Back in the swing of things

We were gone on vacation all last week. Since returning I have been too busy, too tired or too lazy to provide a write up of all of our activities.

Fortunately, my better half was none of those things. She recapped the whole trip on our other blog. So you can read all about it on The Rooney Train and check out the pictures I uploaded to Facebook.

In other news, I thoroughly enjoyed the Olympics. No matter what was on, I found it all to be pretty compelling TV (I actually stayed up until 2 a.m. one night watching a couple of Chinese guys play for the gold in ping-pong).

But what was fun was the fact that Nolan was really into it. Whatever was on – women’s gymnastics, track & field, volleyball, rowing – he was glued to it. He couldn’t get enough. At age 8, I think this was probably the first time he was really aware of the Olympics and he thought the whole thing was pretty cool. So it was great sharing it with him.

We’ve been to Lake Placid many times and have told him over and over how the Olympics were held there before. But I don’t think that really meant anything to him until now. I’m anxious to see if he gets as excited over the Winter Olympics in 2010.

With the Olympics gone and our vacation over, there is unfortunately no denying that fall is right around the corner. Next week Nolan and Thomas go back to school and we will soon be up to our necks in homework, Cub Scouts, fall travel baseball, etc. It’s been a great summer and I’m sorry to see it go.

Putting the band back together

We had a really good time our big summer picnic yesterday. A good chunk of my old high school crowd -- seven families all together -- gathered in the Saratoga Spa State Park.

Yeah, so we got rained on a little bit. We didn't let it rain on our parade!

It's always neat seeing everyone's kids together. They ranged in age from 6 months to 8 years.

Jim Flanders joined us, who most of us haven't seen since our 10th reunion about eight years ago. He surprised everyone by pulling out a great big stack of copies of The Warrior -- our old high school newspaper. It turns out he kept most of them. That was quite the walk down memory lane. I hope we can get together again someday so I can spend more time looking at them (and reading some of the old movie reviews I used to write for the paper).

As for myself, I pulled out a couple of yearbooks yesterday and looked them over -- and realized the pictures look like scenes out of a bad John Hughes movie.

We all do a pretty good job of keeping in touch, but these days it's mostly through e-mail, Facebook and blogs. Nothing beats getting together face-to-face. We hope to make this picnic an annual event.

Speaking of Facebook, I've got more photos of the day there.

Change of plans

Remember that plan to go to Six Flags New England? Yeah, well, that didn't work out so much.

We got up this morning and checked the weather for Agawam, Mass. and realized it was supposed to raining there all day. So we shifted gears and went to the Great Escape instead, despite the fact we've already been there three or four times this summer.

But you know what? We had the best time! Every time we go we still find new things to do. Each trip is a new experience. These season passes we have are the best deal ever. (Thanks again Mom & Dad Chase!)

We brought Nolan's friend Evan with us and spent the first half of the day in the water park. We had a blast on the Mega Wedgie and the Tornado. Then while everyone else went off to the Lumberjack Splash Wave Pool, I slipped off on my own to tackle the Comet.

After a break for lunch we hit some more rides and worked in a stop a McDonald's for dinner on the way home. It was our longest day at the Great Escape yet and there are still some more rides we still haven't done. There's always a next time...

When we got home, there was one more package waiting for Nolan at the door (thanks Uncle Tim and Aunt Bonnie). And that brought Nolan's birthday weekend to a conclusion.

I need a good book

Summer is just about here, which means I’m craving a good book to read.

Right now, at the top of my list is Scott McClellan’s White House tell-all.

But I’ve also had the urge to find a book about Teddy Roosevelt. He seems like an interesting character that I’d like to learn more about.

I enjoy learning about history. Last summer I read a biography of the very fascinating Benjamin Franklin. That was inspired by my reading the summer before of a book titled “Infamous Scribblers,” about the wild and crazy early days of American journalism.

There is also a book about the French and Indian War I’ve been meaning to read for a long time.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind a good piece of fiction either. I could always go for a fast-paced page-turner.

So does anyone have any good suggestions for the summer reading list?

Happy Fourth of July

We managed to get some Independence Day activities in before the rain started today.

This morning we went to see the annual July 4th parade in Alplaus. That was a lot of fun -- I don't know why we've never done that before. This may be a new family tradition.

The boys and I also went for a bike ride this morning around the neighborhood and we had a cookout tonight at my mom's with my sister's family too. Although the "cookout" consisted of me grilling in the garage while everyone else stayed inside and out of the rain.

Hope you had a great Fourth. Here's some highlights from the parade...

The summer blahs

We’re just over a week into summer vacation and so far Kris has managed to keep the kids pretty busy. They’re taking swim lessons this week, visited a farmers’ market today and have had a few other outings here and there.

However, there is always some down time, like this afternoon. With Thomas in his room for his afternoon quiet time and nothing else planned, Kris insisted that Nolan go outside to play.

But he didn’t want to. He probably wanted to A) bury his nose in a book, B) play video games or C) mope around and complain that there was nothing to do despite the fact his mom had given several good ideas.

Sometimes Kris has been known to pretty much force the kids to go out and play for their own good, and that’s what she did today. She brought Nolan outside with her.

But then he announced he needed something and disappeared back into the house. A short time later he returned and said, “Mom, there’s note on the stairs,” -- as if to say “Wow, where did that come from?”

Kris went to see this note, and this is what it said:

Dear Mom, I do not like going outside. Love, Nolan

Needless to say, we thought that was pretty funny. The note is now hanging on the bulletin board and will probably wind up in a scrapbook.

As for Nolan…he still had to play outside.

Summer wrap-up

Well, summer is basically over. Labor Day has come and gone and tomorrow Nolan goes back to school.

For having no plans, we kept pretty busy over the weekend.

