Working at It

I've been doing a lot of thinking about blogging, ever since one of my fellow doll bloggers made a post about the benefits of it. I enjoy the doll blogging, but most of the regular bloggers from when I first got started on this blog aren't around any more, and the Lutheran blogging world is pretty much non-existent. However, not only do I still enjoy blogging, it still seems to be the best platform for me. Besides which, as my doll friend's post pointed out, blogging can make you a better communicator and writer. That's always a good thing, so even if I never had a huge following here, it will help me provide a better doll blog too! Don't worry, I won't be blogging about dolls here, but doll collecting truly is where a lot of my time, blogging and money goes, now that my daughters are starting to make their own way into the world.

Both of my daughters and I each have several YouTube vloggers that we like to watch, although I'm waiting for some of my favorites to be shut down any day now. However, what the most successful vloggers seem to do is provide regular content. Even if it's crap content, they get something new up one or two days a week. So for now, I'm going to try Mondays and Thursdays as my days to blog here. Even if I have nothing that seems exciting to say, I'm going to try to put up a new post every week on those days.

For this post, let me tell you about what Mr. BTEG and I were able to do with some of the "crumbs" we received in our tax refund this year. For starters, this past Saturday we drove down to the IKEA in Columbus, Ohio, and picked up a cart full of items that we've been needing for quite some time, like a mattress, a set of dishes (most of our old plates got broken or chipped during the child-rearing years,) and a bookcase with glass doors for my doll collection! The IKEA warehouse makes a Costco or Sam's Club look like a little mom-and-pop operation.

The BTEG family has not taken a vacation in many years, partially due to commitments like school, but largely due to finances. Mr. BTEG and I both suffer from seasonal depression, which seemed especially bad this year. So this past Sunday, Mr. BTEG and I were able to spend the night at one of my favorite places, Great Wolf Lodge indoor waterpark in Sandusky, Ohio. I'm not a strong swimmer and not really up for large water slides, but there are enough water attractions at GWL to keep me happy, and it's got a very nice restaurant and a few other in-hotel food options handy, so Mr. BTEG and I were able to wind down and relax. Plus, I got some swimming in Sunday afternoon and evening, and Monday morning.

The first time we took a vacation at Great Wolf Lodge was all the way back in 2004. Mr. BTEG was working a contracting job in Chicago during that time, which meant that the girls and I didn't see him as much as of course we were used to. Fortunately, we were already homeschooling, so there were a couple of weeks the girls and I drove out to Chicago and stayed at his apartment there with him. It was even educational, since we visited a lot of the family attractions Chicago has to offer. But we wanted to spend some serious family time at Christmas, and on a contractor's salary, Mr. BTEG was able to afford a couple of nights stay at what I believe at the time was Great Bear Lodge.

Honestly, it was probably one of the best times we had as a family. The girls were young enough that somehow "Santa" managed to sneak all the Christmas presents past them, so that they were truly surprised when they woke up on Christmas morning.

Our eldest had brought some "reindeer food" that she'd made with her Brownie troop. We put that on the balcony the night before, and I scuffed the snow around after they went to bed, to look like the reindeer had come by and snacked on it.

We had a Kids' Cabin room, where the girls had their own little cabin with a bunk bed, a twin-sized bed, and their own game console and TV (the two pictures below are from another Christmas that we spent there.)

Most importantly, we got to spend that Christmas holiday together without worrying about dealing with annoying family, making food, washing dishes, or even going out in the very inclement weather that we were having at the time.

It's one of those times that as a mom of two adults, I still look back on with fondness, and they do too. (They *still* don't know how we managed to sneak all their presents past them.)

So yes, Great Wolf Lodge has wonderful memories for me, but Mr. BTEG and I still found it a very relaxing place to recharge this past weekend, so we can hold on until spring weather gets here to Northeast Ohio (Spring Training notwithstanding, Scottius!)

And I'm going to do my absolute best to put content up here every Monday and Thursday! It might be crap content ;), but it won't be doll-related. And no, my doll stuff is not crap, thankyouverymuch! :)

CodeMash 2016

The Evil Genius family got a terrific chance at a basically free vacation, when Mr. BTEG's company arranged to send him to CodeMash, a convention for computer developers, that is held yearly at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH. Mr. BTEG got a four-person room, and since that entitled him to up to four waterpark passes, the Musician, the Dancer, and I came along. It was not only a great opportunity for a vacation, but family participation is encouraged with KidzMash, "a free family track for the spouses and families of attendees."

