Family firsts

As the last week of July rambled by us, the boys of the McCarthy family had some first time experiences! For Nathan, it was the start of of his first physical therapy since breaking his leg. Liesel and I were very surprised with his orthopedic doctor did not mention anything about him needing any physical therapy after being in a cast for 8 weeks. In these weeks post-cast, we noticed that Nathan had a strange limp, and even with some coaching from his parents, it never improved. So Liesel took him to his pediatrician, and she agreed with us and referred him for some physical therapy. On Monday, Nath went for his first session, and the therapist immediately noticed that his right hamstring was much tighter than the left. One of the measurements she took was the angle between the upper and lower leg. The average is 10 degrees, but Nathan's right leg measured 58 degrees. She worked with him during the session and he really enjoyed. She also gave him exercises to do at home twice a day, that should help his leg.
Nathan also started with one on one swimming lessons this week. He had two lessons and his confidence level since last year has improved 200%. He is loving the water and is very keen to learn the correct technique to use in the pool! So on Saturday afternoon, while Liesel and Josh napped, Nath and I headed to our gym's wimming pool so he could show me what he has been learning. We had a great time together in the pool as he showed me the different floats, some new strokes, and his new found confidence in jumping into the pool!

Josh's first is a lot more daunting to parents as he takes his first strides towards becoming potty-trained! He has shown some great enthusiasm after successfully using the potty. Liesel has been quite creative in thinking of various awards to offer him after "going" successfully. One of his rewards was a trip to our local library, one of his favorite places. We went there on Saturday morning, and gave him plenty of free time to enjoy himself in the play area, picking out DVDs and playing on the computer! This also gave Liesel some time to browse and get a batch of new book and DVDs for the boys to enjoy during the week. Josh is progressing pretty well, with more successes than accidents at the moment :) Hopefully, the accidents will become few and further apart! Ah, what a wonderful thought it would be to finally have him diaper-independent!!!

Nath enjoying the "store" at the library!

Now, it's time for my first...........
Unlike Nathan and Josh's experiences, mine is not in any way encouraging, flattering or positive. In my case, I believe (for the first time ever) that I have fractured a bone! Luckily it's not a heavily utilized bone such as the tibia, fibula or any other significant bone. The bone in question in my fourth toe on my left foot! I also do not have a glamorous story related to this fracture. I wish I could say if was a sporting injury, or a car rode over my foot, but I can't. You see, we have this gate at the entrance to our living room (which my mom should know very well now), which protects our valuable electronics and games from our own Hurricane Josh. Well, at lunch time, I needed to get something out of the living room, and this gate that I have navigated flawlessly hundred's of times before, stood it's ground as my foot swung over it. Somehow, I miscalculated the height of the gate for the first time in history, and my three small toes had a direct impact with the corner of the gate and the wall.  Since then, the small and middle toes have returned to normal, but toe #4 is badly swollen and is excruciating painful to the touch! Even now, hours later, as I type this with the toes strapped, the pain is significant! I am really hoping that by strapping it securely, I will be able to get through my beach volleyball games tomorrow without too much agony :-O!!

Thunderstorms & workout torture

After a week with extremely high temperatures that reached into the lower 100's (39C+), I did not mind being woken up early on Saturday morning by thunder and lightning! That morning, we had two decent downpours before I got up at 7:30am! The rain (at least temporarily) brought the temperatures down to a more comfortable level. Once everybody was up and ready, we headed to our gym for our regular Saturday morning workout. We arrived in time for a workout class, one that we haven't taken for a while. The good news is, I survived the class. The bad news is that I now have several muscle groups that are very unhappy with me....

After the workout class, we stopped at a nursery on the way home. It was actually a fun family outing, walking up and down the various "lanes", with Josh shouting, "Wow! Look at the flowers! They're beautiful!"
By that afternoon, the sun was shining again, and with all the moisture around, it was extremely humid. Thankfully, the pool is available to us to escape the heat and humidity. All four of us spent time in the water, seeking some relief from yet another scorching summer's day. I later fired up the grill and we had our dinner outside on the patio. During the meal we noticed the clouds building up on the horizon again. As soon as everyone had finished we moved inside, and not more than five minutes later, thunderstorm number four made its presence known!

