Summer Water Adventures

Here are two things I thought my kids would not do this summer:

1. Go to the Kings Island Water Park. Not because of their age, but because of a million other obvious reasons. For example, I prefer my kids to swim in water that does not smell like the boats (or patrons) from White Water Canyon. Last year I took comfort in the fact that the “typical” Kings Island crowd was becoming extinct, but I was wrong. They all just migrated to the water slides and wave pool at Boomerang Bay.

2. Go Boating (and even Tubing). Not because a day at Ceasers Creek isn’t enjoyable for most people, but because of my own water-induced anxieties. Once again, I am glad to see my neurotic behavior is not hereditary and that Alex has an adventurous spirit, a surprisingly natural affiliation to the water and the ability NOT to be distressed by the color, smell, texture, density and depth of the lake.

Click here to see more pictures of Alex on Aunt Jen’s boat. And sorry … the camera didn’t even make it out of the pool bag at the water park. So there is no evidence (except my scarred memory) that we were there.

Hip House Concerts

Andy and I are once again trying to prove we are young, hip and urban, despite the fact we are old, somewhat out-of-touch and live outside the I-275 belt way. Our latest adventure was attending a “house concert” at our neighbor’s home. It was being organized by her college-age son (who is from Georgia and therefore has few acquaintances in Ohio) and he had tasked her with putting bodies in the room. We eagerly volunteered because we claim to listen to NPR, along with new and alternative music. However, we kept it to ourselves that recently the High School Musical soundtrack has trumped intellectual talk radio and that the last band we can truly say we discovered was Dave Matthews (which, by the way, my tweener nephew has now seen in concert more than me)!

But determined to have a life beyond Disney and our outdated iPod, we got a baby sitter and sat through a two hour acoustic set in her living room played by two up-and-coming artists: Jon Black and Eliot Morris.

It turns out, it was a good show. And as the music industry is shifting from big labels and big concerts to independents and MySpace pages, these house tours fall right inline with making the musical experience that much more intimate. The jury is still out if either of these artists will make it big or if this personal road show will pay off – our donations at the door and money spent on the pampered chef style CD soliciting in the kitchen was probably just enough to cover gas for the next leg of their trip – but we walked away feeling like winners with some modern folk rock for the Matrix and, more importantly, a cool story about hanging out with the band after the show. How many suburban parents do that on a Sunday night?

Is Anything Made to Last?

I think we are becoming grumpy old men (and women) at a much too early age, longing for the days that when something was built, it was built to last. July was the vortex of everything falling apart or falling down in the Muse household. This included items not working right out of the box (a decorate wall clock that immediately lost time, Alex’s remote control car that didn’t drive and the kids swing set that was sent with an un-proportional “metal tube” that the quality department obviously missed). And it also included items that just expired well before their time (a lawn sprinkler that didn’t sprinkle, a TV that wouldn’t turn on, a washing machine that couldn’t hold water and a 60 foot oak tree that couldn’t withstand the high winds of a late summer evening storm).

In any case, my camera was also making funny noises and the optical zoom was opening and closing as if it was on an old, squeaky hinge. So I didn’t take any chances, and therefore, didn’t take many photos.

Click here to see a few pictures from this past month.