On Saturday we took the kids to the main the branch of the Schenectady County Library to kill the morning. We picked up a ton of books and some DVDs: “Bionicle: Mask of Light” for Nolan, a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD for Thomas and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” for mom and dad.

After the library, we stopped by mom’s for lunch. Later in the afternoon, the Rooney boys all got haircuts (we have a great barber—Kris!).

That night we flattened out the futon in the basement and we all watched Nolan’s Bionicle movie together. I’m not that familiar with the Bionicle toys, but apparently they’re some kind of spin-off of Legos. The movie was kind of like “Lord of the Rings” with robots. We all thought it was pretty cool.

On Sunday Nolan’s friend Danny came over to play. Meanwhile, Thomas and I spent some time hanging out at Barnes & Noble where he played with the train table there. Then we walked over to PetSmart to check out the animals.

We had dinner with mom that night. Then after the kids went to bed we popped in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” and quickly proceeded to both fall asleep. We’re both fans of Kevin Spacey and John Cusack, but this movie just couldn’t hold us.

On Monday we headed over to the Sportsplex of Halfmoon. It’s a large indoor soccer facility. They have an area in there they call Tippy’s Play Zone. It’s a space filled with three bouncy bounces and plenty of soccer balls, kick balls, footballs and all sorts of other fun sports equipment for kids to play with. We met our friends, the Price family, there and had a great time.

So those are the highlights of our final summer weekend. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago I was blogging about the start of summer. We’ll have updates on the start of school and preschool soon.

Summer snowball fight

Last winter Nolan and I were making snowballs when I told him it would be a great idea to save a couple in the freezer so he and his friend Danny could have a snowball fight in the summer.

Yesterday was the perfect day to break them out. It was easily the hottest day of the year. In our town the temperature topped out at 99 degrees with a heat index well over 100.

So Nolan and Danny threw snowballs around in the backyard for as long as they could. Chester got a hold of one and ate it. The other, I’m sure, quickly melted.

The only problem—today is supposed to be as hot or hotter…and we’re now out of snowballs!

Summer is here!

We’ve had a number of events in the past few days that serve as fitting kick-offs to summer.

It started with Nolan’s final baseball game of the season. He played third, first and stood at the pitcher’s mound (a coach pitches) and made two or three outs in the field.

At bat he was the last batter of the game. His manager was pitching and I was catching. After a few strikes and fouls he got a weak hit that came to rest about four feet in front of him. It was quite unspectacular. His manager and I looked at the ball, looked at each other and we both seemed to be thinking the same thing: we can’t end like this. So we both laughed and called it foul. Nolan got one more pitch. This one was a strong grounder that rolled all the way out into right field. Since he was the last batter he got to round all of the bases.

After the game the kids all got trophies. Their manager got a baseball autographed by all the kids and a bobble head doll that said something like “#1 Coach” on the base.

Later that afternoon we took the boys to see “Cars.” This was Thomas’ first trip to the movie theater. I watch video clips and movie trailers on the computer with the kids. Thomas loves to watch the trailers for “Cars,” or as he calls it, “Funny Trucks.” He did well at the movies. He got a little restless toward the end and started moving from seat to seat. But for the most part he was well behaved and had a good time.

We all thought the movie was great. I imagine this DVD will wind up on the Christmas list.

We saw the movie at the Latham Circle Mall, which is of course right across the street from Krispy Kreme. On our way to the theater we noticed a steady stream of people going in and out. So we figured that after the movie we’d go over for our final doughnuts before they closed for good.

When the movie ended we headed over to Krispy Kreme only to be greeted by a couple of employees standing outside who informed us they were closed…for good. They were supposed to shutdown at 10 p.m. Sunday. But it turns out that during the time we were in the movie theater they ran out of doughnuts and weren’t going to bother making more. So that’s the end of Krispy Kreme.

We explained to Nolan that they went out of business and he said, “But they give me hats!” referring to the cool old school paper hats all kids get for free. The boys were bummed, but they got over it pretty quick when we decided to go to McDonald’s instead for dinner.

Father’s Day got off to a great start Sunday morning. I was awakened with breakfast in bed. I got to lay there sipping my coffee, skimming the Sunday paper and watching SportsCenter. There are not many better ways to start your day! I also got cards the kids made and a cool magnet Nolan made for me at school.

It was a beautiful day Sunday. After church we decided to go for a family picnic/bike ride. We drove to Lock 8 in Rotterdam just be different. We ate lunch there and then hopped on our bikes and rode a few miles west along the Mohawk River to a park where a creek feeds into the river. It was a good spot for Thomas to dip his feet in the water while Nolan and I tried skipping some rocks.

We bought a new bike rack for the car a few days ago that we used to get to Rotterdam. Although we enjoyed the bike ride, let me tell you, dealing with this rack was a nerve-wracking pain in the ass. It seemed really hard to get it to fit securely on the car, especially after the bikes were mounted. And as we were driving they seemed to be swaying around far too much. We could see cars behind us backing off for fear they’d wind up with a mountain bike on their hood. So I think we’ll be returning the rack.

Later in the afternoon we went over to my sister’s house to hop in the pool and then enjoyed a great cookout. That was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow is Nolan’s last day of school. But today his class put on a concert, which was great. The kids were so cute. I hope to YouTube (is that a verb now, like Google?) some video of it at some point.

Refreshments were served for everyone in his classroom after the concert, where we said our goodbyes to Nolan’s teacher, Mrs. Bacchia.

Tomorrow he finds out who his first grade teacher will be. Next year will be strange with Nolan in school for the full day and Thomas starting preschool. I’m sure Kris will have some more thoughts to share on the end of the school year.

So that was our action-packed few days. Let summer begin!