Interesting things:

The first horseshoe pitching tournament in which competition was open to the World was held in the summer of 1910 in Bronson, Kansas. The winner was Frank Jackson. He was awarded a World Championship belt with horseshoes attached to it. At this time, Jackson had never heard of being able to hold a shoe so it would open toward the stake, but he had been practicing to find some way by holding his shoe with his finger around the heel calk so he could pitch ringers.
-http://www.horseshoeshq.com/horseshoes-history-lesson/ 

Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music

That's right, there's good news in the Broyles family, this time it's the Dennis branch that's dubstepping to the good news good times, because they learned they're going to have another little Dennis to add to their happy family.

You might not know it, but that's good news! That's my big sis; the only sis I have. That's going to make four kids for them, because I am speaking out loud this healthy pregnancy and delivery and baby. Good thing Macy is 14 now, she'll be able to really step in there and help out with the baby, due November 29.

I'm so happy to be an uncle to three great kids, now I am anxious to be an uncle to four great kids.

Keeping busy part II; or The Sequel; or The Revenge of Keeping Busy

So, class last Friday was close to a waste of time. Due to the earlier start day of 7:15, we had shortened class periods, plus everyone was keyed up from either staying the night at the school, or arriving at five a.m. for the cool schools taping. Add to that increased energy and buzz in the school,  the date was 4/20/12. 420 is a popular number among marijuana users (I don't know why) and is generally considered a drug reference (April 20th is also the birth date of the Nazi leader Adolph Hitler, and a lovely niece of mine, Macy). With the date being 4/20 there was a buzz (pardon the pun) all week long among some of the student body who planned to sabotage the Cool Schools event on Friday, by arriving at school under the influence of that illicit drug, in order to appear on television with red eyes and a hunger for pancakes.

In order to deter this rumor, the faculty sent out a warning on the wire to the student body there would be a special surprise to seek out those idiots that chose to engage in the undesirable, and illegal, activity. This amounted to a visit by the Ottawa Police Department and their K-9 unit. The school was put on "lock-down", which meant no person was allowed to travel in the hallway, while the drug dog sniffed at the lockers and then sniffed at the vehicles in the parking lot.

At least one of my students was placed on three day out of school suspension for having "Half of a seed" in his vehicle. I can neither deny nor confirm this student's version of what was found. It does appear that that was the worst of it, thankfully.

Obviously, these events shook up the school day, but we hung on until school was dismissed at 1:10 for the day. It's an earlier than usual dismissal time that took into account the special circumstances surrounding school on that Friday.

I went home and it was just about right on time for Leo's nap. Mare and Jack and Henry were leaving to go snoop around at a couple of garage sales, and Mare suggested I take a nap with Leo, which I did. There was a whole chicken baking in the oven which I was supposed to "Keep an eye on" and probably remove around 3:30. I slept hard and wasn't awakened by Leo's squirming body until about 4:15. Whoops. Fortunately, the chicken was fine. I wrapped it in foil and set it on the range top for good keeping and made preparations for Leo and I to go to nearby Heritage Park; he riding his scooter, I walking.

We didn't stay long, and as we were leaving we spotted Jack and Mare and Henry approaching, so we stayed on a little longer. Mare and I have been trying to form the habit of walking a couple of miles around the loop of Heritage Park while the boys play. Sometimes it happens before we eat, most times after we've eaten supper. On that particular Friday, it was my pay day, so I made the patriarchal decision to eat out at the local Chinese food restaurant, Blue Star Cafe.

We ate the buffet (very good by the way) and the lovely waitress (and I suspect family member/owner) close to our age, who  we've learned over the years has a son close to Leo's age, came over to coo over Henry. She's super nice and we have grown to understand her accented English pretty well. She wished to hold Henry and we allowed her to do so without reservation. She walked right away with him, and we thought that was kind of funny. Then, I looked over and saw a young man holding Henry. The waitress's husband works as a chef/cook in the kitchen and she'd went and got him to come out and carry the baby around for a spell. Henry was happy as could be.

