Owasippe Report

This is my report on our trip, last week, to Owasippe Scout Reservation. Owasippe is the oldest Scout Reservation in the country, established in 1911 and is in danger of being sold off.

So, here is what we did. If I missed anything and you were there, please leave me a comment or send me an email.

Sunday
o Left at 11:30 (much later than planned)
o Orientation
Signed up for
· Ice cream social - good do again
· Sailing
· Wall climbing
· COPE - Good do again
· Paintball - they want to do again
· Carmel apples
o No swim check
o Kids went to Pizza Hut for dinner with Pansy and Begonia while Gardenia and I cleaned
o Next year leave earlier so we can swim check and see Wolverine's opening campfire (Jonquil did go and said it was great)

Monday
o Swim tests and Adult swim on the :45s
o I intended to do hikes at 9:00, but never made it (Monday I had to do low COPE and pay for all our stuff) Juniper did go everyday I think.

Tuesday
o Our Anniversary
o Sailing winded out - rest of the week full
o Went to get Monster Shakes
o Wall climbing at night

Wednesday
o Anniversary dinner at Lakeview Inn Resort (very nice)
o Hike with Tulip to the Quaking Bogs
o Paintball

Thursday
o High COPE
Sweet Pea made it as far as me, but when he fell off he said, "I'm going down bad. This is going to be ugly." He fell and hung up by his ankle while the girl on his belay shot up in the air.
Lavender went all the way
Star went all the way, but she sat down on the last obstacle and slide along on her butt.
I made it to half way through the third thing (trapezes, I made it up the rope ladder, across the log and across the cable with the dangling ropes). I had to stop because I just didn't have the hand/arm strength.
Jonquil went all the way.
o Went to Ishnala for ice cream
o Went to museum and the old man there said that Owasippe's Grave is only 20 minutes down the Red trail. I sent him a copy of the '83 Carlen staff photo (on Monday after)
o Star Hike - Tulip had to leave early to go to the bathroom and because she was scared. Jonquil gave the stories of the stars.

Friday
o Gardenia, Daffodil, Juniper, Cathy and I went to the Quaking Bogs (went to Turtle Valley first by mistake)
o Mile Swim for Carnation and me. I finished (12:50 - 13:40) and kept swimming with Carnation until she finished at about 14:30 (about 1.5 miles for me)
o Closing campfire. Gardenia said we would come back next year. Orchid cried that night because they might sell Owasippe
o Flower Family Pot Luck
o Christmas in July
Christmas breakfast from the staff and it was only 1/2 a banana, OR 1/4 an orange, OR 1/6 and apple with one donut

Saturday
o Packed up
o Went to Ad Center Trading Post (I got a mug and a hat, Tulip got a walking stick and Orchid got a shirt, Star didn't go in with us)
o Went to Owasippe's Grave. It's very up and down hills and took us 40 minutes (I timed it, with me carrying Tulip for about 1/5th the way).
o Didn't eat breakfast
o Went to Ishnala for ice cream
o Ate at Pita Place in Muskegon

Next year
o I will do Channel Swim
o Flower Family Mile Swim club
o Flower Family will do Christmas Breakfast
o Bring boat

From 29 May 08

I was writing this and I never got around to finishing it. Here is what I had:

"I've actually been dieing to write this, but I haven't had time. I've got a lot to tell you, but first I want to mention that I'm at the Greek Consulate right now with Yarrow and Peony. Cool huh? They needed to get some paperwork done so I offered to drive them downtown. It's a long wait so I thought I'd type this out now. There's no WiFi here so I'll post it later.

The big news is the Junior Olympics. Last Saturday we went to SS Constantine and Helen (Gardenia's Alma mater is Kores, the grade school there and we got married there, btw) in Palos Hills. We got there for the opening ceremony, but volleyball didn't start until 4:30pm. That was good, because when we arrived I still wasn't sure we had a team (I had had one practice and only my girls and another pair of sisters showed).

We met the other pair of sisters and we had six. The only trouble was the four not mine had never played volleyball before. I had brought a ball so we spent all day getting to know each other and hitting the ball around.

We ended up winning the game! The girls really worked well together well and helped each other alot. They're all great girls and I'm very proud of them.

The second round was Sunday afternoon (to give us all a chance to go to church I'm sure, but only Star, Rose and I took advantage of that opportunity). We showed up and got mown down by a team full of High School volleyball players. The thing that surprised me the most was that I wasn't at all unhappy that we lost, I was sad that we couldn't play anymore. The girls were that great.

Now we will get away from sports, but stay with the Greeks."

I don't remember what I was going to write next, but the report up until then was very good and exciting (to me at least). I wrote all the green text on my PDA. I love having the opportunity to do that (although it is a bit of a pain because my fingers are too big and the keyboard is only virtual).

I didn't mention it in this post, but I was the coach for that team. Both Star and Orchid played on the team and Tulip made herself the team nurse.

Quick Update

This is going to be a quick update because I have been long absent from this site and I have a major change.

I have moved to a new shift and now work mornings and get off at 1430.

I will make more posts, some even backdated, I promise.

Mowing the Lawn and the Olympics

The last couple of weeks it has been raining every time I have intended to mow the lawn for the first time this year. Finally, last Saturday I went out, between showers and did it.

There were two problems with this, one: the grass was very wet so it wouldn't go into the bag; and B: it got dark by the time I was finishing so I couldn't see where I was going mostly.

