Sandy cooked burgers, brats, and hot dogs on the grill and we had a good meal. Overall it was a pretty nice Father’s Day all the way around.

Oh, and make sure you don’t miss Socks’ audition photo for the part of “Odie” in the new Garfield movie….

News

Jay and Silent Ty Stop By

Jayson was here from Arizona this evening. He took us out for pizza to this place. By far the best pizza we’ve ever had! There’s just something about that super-thin, super-crunchy crust and perfect toppings that make this pizza awesome. And the garlic bread was great too! We’ll definitely be visiting this place in the future.

Jay also brought his new toy along (his Sony DSC-P73), so we compared features, talked geekspeak, and took a few pictures. I’ll let him do the posting in his gallery section this time–I’m sure he’s anxious to try it out for the first time with the new camera. I just had to post the one picture of Wells Brothers so everyone knows about it. It’s at 2148 Mead Street, Racine, WI, Phone: (262) 632-4408.

He picked up Tyler for the summer and they stopped back at our house shortly before heading off to their hotel for the evening. Tyler was pretty quiet at first, but once he started playing Eye Toy with Kevin he opened up pretty quickly and started having a blast jumping, punching, and kicking inside the video games.

They’re flying back to Arizona tomorrow. Definitely too short of a visit, that’s for sure! We’re hoping to be able to go out there to visit him in the near future for a “slightly” longer visit than this one was.

News

Valentines Day

Valentines Day was very good.  Sandy and I and Kevin went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, a new place out on Highway 50 and I-94.  We called for reservations but they don’t take any.  All they have is a Call-Ahead list.  You call like 1/2 hr before you’re going to be there, they put you on the list, and you only have a wait of about 10 or 15 minutes before being seated.  They said they’re always very busy, so there’s no real good time to get in faster than that.  Good thing we called too, because people coming in when we got there who didn’t call ahead had a 2-hour wait!  The food was excellent! I had a BBQ Chicken & Steak Combo, and Sandy had a Combo of Steak and Ribs.  Kevin had a kids meal (naturally).  Food was excellent, service was great (I love the site-pager system–when yours flashes and vibrates, your table’s ready–Kevin didn’t want to give it back when we were seated!)

News

Dog Tired

Socks and Peanut are exhausted. As we told Kevin, they were broken, so they spent the day at the vet getting “fixed.” They’re just lying around the house trying to figure out just what the heck happened today. They woke up happy and humping each other, took a ride with their masters, got left in some strange doctor’s office, passed out, woke up sore as heck in the groinal regions and groggy as all get-out, and then their masters picked them up again and brought them home. Sometimes shivering and just looking off into space, they seem to be wondering what’s going on. They often want to jump up on the couch to lay down, and they even halfway try once in awhile, but give up when they realize they just don’t have the strength, or maybe it just hurts too much to jump right now. They look at me like they’re asking me to help them up. I do, and then they just jump back down and follow me when I walk away.

They’ll get over it. The vet says they’ll be back to their old selves tomorrow. Hopefully not “completely” though–Within a month he said we can most likely expect a major change in behavior (90% chance) for the better. They can have only a little food and water today, and we have to keep a close eye on them so they stay away from their wound and don’t fall down the stairs or otherwise hurt themselves while their medicated. Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell (pun intended) for our dog repair project.

News

Kindergarden Kev

Today was Kevin’s first day of kindergarten. Sandy couldn’t get off work because she just started her new job a few weeks ago, so I had to take him. It wasn’t a problem, but I did notice that I didn’t see one other father there with their kid, only a whole lot of mothers.

Kevin was a little nervous and a little excited at the same time. He didn’t want to let go of my hand, even after we got into his classroom. He gave me a pucker, so I kissed him and told him to have fun. He said “Daddy? I’m gonna miss you.” I said “I’m gonna miss you too, kiddo.” And then he asked if I was going to pick him up. I said “Yes, I’ll be here to pick you up, don’t worry.” I think we were both about to cry at that point, but being the “men” we are, we kept it together. Argh argh argh. He then joined the rest of his class and I left.

I picked him up this afternoon and he said he had a lot of fun. I asked what he did in school today, and he said “We took a nap, dad. Not a big nap, just a little one.” I asked him if he learned anything else and he said “My teacher said it’s Tuesday.” That’s it. Tuesday and a nap. A very full day of learning for a five-year-old.

