Oh by the way

We got our AC fixed this morning. $260.

It was just a capacitor that blew. The guy told me it happens a lot to AC units during heat waves.  Probably should have called him in sooner, but a month without AC during one of the hottest summers on record is good for you, right? Builds character.

Didn’t need it today of course. No humidity. 79 tops. But we’re ready for the next wave.

Please stand by

We are experiencing technical difficulties.

I have no explanation for why my photo gallery just decided to stop working. And after this past week, I have a lot of photos to add. It’s gonna be a little bit before I can get it all back online.

I’m most likely going to switch to a Flickr account. I really like the changes they’ve recently made. Much more user friendly than it had been in the past.

Camping

We went camping this weekend. There’s a State Park about 20 minutes away (right near Cantigny) called Blackwell Park. We were impressed with the campsite. Very clean. The site we were on was a bit secluded, too which helped make it a bit quieter.

When we arrived, though, the site next to us has a large group of Indian with loud Indian music. We were worried.  I can only take the sound of a sitar for so long. But as the evening went on, the music got quieter, and morphed into a sort of Indian techno. So it wasn’t so bad. Bt the time the sun went down, they turned it off altogether. So at least they were repectful. We also realized they were using the site next to us as just a gathering point as there were no tents on it.

We got there late because Alex had to go to a birthday party at Pump It Up that went until 4:30. So after jumping around for over an hour, we finally got home to get everything together and then got to the campground late – about 6.

We rushed to get everything set up and a fire started so we could cook the burgers. Alex really wanted to go biking, but he didn’t do so well on the crushed rock road. Up near the bathrooms was some paved ground, so he was able to get his fix in up there.

After dinner and another walk we had some smores around the fire. I have no idea what time we finally went to bed. Probably about 10. Alex was up early, of course. By the time I got out of the tent and looked at the clock in the van, it was 7:15.

We ate breakfast and packed up shortly after. Then we drove and parked to the campground entrance which was near the lake so we could do a little fishing. That didn’t last too long though as Alex’s pole got jammed and I couldn’t fix it without taking apart his reel with some tools. Oh well.

We left, stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way home, and were home by 9:30. By 11:30 it started to rain, so we got out in plenty of time.

Saturday was a nice cool day with no humidity and Sunday morning was a lot of cloud cover, so that kept it cool. After the rain, it really heated up with a lot of humidity again, so we had really nice weather.

Blackwell is a nice park. Quite large actually. It’ll be better in the future when Alex is a stronger biker and we can ride some of the trails (which are all crushed rock) or rent a boat and go fishing out on the lake. It’s also great that this park is really close.

My New Bike

We picked up a 12″ bike for Alex last week. It didn’t come with training wheels, so we had to wait another week for those to arrive from Amazon. But we gave it to him Wednesday and you should have seen the look on his face. He was so estactic.

A month ago we had gone to Dick’s Sporting Goods and Alex spent an hour riding one of the bikes. We couldn’t get him off.

So we finally got one of his own. He loves this bike. It’s all he wants to do. Every day before school this week we had to do a quick ride. And then of course every evening we have to ride around the block.

I’m still making adjustments in this video, but right now it’s pretty well set. Every time out he’s gets a little better at figuring out the pedals, brakes and balancing. Like he doesn’t fall when going around turns anymore. He knows well enough to slow down.

I’m a Soccer Man!

Alex pulled his socks up to his knees and boldy proclaimed: “I’m a soccer man!”