The end result, after more than an hour and a half was a poorly mown lawn. It, of course, didn't rain from that point until Monday. I went out and mowed it again, twice! It looks really nice now, but that is what prompted the latest poll about lawn mowers.

On to the Olympics, no, not the trouble in Tibet or other protests, but the "real" Olympics, the important one, Junior Olympics.

The Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago holds a Junior Olympics every year. Every year my girls sign up for volleyball and every year our church can't field a volleyball team. This year I asked if it was lack of players or lack of a coach.

Guess who the coach is now? You got it on the first try. I'm now the volleyball coach for our church, Ascension of Our Lord. The Junior Olympics are Memorial Day weekend at Saints (abbreviated SS) Constantine and Helen in Palos Hills (where Gardenia and I got married).

Christos Anesti

EDIT: I said I would add another post, but I will just put it here.

We went to church Saturday night. We got there early enough to get a seat, but not in the church proper. Our church is a bit small (we know this, but it is really an interim church building) so they set up chairs in the narthex and they extend all the way back to the Sunday school classrooms. We were in the narthex.

We all got candles and as the service progressed and people left we moved further and further ahead in our seating. Eventually we actually got into a pew in the church itself.

All the flowers were old enough this time for us to stay almost all the way to the end, and we all stayed awake this time! The younger two were drooping a lot by the time we got to communion so Gardenia decided that it would be best for us to leave directly after Communion.

While I was going down the street to the local school (where overflow traffic parks) they waited, back in the narthex. Well, that's where they usually set out the snacks for the after-service fellowship. On Easter they set out lamb and soup (I'll have to ask Gardenia the exact names for them because they are special dishes just for the middle of the night, after Easter feast). Remember that Holy Saturday is a strict fast day. When I picked them up with the van they were all drooling.

We managed to get home with a lit candle. That's supposed to mean blessing and good luck on your house.

A few years ago we went to Opa! in Vernon Hills right after church. That was really cool going into a Greek restaurant right after Greek Easter at about two in the morning. The only people in there were Greek so we were greeted with Christos Anesti (Christ has Risen) and answered Alethos Anesti (Truly He is Risen). Star ate so much, so fast that night that she got sick.

Unfortunately Opa! doesn't do that anymore so we stopped by a Dunkin' Donuts / 31 Flavors that is open all night and all got ice cream. That's a lot different from Easter soup, dolmades, calamari and octipodi, but we enjoyed it.

Sunday afternoon we went to Oak Lawn to see Yarrow and Peony. They were very happy to see us. We had lamb and beef. We also took home a pile of cookies which have already disappeared.

Kalo Pascha (Happy Easter)!

Good Friday (the Orthodox Way)

Today is Good Friday for the Orthodox flowers in my family. Usually the two Easters are about a week apart, sometimes they are on the same day, but I've never seen them a month apart. It has been very confusing.

My new poll is about what you do for Easter. I'll post after Sunday what we do, but I wonder what special things everyone else does.

I've always felt that Easter should be the most important holiday of the year and I've been confused that it is second banana to Christmas. Christmas would be meaningless without Easter.

Here's a crazy idea (it's not Orthodox or orthodox, just my crazy thinking) what if we had kept Christ's birthday celebration on his actual birthday (presumably in spring because of the shepherds watching over their sheep) then we could have had one big celebration with Christmas and Easter together. Now that would have been something.

Anyway, no meat today (that is the Orthodox way). In fact, no meat, dairy, fish or oil this whole week (only shellfish). Also tomorrow we are not supposed to eat anything until we go to church at about 11:00PM until after midnight.

As the little flowers grow old enough to observe the ritual fasting I find new and more extreme rules that I didn't know about before. I didn't know that we weren't supposed to use oil.

Today is also Star's Ribbon Ceremony Day. She's in 8th grade and she gets presented with her hat tassel thing for her graduation cap. Gardenia and I are going to try to attend.

Closing March, Opening April

What have we been doing lately? I see that I have been terrible at keeping up here and haven't posted since late March.

Out like a lion? Spring Break was the last week of March. Star went to Pansy and Begonia's house for the first half of the week. I have reports that she and Rose worked hard with the barn and the horses.

The ending weekend of March saw me at a Friday / Saturday conference to learn more about the FRG. It was a very useful conference. On Sunday, I once again doffed my Army duds and went trolling for volunteers. An outreach group from a Church in Oak Park has volunteered to help out with home repairs for our group and I went to the services to drum up support. I go a standing ovation at the 11:15 service. That was really nice.

We just lived our lives as usual in the first week of April.

Last weekend we were supposed to go with our FRG to Springfield to help support he family members of our soldiers who live outside the Chicago area. Unfortunately, only one family said they wanted to come, so we didn't go to Springfield.

Fortunately, a new water park / resort opened in Gurnee (about 25 minutes away) so we signed up for Friday night. We went Friday and swam for over two hours and then we swam again for almost 11 hours (!) on Saturday. Holy Cow! Finally, I told Gardenia, "I'm done." I had been trying to keep up with three girls all day and I was sore and exhausted. We had a good time though.

Monday morning dawned and little Tulip was sick, really sick. She was burning up with fever. This is when our scheduling comes in really handy. I didn't get much sleep, and neither did Gardenia, but we took care of her. Tuesday morning she wasn’t yet better and Orchid went down too.

Orchid is doing much better, but we are still waiting to see if Tulip can make a full recovery. She was doing much better after her bath Tuesday evening, but then heated up again.