News

pop quiz

Time for a quiz! Today, while cleaning the basement, I found my old Elementary class photos, so here’s a quiz for you. Click below to popup each of the three class photos and see if you can find me. Imagine the grid is lettered A,B,C, etc. across the top and 1,2,3, etc. down the side. Now let me know which image you think is me in each of the classes. The quiz will be graded on a curve, naturally…

Class of 1971-1972 – 3rd Grade
Class of 1973-1974 – 5th Grade
Class of 1974-1975 – 6th Grade

I had Kevin try it and on the 3rd grade class he couldn’t find his daddy, but said “Hey! There’s ME!” as he pointed to the picture of me. But on the other two classes he failed miserably and couldn’t find me. Think: “Dorky Glasses”

News

DVRs and a picnic

This weekend our family finally stepped into the Wonderful World of DVRs. We traded in our old digital cable boxes and picked up two new “Explorer 8000’s”. We can now record anything on cable digitally and never have to use our VCRs again! It costs a few bucks more on the cable bill, but I’ve gone through a LOT of video tapes and even a few VCRs over the past few years, so for me it’s a dream come true. With a couple clicks of the remote it’ll record EVERY episode of any series on TV, no matter what time or day it comes on! Kevin will now have an endless supply of Spongebob episodes to watch! Sandy’s Soaps are already set to go, and several of my computer shows are already filling up “MY” box’s hard drive!

 

 

We also went to the UAW Local 72 Annual Company Picnic this Sunday. It was fun. We ate a LOT of food and Kevin got to climb and slide down his favorite inflatable: The Titanic Slide! We paid $2.50 each time he climbed onto this ride at Pleasant Prairie Family Days, so it was a relief to find it completely free at the UAW picnic! He also played a bunch of the kids games and won a few small prizes. Mostly consolation prizes, but he tried his best! He also got a balloon animal head attachment they called a “Jeepers Creepers.” I took a few pictures, so those will be posted soon. Luckily I got a shot of the balloon thing quickly–It popped shortly after, completely breaking Kevin’s little heart! He cried all the way home. sad

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Onion Rings and Humidity

Kevin, Sandy and I went to the farmer’s market this morning. Kevin played in the park while Sandy picked up veggies. When we got back into the car Kevin said “Mom, there’s water coming out of my head.” He seemed very concerned. This must have been new to him. We explained that he’s “sweating” or “leaking” as I put it, and he needs to drink water to put it back in his body when it’s very hot out. The humidity was 89% (according to Weatherman Uncle Rich) and with the playing he did in the park he got pretty heated up. We decided to go to Burger King for lunch, so he could play in the indoor playground instead, and keep cool. During our meal Sandy found something interesting in her onion rings. Take a look:

OnionRingInfinity (36k image)

Sure, it could be just another oddly-shaped onion ring, but I’ve just recently watch a few movies that say otherwise. This week I watched the movie “Basic”, where the number “8” was the key to the entire plot! And I also watched Final Destination 1 and 2 this week, which leads me to believe that this could also be some sort of “sign”–perhaps it has to do with “infinity” or something involving the number eight, but definitely a sign… hmmm. Or maybe it just means we “ate!” =)

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Waterboy

We went to Rec-Plex tonight, and Kevin took a major step forward in his swimming abilities. Since he began swimming he was always afraid to put his head under water. He’d get very upset if you dunked him, even if by accident and even if only for a short moment. Tonight he took the plunge (pardon the pun) and went under… He seemed to be amazed that he survived such a traumatic experience unscathed, so shortly after that he did it again…and again, and again, and again. We couldn’t stop him, and now he’s swimming like a fish all the time! Matthew even took it a step further and showed him how to go under without even holding his nose! He picked it up quickly and was even more excited to show off after that. I know it’s a simple accomplishment for most people, but he’s very proud of himself, and we’re proud of him too.

Our lil Waterboy! Call him “Nemo!”

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Our Museum Trip

The photos from our trip to the Museum of Science and Industry are now online. Everyone had a great time, and we were all exhausted by the time the train got back to Kenosha. Check out the pictures!

This is Louie and Kevin clowning around at the museum

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Toyz for Geeks

I’m sitting on my sisters couch at her new house on 75th street, typing this blog on my new toy. We’re just visiting, and Kevin is playing with his cousin Tyler outside in the pool. We haven’t gotten out much, so now we’re catching up while we have more free time.

I’m actually scrawling this message onto my, screen, believe it or not. Using a thin “stylus” (looks like a pencil) I just write directly onto the screen, in either cursive or regular print. Pause for a moment and viola–my drawn text disappears and magically appears in the e-mail message as typed text! It’s amazingly accurate at reading my handwriting too. Ain’t technology wonderful?

Read on for some photo highlights from our visit at Loretta’s…

Destiny1 (30k image)
This is Destiny, Erik’s daughter. Not lookin too happy in the swing…

Lorettas_Cat (11k image)
Loretta’s Cat… or is it Kari’s?

Cat_HeadStand (22k image)
Ever see a cat do a headstand? There ya go.

Lorettas_Peanut2 (30k image)
This is Peanut, Loretta’s Pomeranian.

Kev_and_Tyler1 (28k image)
In the little pool…

Kev_and_Tyler2 (33k image)
In the big pool…

Destiny3 (25k image)
Destiny waves.

Destiny2 (22k image)
Destiny stands!

Destiny4 (18k image)
And finally… Destiny pouts.

Replies

You have all the new toys don’t you? Did you forget how to type???? Kidding!!! I loved the picture of “Cat standing on it’s head”. Who does Destiny belong to? She’s so cute.