Marian would never had gone for that back when Jack was Henry's age. She would have been following her and him around and might not have even surrendered him in the first place. After we stuffed ourselves on noodles, savory vegetables and rice, and topped it off with a little dab of ice cream, we went on home and gave the two oldest a bath and sent them to bed.

Saturday morning I fixed breakfast for Jack and Leo, then I attended a "How to build a deck workshop" at the Ottawa City Library. At the conclusion of the workshop I was to receive a free building permit for a deck, which I presume a front porch will count as a deck and might need if I get around to building a new front porch this summer. The guys giving the workshop were code inspectors for Ottawa, and were not experienced public speakers. It was a whole lot of them reading long paragraphs of what was up on a power point for everyone to read already. Then also, the two guys had been working at the job for quite a bit of time and every now and then there would be a little competition about who would deliver the last word on a given topic. One fellow was determined to do so, even if his last word was completely way off topic. They had donuts and coffee.

I then raced back home on the bike to pick up Jack and Leo to take Jack to tee-ball practice. I did so successfully and arrived ten minutes early to the building where we've met previously, which is not far across the river and a short ride for me. After the boys' helmets were off and they were unbuckled, the head lady came out to inform me the session had been moved to a location on the south end of town 14 blocks away. Soooo, I loaded them back up, and like Thomas the Train, I huffed and puffed over there and was only late by about ten minutes.

Marian and Henry had plans to go to another couple of garage sales while we were there, but she cut that short and showed up at Jack's tee ball practice mid way through.

The boys and Marian left in the car and I made a quick stop at the hardware store for a quick repair on my bike and then met them, ironically, at the first building I took the boys to earlier that day.

More to come...

Keeping busy

It's a Monday afternoon as I write this; about four o'clock in the middle of the North American continent. I bet you're wondering, "Where's the clever title, blogger?"  Yes, I bet you are.

I went to bed early on Thursday night because I needed to get up early on Friday. A local Kansas City television station runs a weekly segment called "Cool Schools" where the reporter and cameraman broadcast a live feed of the students behaving as hooligans and conduct on air interviews with some of the movers and shakers of the student body. The broadcast began at five o'clock a.m.so, I needed to get on up and at 'em to join in on the fun. The previous night the high school held a "lock-in" or a "sleepover" or "shenanigans-fest", whatever you want to call it, for the students. The girls were kept segregated from the guys (a wise move; there's no need to look for ways to increase the student pregnancy rate). There were a few teachers that volunteered to stay with the students. I was not one of those teachers. Before I had children of my own I would have been there to "chaperone", or "bear witness", or "katy-bar the door", but now that I have three little ones and a little lady at home, I feel it is my place to be at home with them at night in the highly unlikely event that "something" might happen and I would be needed.

I rolled up on my bicycle at about a quarter to five on Friday morning, my bike all lit up like a landing strip. I figured I better get all visible and such as there would be some student drivers arriving at five a.m. for the beginning of the festivities, and might be tired and distracted. My students puzzled me with their reactions to this: "You rode your bike this morning?"

Well, yes. I'm not sure why they were surprised about this. Some of them have never seen me in a vehicle, but I guess since it was early in the morning, they thought maybe I'd not be up to it. But, I was, and I did.

I dove into the free all you can eat pancake breakfast with some colleagues and students both, where we cut up and looked forward to a day of whiners and complaining.

More to follow...

One twentieth of a century! Or Jack's birthday weekend: part II

Did you get that title? Of course you did.