The Good:
Free-to-us getaway, as noted above

The Musician and the Dancer got time to interact with all kinds of adults in technology fields, and take part in activities such as helping Daddy build a NodeBot. Most of the KidzMash activities were designed for much smaller children, but the girls were very welcome in anything that was not an official lecture or class. The Musician's outgoing and vivacious personality really shone through here. Since the Dancer is still thinking of studying STEM in college, it was a fantastic chance for her to get a closer look at technology opportunities, and meet lots of adults in the field. They also got to do some fun things like play Settlers of Catan.

Parts of the waterpark were really fun. The girls enjoyed the wave pool. I got to ride the Zip Coaster, a kind of roller coaster in a water slide tube, which was fun for this roller coaster enthusiast.

The Bad:

I got bored with the water park very quickly. I enjoy the lazy river ride at Great Wolf Lodge, and expected to find a really great lazy river at Kalahari, since it is a much bigger water park. But it wasn't really any longer than the one at GWL, and it was chilly! GWL likes to stress how warm their waterpark is, and I can see why now that I've been in the Kalahari one. Not only was I shivering in the lazy river, but there are several places where water splashes down on you, which does not help with the chill. Another reason I didn't enjoy the water park as much as I would have liked was because:

The air was very dry. After only several hours in the park, my legs were dry and itchy. I would have liked to have gone on the Zip Coaster again, or tried out a few other things, but I didn't want to make my skin irritation worse. I do have sensitive skin, but even though Mr. BTEG hadn't gone in the water park yet, his hands were drying out after a couple of days. I can see that they would not want to have the area outside the water park feel overly humid, but they went too far and dried the air out too much, especially for the winter months.

The food was so-so. One of the fun things about going to an indoor water park like GWL or Kalahari during the winter months, is that everything is self-contained: your lodging, your meals and entertaining activities. It's great fun not to have to venture out into cold or snow for a few days. I'm a picky eater, but even so, with all the different places to eat in Kalahari, there was nothing special for any of us. We quickly discovered that the food options were essentially the same. The food at the cafe by the arcade was the cheapest and lowest quality; the upscale restaurant was the most expensive and best quality, but that was about it. Mr. BTEG found the catered lunches for attendees much more interesting than the restaurant food. Also frustrating was that one of the restaurants, the buffet, was closed for the week, although the park was at or close to maximum capacity for the entire week. This leads us into:

The Ugly

On Wednesday night, Mr. BTEG, the Dancer, and I went to the mid-priced restaurant to grab something to eat. There was a line to be seated, despite the restaurant being half-empty. The hostess mumbled something about everybody from the convention coming in to eat. Well, what did they expect? They had a very good handle of how many people were at the hotel, given that most people got a water park bracelet. This is the 10th year that the convention has been held at Kalahari. The schedule includes lectures during the day, and social activities at night. Many people are going to come for dinner in between those times. There are a few other outside restaurants in that area, but really, shouldn't Kalahari want you to stay and eat at their places? Plus, as I mentioned above, although the weather has been blessedly snow-free, it was rather cold. It was a very appealing option to just stay inside.

After a wait to be seated, we then had to wait for our waitress, who had probably just come on shift. We sat and watched the line to be seated wax and wane, until we noticed the table behind us was getting food. Unfortunately, the people at that table had decided to leave a while ago. At this point we realized that not only had we ordered our food before that table, but it had been forty minutes since we had ordered, and we hadn't even received our appetizer in that time. The manager did give us our entire meal for free, but the whole thing was just a big mess that should have been avoided by having enough staff on hand.

The first night, the Dancer and I grabbed something small in the cafe that was next to the arcade. It was dimly lit, and there was some kind of pipe making noise the entire time we were there, that made it difficult for the Dancer and I to hold a conversation. The cafe didn't look any brighter any of the other times we walked past it, which we did a lot, because:

You have to walk through the arcade to get to the water park. Not only is this over-the-top marketing to try to get you to play games in the arcade, it was unpleasant to have to wend your way through arcade games to get where you were going, every single time. The Dancer and I especially found all the lights, noises and garish colors to be over-stimulating.

