While we're spending all our time with family, our children are still children, so we're periodically looking for diversions for a little bit of mental relief for the grown-ups and to allow the little ones to burn off energy.
And energy is something our children have in abundance.
The City of Green Bay does a wonderful job offering family activities during their summer (although summer may last only three weeks in the land of frozen tundra) so we made a visit to Bay Beach - not the wildlife sanctuary, but the amusement park across the way...
Grandpa was teaching Kekoa how to drive...
But Bretty and I kept bumping into David's car...
Thankfully, Malia and Nalani are much better drivers...
When it comes to moving around, however, Bretty and David really love those crazy rides that spin them in circles...
Bretty's was always thumbs up and ready to go...
But as you can see in the left part of the picture above, Cari had to join in so that Kekoa could ride as well.
And Cari wasn't quite as fond of feelings like this...
And I think she was ready to quit right about here...
Why is Cari on all those crazy rides with the boys?
Because Daddy is a coward.
We also made a trek down to Manitowoc to pay our respects to my mother's parents. Here is the final resting place of Arthur and Martha Deering with six of their great grandchildren crowded around...
And if we're in Manitowoc, we have to catch up with my mom's family. Aside for the usual suspects of the Bicoys, here is my cousin Cheri, Aunty Dorothy, and Cheri's niece Rebecca...
Oh, and the least brown little boy in the front row isn't one of mine - that's Cheri's grandson John.
For the most part, things are basically as you'd expect, but there is one great conundrum which still befuddles the family.
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle was in Howard to announce the "Wisconsin Covenant" - a promise to 8th graders that if they work hard and graduate, there will be a place held for them at a Wisconsin college or university.
As my father-in-law is a State Senator and in the Senate leadership, the Governor was making the announcement in his district.
Nothing mysterious about any of that.
Well, our whole family was invited so we sat in the audience politely listening to the Governor speak (with my father-in-law to the right side of the picture near the 8th graders below)...
I kept watching this scene and something just didn't look quite right.
If you look realy closely at the bottom of the Governor's tie in the picture above, you'll see a bit of blue peeking from behind.
Here's another look at it...
So while most folks were taking pictures of the Governor, I was zooming in on his tie.
Or rather, two ties...
Look carefully!
The Governor is wearing a blue tie behind his red tie...
Cari and I figured he was going to make some metaphorical statement about how his tie symbolically represents the covenant he is creating. We thought maybe he'd remove it in some grand theatrical gesture only to show that another tie lay below the first. You know, sort of a statement of the perpetual nature of the covenant.
But no. The Governor finished speaking and continued to hide his blue tie beneath his red tie.
Maybe this is an easy way to switch from red to blue. He can wear the red tie in regions that lean Republican and quickly switch to his blue one in Democratic areas.Who knows?
It's the great Mystery of the Governor's Two Ties!
While this has been a trying week for the grown-ups, kids still need to be kids so we let our younger five children burn off some energy at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary.
Of course, it doesn't seem like this poor bear found much sanctuary there...
Nalani and Bretty formed the world's first two-headed girl/boy turtle...
And David was eaten by a frog...
Of course, what Bay Beach is really famous for is the opportunity to feed the ducks and other waterfowl that call the area home...
And as you can see in the picture below, there are a lot of them, and they leave behind a heck of a lot of poo...
You should have seen the mess this next duck created...
While his brothers and sisters ran off to the slides, Kekoa stayed behind at one exhibit which he found absolutely fascinating...
I couldn't figure out what would intrigue him so, until I took a closer look...
Fox droppings. Coyote droppings. Otter droppings. More kinds of animal droppings then you would ever want to imagine.
Obviously we've been spending every minute just visiting with family we haven't seen in a few years. Yesterday we visited Grandma Carol - without whom I wouldn't have my lovely wife, nor any of our wonderful children.
Here are four generations of ladies...
We also went up to Kelly Lake to spend the day at Cari's uncle's home...
Here we leave Cari's parents and David back at the dock on the pontoon boat...
While Bretty and Nalani ride on the back of the little paddle boat we took out on to the lake...
On the way back to Green Bay, we drove by countless farms, and so this is a very common scene in Wisconsin...
While driving on some county road, we found ourselves at a complete stop -- a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere...
We thought it was a construction site given the big trailer in front of us in the picture above - then we realized what was going on...
The last week living reminded us how ridiculously high the temperature can get. The 4th of July brought us a lovely sunny day with warm breezes of a balmy 116 degrees.
The great thing about weather like this, however, is that you can go swimming at night and it's perfectly comfortable because it's still near 100 degrees. And that is how we celebrated our nation's independence day...
Of course, what fun would it be if we didn't have a few morning glories...
And a some small fireworks right in our backyard...
Of course the 4th of July means that Nalani's birthday is just a few days away...
In case you haven't noticed, Nalani really likes having her picture taken. She always will cooperate and pose, looking right at the camera...
Yep, that girl is definitely a Bicoy.
But she's also a GIRL Bicoy, a really girly girl...
When there's a birthday party in our home, that automatically means 8 people are going to attend - such is the joy of having six kids. And that's what we did on the actual day of Nalani's birth as you can see in the pictures above.
But for my lovely wife, 8 is most definitely not enough.
Add to that the fact that Nalani is the little social butterfly, and thus when we have a birthday party inviting her friends, well, it gets a bit crowded even by our family's standards...
By my count, 28 children were running around our house frantically chased by 11 tired adults.
It got so crowded that random kids were falling asleep out on cement pool deck...
Of course, most of these folks were Cari's friends from her various mom's clubs who had little girls Nalani's age. So Cari was having a grand old time..
And Nalani really enjoyed being the Queen of our home for the day...
But Alyssa had the fun job of being the life guard for the day...
It was 116 degrees today and Alyssa's wearing pants! Somebody has to buy that girl a pair of shorts.
Speaking of which, why are "shorts" plural? Alyssa doesn't like spending money, so it is possible for her to buy a "short?"
Anyway, Nalani had a grand old time with a whole crew of people singing happy birthday...
Ain't she just the most adorable five year-old in the whole wide world?
But imagine having to endure sitting through 134 excruciating minutes of something people generously call "dancing" performed by gaggles of really short people surrounded by an audience of shrieking parents.
That was our Saturday as we attended the annual dance showcase at the Cashman Center...
Thankfully, with the wonders of technology, I uploaded a few episodes of my favorite tv show "Scrubs" to my little T-Mobile Dash phone and discreetly watched television for a few hours. Of course, every few minutes my lovely wife elbowed me in the gut when I forgot where I was and laughed out loud. I'm sure there are some child dancers who will be forever scarred by the sounds of my laughter from the audience.
Then, near the end of the agonizingly long day, we were privileged to witness 120 seconds of the most beautiful and adorable performance known to humankind...
Ah, our little girl Nalani...
Okay, I admit it, her performance made the show not so difficult to endure after all.
(Plus, the episodes of "Scrubs" didn't hurt either).
There is no journey quite so unusual as life with six kids!
With friends and family spread from Boston back east to Aiea in the middle of the pacific, we offer this little record of our adventures for all to share. Whether you're one of our kids' grandparents, uncles, aunties, or one of their many, many cousins, we welcome you to follow along.
And if you’re just someone who needs a bit of ridiculousness in their life (or a cure for insomnia), please join us on our nonsensical travels!
Bret & Cari
TRANSITION TO FACEBOOK: Once upon a time, this was the best way to communicate with our friends and family who were so far away from us. Today, we just use Facebook. So if you're a friend or family member from afar, looks us up on Facebook and let's follow each other!
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