I hadn't been on the campus of Kansas University in quite some time, and like many university campuses its layout is not conducive to efficient navigation for the unfamiliar navigator. The unfamiliar navigator was none other than myself, who also served as the driver, simultaneously. It would not be inaccurate for one to describe my manner of motor vehicle operation on that Friday the 13th, on the campus of Kansas University, as slow, hesitant, indecisive, and even ponderous. College students have important places to go and they have motor vehicles to get them there. Just before noon on a Friday the 13th in April, some of those college students grew impatient with my driving and expressed their frustration with exhibitions of acceleration immediately after extracting their motor vehicle out from behind my own. One little white pickup truck spun one of its rear tires really, really, fast going around a corner in the opposite direction as my own, after it crept up a hill behind me. I presume they arrived where they were going safely, as we did, only much quicker and in a must more perturbed state than us.

We parked on the fifth level of a five tier parking garage, which we entered from the ground floor, much to the amazement and satisfaction of our two oldest boys. They've watched a dvd at home multiple times which documents the different stages of constructing one of these, and it was their first time to actually experience one in real life, three dimensions.

The natural history museum was neat because it displayed a large number of stuffed animals and skeletons found not only in Kansas, but from all over the world. The boys liked the skeletons on display, and the fabricated skeletons. I liked the dinosaur...paraphanelia (is that the correct term?) It's difficult for me to imagine that world dinosaurs occupied. Of course it's difficult to attempt to comprehend the length of time involved in the geological and evolutionary processes scientists believe our Earth has gone through to present time.

 One exhibit made an impact on our sons. It was the bee hive. On the third floor of the museum a hive of bees was thriving and producing honeycombs and honey in a fabricated tree with plexiglass sides in order to view the bees and their activity. A tube connected the hive to the outside world and allowed the bees to enter and exit through the window. The information referred to honey as "bee barf", because honey is technically, "regurgitated bee saliva". This has brought a great deal of enjoyment to our boys each time we've had a honey treat at the table.

The exhibit on germs was interactive, and quite impressive for an adult, however it failed to hold our sons' interest for very long. It was okay with us, because we felt we'd exhausted our usable time there in the museum. In other words, we felt the end of our sons' interest level approaching, and we made preparations to leave and go onto phase two of the day's activities.

Phase two involved a stop at the closest convenience store along the way for snacks and beverages. I say along the way, because I left out the part where we left the museum, Mare fed Henry while the boys ate birthday candy and I people watched, and we retrieved the car from the awesome storage building. We'd planned to travel just south of Lawrence to a place called "Wells Overlook". Wells Overlook is a four story wooden observation tower built upon a tall hill. It's a Douglas County maintained park which charges no admission or permit fee. Mare tells me during her childhood there was a playground there, however that playground and several "very cool" trees have been removed since. What remains on the tall hill, besides the observation tower, is a covered, paved, shelter full of picnic tables, and some short "trails".

The view the tower afforded was, needless to say, impressive. It seemed I could see for ten to twelve miles off, especially if I used the binoculars.The boys sure had fun going up and down the stairs about four dozen times or more after they discovered they could toss their plastic dinosaurs off over the edge and watch them from between the cracks of the railing fence as they landed on the ground below. Henry played on his back and stomach on a thick blanket we'd brought along for that pursuit. Jack spent some time hunting for insects to collect and examine with his new adventure/explorer kit. Then, we explored some of the trails in the park. We stayed there until nearly dusk, then traveled back into Lawrence to spend a couple of gift cards we had to Applebee's for supper.

The boys were worn out! The parents were worn out! We carried their dishrag limp bodies into the bathroom and scrubbed their little teeth really well to get all that birthday candy off their teeth, then dressed them in their pajamas and tucked them into bed. I went to bed. Mare stayed up making cupcakes for the birthday party which would take place the following morning.

Yes, that's right, there was more celebrating to come!

We took lots of pictures, and if I get really ambitious I might attempt posting them on here for your enjoyment.

By the way, carrying in a limp sleeping kid is about the best thing in the world, and I experienced a case of deja' vu remembering how safe and snug I felt when my own dad carried me into the house at night after falling asleep in the car. That's good stuff.