The lazy river decor was literally ugly. There were about ten hyena statues placed at intervals around the lazy river. Hyenas are ugly animals, and that was pretty much all there was to look at going around the lazy river. At one point, there were a couple of hyenas that looked ready to take on an alligator, which wasn't really much fun to look at either. I don't know; it was like they got some hyena statues cheap and just decided to throw them there.


So to sum it up, the girls and Mr. BTEG did have a good time at the CodeMash part of the week. I got bored and came home Wednesday night; they will be there until late tonight. I was expecting Kalahari to be so much more, since it is so much bigger than its neighbor down the street, Great Wolf Lodge, but it really wasn't. It probably is at least more fun in the summer, when all the outdoor activities are open too. It was refreshing to get away for a couple of days at least (we got there Monday night) so there's that.

Work, School, Family

I care a great deal about children and how they are brought up. Yes, it's important to our future, but children can also be so very vulnerable, and a great deal of their future health and habits and outlooks on life can come from their upbringing. Children need people who care about them, love them, look after them.

It's bad enough that the state of California may need to cut some weeks out of its school year, although not surprising given the long record of financial mismanagement. What made me sad was that the first thought seemed to be not, "What about our childrens' education?", but "Who will watch our kids?" Why is this a bigger issue? I just don't understand it, perhaps because I know so many moms who do manage to stay home with their children, and so many families where when both parents work, they also blow a lot of money. Many of the dual-income parents at my daughter's dance school, for example, have two cars, take a lot of vacations, and pick up pizza or fast food for dinner on their way home from a late afternoon crammed with activities. If more moms stayed home, or worked from home, or worked part-time, etc., day-care slots would not be so "scarce." Of course, sometimes both parents do have to work, or sometimes there is only one parent. But the people who really needed help might find it easier if everybody else, who maybe didn't have to, wasn't going to work also.

For that matter, what do these parents do with children over the summer? This question is never answered. Of course a lot of day-care centers, churches, etc. offer "summer camp" which is basically a glorified day-care for older children. I'm sure they'd love the chance to make more money by extending this service. I also find it odd that the one mother quoted solved the problem of a week off in October by taking her children on vacation. She protests however, that she can't take the kids on vacation for five weeks. Strangely, she is not quoted as saying she can't afford it, or she doesn't have that much vacation time, but "How many times can I go to Happy Hollow?" Is this really her biggest concern, or is she poorly quoted? I have, sadly, seen parents who don't really like being around their children. Is this the case here, where they have to be kept busy on vacation or she gets unhappy being at home with them?

The other thing that stands out to me as making this article poorly written, is the quote at the end by a high school sophomore that points out that there is not much work done at the end of a school year anyway. I won't argue that point. My youngest daughter is taking several field trips, having fun days, and spending some extra time in school practicing for end-of-the-year concerts. But if you shorten the school year, you won't really get rid of "that end-of-the-year mentality." You'll just move it up a bit.

There are lots of things to discuss when deciding to shorten the time our children spend on education. I just think this article didn't emphasize the right ones very well, and made me sad about how we look on watching out for our children.

Splashing Surprise

As I type this, I am sitting in the Great Wolf Lodge Resort in Sandusky, Ohio. It's becoming quite a tradition to come to Great Wolf Lodge; we've been here twice before. Both of the previous times were for holidays. The first time we came was Christmas of '04. It doesn't seem that long ago, but the Dancer had "reindeer food" she'd made in her Girl Scout troop that we had to sprinkle on the balcony for Santa's reindeer. It was a *very* cold and snowy Christmas, and it was glorious to spend two days completely indoors, swimming in enveloping warmth, and eating in the restaurants here in the Lodge.

The next time we came here was for Thanksgiving of last year. We had wonderful fun once more, and were thankful for our blessings over a luxurious buffet.

This time, our trip was last minute. We are going up to Adrian, Michigan tomorrow to see our nephew for his 19th birthday, and watch him play in a soccer game. We decided to get a head start on the trip and go part way today. At first, we considered camping, but it has been raining steadily since yesterday. Not good camping weather. If the rain stopped at a reasonable time, we were thinking about spending some time at Cedar Point, and staying on-site there tonight. There are not a lot of hotels between here and Toledo. However, the rain was very persistent, so we decided to come back to the Lodge, where the weather doesn't matter.