Rosemary said @ 07/14/2003 01:07 PM CST

Destiny is Erik’s daughter. Erik is Loretta’s son. (Loretta is my sister).

News

We had a nice (somewhat quiet) 4th of July at home this year. We bought a few simple (legal) fireworks and sparklers and Sandy, Matt, and Kevin used them out in the backyard after it got dark. I took a few photos, and I thought this one turned out pretty neat.

Sandy hands Matt two sparklers.
(Matt’s in the flag t-shirt)

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Stairmaster Swimming

Kev and I went swimming last night. Rec-Plex is amazingly uncrowded this time of year. Everyone must be doing outdoor activities instead. It was good to get back to it though. We love swimming, so I always try to go at least a few times a week but with the leg problems I’ve been having, the swims have been few and far between. The leg is looking almost completely normal now, and feels pretty good.

Kevin and I did 4 trips down the huge waterslide, which was no easy accomplishment (for me, anyway). It’s like a giant stairmaster, then a 15-second looping slide back to the bottom. It didn’t phase Kevin though, he was ready to go several more times if I had let him.

And check out my new toy… Briggs and Stratton engine… right outta Tool Time! Arrr arrrr arrrrr.

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Happy Father’s Day!

Sandy and Kevin took me out to breakfast this morning, and Sandy’s cookin’ out right now for supper… Got some Cajun Sausages for me! =) Kev and I went to see Nemo yesterday. That was pretty cool! See my “30-second” review in our Forums for more information. Other than that, the leg seems to be healing well, a lot of the pain has gone now…and seems to have been replaced with a boatload of ITCHING! I just try to keep it coated in moisturizer and anti-itch cream, and that seems to help a lot.

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On the other side

Well, I’m over the hill.  Or so they say.  That’s all I’ve been hearing all day long.  Over the hill over the hill over the hill.   Everyone got a kick out of picking on me though, so I’m glad they had fun with it.  Pretty tricky how they managed to coax me out of my cubicle for a so-called “broken scanner” just so they could sneak in the enourmous “40” balloons… and even more interesting is trying to get all those balloons stuffed into the back of a PT Cruiser to take them home… I had to pick up Kevin in the Neon…he wouldn’t fit in the cruiser with the balloons!

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Kevin’s 5th Birthday

We celebrated Kevin’s 5th Birthday last week! We took lots of photos, so be sure and check them out.  On Wednesday (his actual birthday) we took Kevin to Chuck E. Cheese’s in Racine.  He had a blast!  We went in mid-afternoon, so the place was pretty much deserted and he had pretty much everything to himself for a while!  We got a pretty nice “simulated” pencil drawing from one of the machines, had pizza and soda, and played on the games and in the tubes.  He bought a Chuck E. Cheese Hot Wheels tractor-trailer and a small water-filled toy with all the tickets he won from the games.

On Saturday we had his Scooby-Doo-themed birthday party at Grandpa Trottier’s house.  We had a ton of pizzas, cake and ice cream, and then Kevin opened his gifts.  It soon switched from a Scooby party to a Spongebob party though!  He got a Spongebob chair, Spongebob Pants and Shirt outfit, 2 talking Spongebob dolls, a bucket of Spongebob bath toys, and the latest Spongebob DVD (that makes 3 we have now).  He also got a few Bob The Builder toys as well, all of which he’s having a blast with!  Even Kev’s  girlfriend Marissa was there, so he had a really good time playing and celebrating.

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Pam, Louie, Socks, Peanut, and Kevin

Pam & Louie treated us to Brunch and a play yesterday! It was Funny Girl at the Marriott Lincolnshire Resort.  The food and the play were both excellent!  Kevin spent the day with Uncle Bear while we went out.

Socks and Peanut are doing fine.  Socks is close to Peanut’s size now, and Peanut seems to stay about the same size, as far as we can tell.  He might be getting fatter, but that’s about it.  Socks is still a puppy and getting into everything. Very bold too. He’ll steal a Kleenex sitting right next to you if you look away!  And how he can jump like a rabbit and walk around in his hind legs, so he’s always jumping up on our bed and finding ways onto the dining room table to steal things.  That’s a trick we haven’t witnessed yet, but we know he’s doing it because we find things from the table out on the living room floor occasionally.  Now we turn the dining room chairs around when we leave the house to prevent it.  The chair by the computer also requires moving, since we caught him with a couple CDs recently too.  He’s a little scavenger, that’s for sure.  Hopefully he’ll grow out of that phase soon.  Peanut doesn’t get into things any more.  The only problem we have with him now is his constant territorial marking!  Anything that doesn’t smell like him yet is a potential target for him to squirt, it seems!  And this includes Socks!  Can you say “Smelly Dog?”  (Must be the sequel to Phoebe’s song “Smelly Cat”…)

Kevin’s 5th birthday is only 15 days away! He’s very excited about it.  We printed the invitations last week and they’re being mailed out this week.  He sure is growing fast.