Half of a decade

I could have just entitled this post "Five years", but then what's poetic about that? Then again, one might immediately ask, "What's so poetic about 'Half a decade'"?

Touche'!

As you might have inferred, last Friday the 13th was Jack's fifth birthday. Technically, and Mare and I have had this conversation/argument before, it's his sixth birthday if you include his birthday. To be specific, we celebrated the fifth anniversary of his birthday. There! Are you happy?

As on his very first birthday (the day of his birth) it was a Friday the thirteenth. Our household does not give credence to friggatriskaidekaphobia, (I'm not kidding, click on this to read the wikipedia entry) so we had no reservations whatsoever about celebrating his birthday. We walked out of the house and made our way under a ladder, shooed away a black cat that lay in our path, and broke to pieces that pesky mirror we'd been wanting to get rid of and went on our merry way.

After a hearty breakfast intended to sustain us through a big, big day, we loaded up the vehicular and merrily rowed along north to the campus of The University of Kansas Museum of Natural History; otherwise known to our children (the ones who can talk) as "The Dinosaur Museum" (accompanied by excited shrills of, well, excitement {as if shrills can be anything else than excited!}) It took us a little while to get off the ground and going, mainly because I, in my desire to be prepared, focused my considerable technical savvy upon one of our vehicular's wipers. It was damaged, I remembered, and the forecast for that Friday the 13th of 2012 called for thunderstorms and rain showers, and sprinkling, and high winds, and precipitation. While rummaging in the trunk, actually I wasn't so much rummaging as placing the big stroller in the trunk, I noticed an extra wiper blade and naturally I was pleased with the immediate assumption that it was the right size and that I was looking at a quick and easy fix. Notice the word "assumption".

Well of course I removed the old, damaged wiper and it fell apart in my hands. Good thing I had a brand new wiper that fits . . . oh no I don't, it's the wrong size! How did I overlook that? (see previous paragraph: keyword assumption). So, I thought, "I know, I'll just install the old one back on so we can get on the road...oh that's right, it already fell apart in my hands! Can't do that. I thought briefly about swapping one out from our other car, but by then the kids had arrived outside and Marian, too and were all expectantly climbing in to depart. So, since there was now a metal nub on the end of the wiper arm where there was previously a wiper that was damaged, I had to protect the glass windshield from being scratched when the wiper returned to its place of rest (no that's not a euphemism for death, but the position the wiper returns to when not in use), so I placed my leather work glove over the metal nub for that express purpose. There is a mechanic's shop I'd check at the end of our street that I hoped sold wipers to avoid driving all the way to the south end of town to purchase new ones.

They didn't sell wipers at the mechanic's shop at the end of our street and I had to drive our family all the way to the south end of town to O'Reilly's auto parts to purchase and install new wipers, all the while Jack the birthday boy was asking why we were heading to Humboldt and not to Lawrence. No wait, it gets better. While I was inside the mechanic's shop inquiring about wipers, the O'Reilly's delivery guy was there, had just dropped off a package there, and was leaving to go...where else? Back to the south end of town to O'Reilly's, where we were now headed. No, wait, it still gets better. We actually backed out first and the O'Reilly's delivery guy next to us (with his reverse lights on, because he was backing out to go where we were going, or vice versa) was hoking his horn and pointing at my work glove on the windshield which he thought I'd neglected to remove. But wait, it still gets better. At the traffic stop light, he was next to us in his vehicle and continued to honk and point at my windshield and the glove. So, I rolled my window down and was mouthing the words "I know, it's okay!" to him, because it was the O'Reilly's delivery truck and O'Reilly's didn't want to spend a lot of money on their delivery truck, so that meant they purchased the model without power windows, so the driver was unable to roll the passenger side window down in order to hear me. Again, I'm assuming this is the case with the O'Reilly's delivery truck. It could be the truck did have power windows and they were inoperable for some reason, or that the delivery driver didn't know how to roll the passenger side window down, or that he simply chose not to do so. Whatever the case, we had a good long, confusing exchange that I would describe as silent, were it not for the horn on the delivery truck which sounded frequently, and was assuredly, operating in peak condition.

