Since getting into cycling, I have always wanted a lugged steel classic road bike from the 80s. After getting Susan’s approval, I was able to find one that fit me in Grand Rapids a couple weeks ago. Once I got it home, I tore it done, cleaned, re-packed, greased, and added new tires, tape, and tubes. Last night I got to do my first shake down ride, only to get a flat tire 1.5 miles away from home. Having just got it back together, I didn’t have a repair kit with me… mental note, need to put one together. It was still a fun ride and I can’t wait to get it back out on the road again!

The rain finally let up this year and the week of the fourth was a hot and humid one. That didn’t stop us from having an excellent extended weekend.

The kids were well behaved enough to earn a trip to the movies. We went to see Toy Story 4 the morning of the fourth. In preparation for this, we watched all three previous movies last weekend. Everyone seemed to enjoy the movie (although a little sad this will probably be the last one in the series).

Once we got back to the house, it was a quick lunch and anyone that wanted to see fireworks had to take a nap. It wasn’t easy, but I think the kids managed to fall asleep for a little while (close enough to a nap I guess).

I had bought some pop-its and after dinner we went out and “did fireworks”. Afterwards, we tried to convince the kids that was the fireworks we had been talking about, but they were smarter than that. There was no way we were getting out of taking them to the Clio fireworks that night.

Susan wasn’t feeling well, so I packed the wagon, a couple chairs, and a blanket to sit on in the truck and headed down to Clio City Park. Parking was atrocious, so I had the bright idea to park at the end of the rail trail and walk in. I’ve ridden my bike on these trails and didn’t realize how far that actually was to walk (close to a mile).

It was muggy and buggy and the kids didn’t want to walk anymore, so I had to carry the chairs and pull the kids in the wagon… I was pretty sweaty by the time we picked a spot. We had about an hour to kill before the fireworks went off and I decided to get some light up swords for the kids to play with. The swords and the home fireworks going off all around us kept the kids busy until the real show began.

Last time we went to these fireworks, they were pretty decent. This year they were pretty lame… they didn’t shoot very high (our view was blocked by some trees) and there was a 5-10 second delay between fireworks. Ollie was ready to go home after a few minutes, but we weren’t leaving until they were done.

I also didn’t realize how dark the rail trail would be at 11 o’clock at night, good thing we had light up swords to lead the way. Once back to the truck, I was drenched in sweat (really glad I didn’t have to carry the kids in the house, they would not have appreciated that).

I thought parking was bad, but the traffic leaving downtown Clio was ridiculous, luckily, we avoided most of that and it only took a few minutes to get home. The kids sleepily got their pajamas on and crawled into bed.

My office was open on Friday and I had to go to work. Daycare was closed, so Susan had to deal with the boys for most of the day, they were not in the best of moods. There was only a hand full of people that showed up, but we were treated to bagels for breakfast and pizza for lunch. Work was slow and I decided to sneak out a little early. It was sunny in Davison, but there were a few pop-up showers on the way home and a nice downpour once I got there.

Saturday morning, I decided to take the kids fishing. We have not had much luck in the few places we tried to go before, so I decided it was time to try somewhere new. Our first stop was to the fishing area alongside Irish Road in Davison. We got out and were swarmed by mosquitos, even though the kids had bug spray on, it didn’t seem to help much. I got the lines baited and cast into the river. It was flowing fast and the bobbers were downstream very quickly. I decided this wasn’t going to work and that we should try a different spot.

We drove down to the Genesee County Fairgrounds where I had noticed a few decent sized ponds. We found a spot to throw our lines in and in a few minutes, Henry had caught a small bluegill. He was pretty excited to catch his first fish. About 30 minutes later, Ollie caught an even smaller bluegill. Neither of these fish were keepers, but the kids enjoyed watching them swim around in our bucket.

We were getting a lot of small bites and I figured maybe we should try a different spot down the bank. I casted Ollie’s line in and went back to untangle Henry’s pole. Shortly after, I heard “Dad, dad, DAD!” and thought either Ollie fell in or lost his pole.

I got over there and asked him where his bobber was and he said he had a fish and it had gone under. I helped him reel and thought maybe it got caught in some weeds (there was quite a few of them between us and open water), until I felt the pull of a fish. I told him he had a fish on the line, but did not know it was going to be a legal sized walleye. Ollie was so excited he caught a big fish.

We fished the rest of the worms, released the bluegill, and took the walleye home to show Susan. The kids wanted to see how to clean a fish, not sure how traumatizing that was, but I managed to get a few small fillets. The kids also wanted to “make fish sticks”. I told them this was better than fish sticks and they gobbled it up for dinner that night.

In the afternoon, the kids were “bored” so we decided to go to the Flushing Nature Park. We hadn’t been here before, but it’s a pretty neat place. There’s a playground and quite a bit of area to explore. We walked around for a bit, trying to tire the kids out – must have worked, Ollie needed frequent breaks and “couldn’t walk that far”.

Sunday, we went to a Loons game in the afternoon. It was warm in the sun, so Henry and I moved back to be in the shade. He sat patiently and watched the game until his brother moved back to be with us. I think baseball is too slow for Ollie, although he said he had a good time. The Loons didn’t win, but the kids got to run the bases after the game. They were pretty excited about that.

We took the scenic route home to avoid the holiday traffic. Ollie couldn’t keep his eyes open and Henry was getting “hangry”. After a quick dinner, it was bath time and then off to bed. I hope the kids enjoyed this weekend as much as I did!