Independence Day

The next size up

It's a holiday weekend, and we can't survive those without some amount of work, some project to do, so today we cleaned out the garage. Maybe the title of this post is referring to the amount of stuff in our garage, and that we really need the next size up to fit it all. But we cleaned up and cleared out, and I've mentioned Freecycle before, but I'll mention it again. We might have had garbage bag after garbage bag to throw away or drop off somewhere, but between Craig's List and Freecycle absolutely everything we were done with is now at a new home with a new family. That's far better than now residing at the dump. Because the other thing to which the above title might refer is toddlers becoming little boys, and needing bigger toys. Bigger play sets, bigger balls, bigger gardening tools, bigger bikes...and now there are a few happy families with smaller children out there. And we can move in our garage.

To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And so out with the smaller and in with the next size up. That is the reference I was making above. In many cases we already had the next size or the next stage up and just got rid of duplicates, but we've been waiting for good weather to replace the clown bike and decided today that if we didn't just go we could find ourselves waiting forever. When I was growing up my grandparents traditionally bought all the grandkids' bikes. It was a moment of pride, a rite of childhood, to go pick out the new bike. I remember a pink bike with a banana seat, and another bike with a white basket. Later it was a rose colored 12 (not 10!) speed that I loved for years.

My parents wanted to continue that tradition and today we all went to pick out Calvin's new bike in the next size up. I can't say the weather was good, or that the sun was shining, but I can say that Calvin quickly and easily zeroed in on the bike for him. We brought it home. Calvin, dad, and grampa assembled it. When he tried it out he looked alarmingly grown up to me. And that's when the tornado sirens went off. Like I said, these days, if we waited for good weather to do anything we'd be waiting an awfully long time.

Saturday on vacation

Into every vacation a little rain must fall. If it weren't for the rain we wouldn't discover things such as local museums. Visiting Holland for the tulips and the beaches is one thing, and we often hit their tourist places, like Windmill Island or Dutch Village, but we this was the first year we visited their little local museum. It was definitely little, with a rather eclectic collection that ranged from local history to bizarre Native American or even Mexican artifacts, but every museum is worth a good look. No photography allowed, of course, but we got to see Dutch impressionism by rather obscure artists, a collection of "after hours work" by Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, and Calvin reading the information plaques all by himself (which alone was worth the trip).

And afterwards, rather inadvertently (like the rest of the trip, really) we stumbled onto the Tulip Time parade and its multitude of festival queens and courts—the Tulip Queen, the Maple Syrup Queen, the Red Flannel Queen, the Asparagus Queen, the Apple Queen. I had no idea there were so many eligible teens in Holland. Calvin adored the bands. And any Dutch dancers he happened to espy. And we stopped by New Holland for beers and snacks while we waited for traffic to clear after the festivities ended, because this was probably the one day in all the year that traffic crawls to a stop in this little town.

Friday on vacation

Today the weather was chillier, maybe ten degrees chillier, but still sunny and warm. There are so many treats about a vacation. Getting up a little later, for one. Enjoying time to do whatever, whenever is another. When given a number of options Calvin has been very clear about his wishes. He wants to see Dutch dancing—lots of it—and he wanted to go on a tour of the windmill. We did both of those things today. Windmill Island in Holland is home to a real Dutch windmill, brought all the way from the Netherlands and reassembled jigsaw style. It is also home to the only female Master Miller in all of America. After our tour today Calvin can tell you all of this and more.

And because it's vacation and we can do what we want, we enjoyed lunch at New Holland Brewery again today, followed by special chocolates from the Holland Peanut Store (all inadvertently timed around performances of Dutch Dance, which was perfect).

And when we got back from town it was warm enough to walk the beach down to the lighthouse, where we watched them dredge the channel a little further up.

Tomorrow promises rain, and spring vacation, Tulip Time even, just wouldn't be the same without it.

Thursday on vacation

There is only so much that I can write about while we're vacation. We're relaxing, we're soaking up the weather, which has decided to be beautiful for us, we're getting in touch with our Dutch heritage. We first started taking this now annual trip when Calvin was not quite a year old, which makes this our fifth go, and in that time we've developed a handful of traditions. We always have lunch (and beer samplers) at New Holland Brewing Company, and when the weather cooperates we walk along the beach to the State Park and channel opening. We did both of those things today, as well as visiting Marketplaats, watching Dutch dancing in the streets, and sitting in awe, long after dark, of the beautiful lightning display from storms out over the lake, storms that actually went north and south of us tonight. After Calvin was in bed Jon and I learned Carcassone, a new game that we picked up at a local toy store earlier.

They make wooden shoes on wooden sawhorses, which made Calvin think of Oz, of course.