We did consider staying at a new indoor water park called Maui Sands. However, we had some questions about their rooms (their website is awful), and we called three times without them answering their phone. Mr. BTEG and I really don't want to work that hard for the privilege of giving someone else our money, so we went back to the tried-and-true. The water park at Maui Sands does sound tempting, so we drove by on the way here. It looks like perhaps it opened too early. Basically what they did was take over a Holiday Inn Express and add some rooms and the water park. They haven't scraped all the Holiday Inn Express signs off the building which doesn't look so good. Also, even though the rooms looked good online, when we got there, the hotel just looked plain boring on the outside. It just didn't look very nice. Plus, they allow day passes at Maui Sands, whereas we're snobby and prefer the exclusivity of a resort. :) So back to Great Wolf Lodge we came.

Tomorrow we head off for Michigan. Hope it doesn't rain.

Beautiful View

Here are a couple of views of Amish country from the room at our hotel.


I tried to upload video from Wildchild's dance rehearsal to Photobucket but it kept crashing my browser, so it is not to be for now. Tomorrow is the big recital!

Glad to Be Home

After two very full days, and a drive through heavy rain, we are home again, and glad to be here. Husband and I had a very good time out in the country. I loved shopping for fabric and yarn, and I'll take some pictures of my "loot" to share over the next couple of days.

Our daughters had a good time with their aunt and uncle, and their aunt took them to a few museums that I can add to their homeschool list. :)

I'm tired, but very happy after the good time we had. I think Husband and I really needed the time away, and it was nice to make some more memories together.

Catching Up... Again

Mr. Evil Genius and I have been busy packing up boxes and printing out shipping labels and making runs to the post office. Which fortunately is very close to our house. It's a good thing I accepted international bidders, as many of my eBay bidders are from other countries: Italy, Sweden, England, Norway and as far away as New South Wales, Australia. My items mailed "in country" also seemed to be going about as far away from Ohio as possible: Texas, Florida and California.

Mr. Evil Genius and I are also preparing for a little trip together to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. We leave on Wednesday and will be back late on Friday, and the girls will be staying with my sister-in-law and her husband. I'm trying to get some more clothes sewn up for the girls and I. I've finally managed to get back seriously into my sewing room, after my bad time in the winter. Right now, I'm working on a swim suit for Wildchild. I hate sewing swim suits, as I have a hard time sewing the elastic so the tension is even all the way around, and my machine has difficulty at times getting over the seam bumps and the elastic bumps where the elastic was sewed together. I want to take a picture or two of my latest creations, but the camera lens needs cleaned, and we can't find any "proper" cleaning cloths here at home that won't scratch the lens. Oh, the little things that get in our way sometimes.

I'm hoping the camera will be ready by the time Mr. Evil Genius and I leave; we're going to Amish country, by the way. Ohio has a large population of Amish, and I love the countryside and the shopping. I'm very much looking forward to the trip.

Be It Ever So Humble

Well, I think it was a very good vacation, since I'm very glad to be back at home and having a go at real life again. Well, tomorrow, anyway. I'm worn out! Great Wolf Lodge is a pretty nice place. The rooms are nice; the waterpark is nice; the food prices are reasonable although the drink prices were kind of high.

We checked out nearby Kalahari Waterpark on the way out. It's *enormous* but then they claim to be the largest indoor waterpark anywhere. It seemed a bit overwhelming; I don't know if we'd enjoy it or not. I thought Sandusky, with three indoor waterparks and another one being built, had a lot of indoor water action until I read that Wisconsin Dells has 18! Wow! I also discovered that Sandusky was going to get a fifth waterpark, Coyote Falls, but Ohio was not willing to put up as much money to help with construction as Rhode Island will. To be honest, I don't see why any state or municipality should help with a private money-making venture such as an indoor waterpark. If it's not a feasible enough venture for a investor to pay, why should public funds be used? Of course, I'm glad that Sandusky is doing well and seems to be becoming a real resort area. It's a nice thing to have, and only a half hour or so away!