So, we were intermittently alongside of said delivery truck and confused delivery truck driver, or a car length ahead of or behind for the entire way across town, going to the same place he was headed, all the while I was becoming furious with myself for being so hasty as to not check that the spare wiper in the trunk was indeed the correct size before removing the damaged one, and cussing whoever it was that put a spare wiper in the trunk, which didn't fit! Probably me. At O'Reilly's, I encountered the driver and I fake laughed about it as I explained about the glove and waited for my turn in line to purchase two new wipers, because I was getting two of them, brand new ones as much trouble as this was turning out to be! The salesman was kind enough to install them, (I could have, I assure you, I've done hundreds of them!) because I was too mad at myself and fearful of making another time wasting mistake.

All of this was before we left town to get to the museum. Part two is forthcoming.

A big day for a three year old

Saturday the 31st of March was Leo's third birthday. He'd been counting down the days for a few weeks. Mare and I had determined we'd be best to give him his present right away, first thing. Mare had secured a large drawstring bag (think Santa Claus) to place the large new toy John Deer front end loader into. He was thrilled, of course. It was big and looked fun as heck.

I rounded them up and we ate bread and jelly for breakfast, ate our vitamins and I drank my fiber ( old much?) then we headed down to Forest park where we'd reserved the big shelter house for Leo's birthday party. We arrived a half hour early so the boys would be able to play some before the guests arrived. The grass hadn't been mowed all over the park, so the boys' feet and legs were soaked with tall grass dew right away. Mare and I unloaded all the "gee-dunk" that goes along with a three year old's birthday party, and decorated minimally. I walked around with Henry on the front carrier for a bit.

Some of Leo's friends from the library attended with their siblings and parents and they all had a blast playing on the playground equipment together. Mare had spent the previous evening making a birthday cake that resembled a turtle which we put Leo's three lit candle into for him to blow out. We served up "juice" barrels and individual ice cream cups for everyone and cupcakes for those who didn't get the turtle cake. We sang happy birthday and opened presents and Leo was very good about not being greedy and sharing his toys and saying thank you to the right people.

Next we attended a city sponsored Easter egg hunt in a separate park which was a big hit, despite the unseasonably warm temperatures. Jack didn't have such great success in his age group, but Leo did well. Mare's b.f.f. Lisa's son Cash went as well and did real well finding the eggs.

After the egg hunt we went home quickly and the boys played for a bit in the new deposit of sand dad had brought them that morning as part of Leo's b-day present. Then we drove fast for Topeka to the zoo. There we walked around for a couple hours and saw a tiger, lions, gorillas, an orangutan, hippo, giraffes, and elephants. Also, a bunch of people at the zoo who by far looked wilder than the animals.Directly across the street from the zoo entrance is Gage park. It was b-u-s-y! The boys were wanting to go there, so after the zoo closed we let the boys play where they wanted. Mare and Henry and Jack went one way, I and Leo went another way.It's a good, big park and the boys played on almost everything for over two full hours before we called "calf-rope!" and made them leave just before the sun went down.

At home they got a hot bath and were sent to bed where they dropped like full sacks once they hit the rack. Matter of fact, mom and dad hit the rack and went right to sleep also.

The boys were good all day despite having no real naps and all the excitement and change in schedule. We've got another big day planned for Jack's 5th birthday coming up on Friday the 13th! Before that, we will travel to Lawrence for my father-in-law's 60th birthday party on Saturday, and then to Humboldt on Sunday for Easter at Irene's.

Big few weeks. No school tomorrow on good Friday. I hope to mow the yard and edge it and get it looking nice. I hope all is well with my dedicated followers. I wish all the full blessings of God on all of you and your families and friends and those families and friends of my own.

thanks for reading.