Sunday morning was a typical one with us attending a church service in the morning. When we got home around lunch time, I mowed the lawn for the first time since my mother left! Having a pool in the back garden to jump into afterwards, made the experience much more tolerable! A little later, we went for a family bike ride around the neighborhood, and afterwards, the boys headed straight to the pool again. Liesel had arranged a babysitter who arrived right after the boys had their dinner, allowing us to go on one of our rare date nights! We headed to Crocker Park and had a delicious dinner at one of the restaurants. Afterward, we browsed through a local bookstore that was closing down. Liesel could have spent all night there, but since we wre paying the babysitter by the hour, I almost had to forcefully drag her from the store! Overall, it was another great summer weekend in Ohio!

Summer is alive and well!

Before I share about our weekend, I want to give you an update of the world's unluckiest air passenger!
As you know, my mother left us on Monday morning to start her 44 hour trek back to South Africa. She left Cleveland without any hassles on her first flight to Columbus. However, the flight she was supposed to board from Columbus to Washington DC did not arrive on time, due to severe thunderstorms in the Chicago area, it's origin. The gate agents recommended that my mom catch another two flights to guarantee her arrival in Washington DC, so reluctantly, my mother flew into New York City, and then finally into Washington DC! Unfortunately, her suitcase did not make it to Washington DC in time for her transatlantic flight!!! So she boarded the flight to London, knowing that her suitcase was lost in the USA. To make a long story short, her suitcase was found and finally delivered to her home in South Africa on Friday, but a gift she bought my sister in the USA, was missing :( Moral of the story: Don't go overseas with my mother :)

As for the McCarthy family, we spent a lot of times outdoors and in the pool this weekend. With temperatures in the 90s (33C+).  We did the healthy thing first thing on Saturday morning, and went to the gym for a workout.  The rest of the day we spent at home. That afternoon we all lent a hand in washing our cars, then jumped in the pool again, before I got out to grill some hamburgers for dinner!

On Sunday morning, we tried out a different church, which the boys seemed to enjoy. I enjoyed the worship and the two girls on the worship team had stunning voices. Later that afternoon, the boys headed to the pool again before dinner. After dinner, we had planned out family fun event for the weekend, which was going on a bicycle ride with our good friends, the Bosley's. We headed to the Westlake Recreation center and did a couple of laps around the facility. Afterward we stopped at an ice cream store and enjoyed a few bowl's of ice cream together! It was such a stunning evening as we sat outside enjoying our frozen treats, with the temperature still above 85 (30C) at 9pm!

And that was another weekend where we were blessed with stunning summer weather! Tomorrow evening I will be playing in the finals of our 4-person sand volleyball league, and the temperature again is expected to be above 90 degrees (33C+)!!! Bring it on!

All good things must come to an end :(

The time has come, and unfortunately for us, it's time for my mom to return to wintry South Africa. The 19 days we spent together just flew by, which is the universal indicator that we were having fun! Having arrived back from the Surfside adventure last Sunday, we spent this week hanging out at some our favorite local spots.
Monday: we spent the day at home and hitting a few clothing stores for some great Fourth of July sales.
Tuesday: we headed to Lake Erie's Huntington Beach where we waded in the fresh waters of the lake and the boys enjoyed playing in the sand.

Wednesday: The day Nathan got his gran to ride on her first roller coaster ever! We went to Memphis Park, an amusement park that caters mostly for children 5 and under. However they do have the oldest steel roller-coaster in North America, which is in fact, a very tame roller-coaster, but it is still classified as a roller-coaster!

Thursday: Spent the morning at the Cleveland Metro Parks Zoo. This is Josh's absolute favorite place in the world!

Friday: Playing in the water at the pop jets at Crocker Park. Nathan, Josh, and even "Granny Mom" enjoyed running through the sprays and jets and getting wet! That evening, the adults returned for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

Saturday: Picnic at Bradley Nature Park, which included catching some fish for Nathan's fish tank!
Sunday: Spent the morning at a playground close to Lake Erie in Lakewood. The afternoon, my mom took Nathan (and me) to watch Cars 2 at the local theater.
And in what seems like a blink of an eye, her vacation is over and life has to return to normal in the McCarthy household. Thanks for coming to vacation with us mom - we had all had a blast!

Heaven is... a golf cart community!

Apologies for the lack of recent blog posts, but we have just returned from an epic vacation in South Carolina with my mom! Liesel had booked us into a holiday house, that was literally 500 ft (150m) from the beach. It was also situated in Oceanside Village, which happens to be a golf cart community. So, waiting for us at the holiday house, was our very golf cart to use for the duration of our stay there! It seated 5 (3 facing forward, 2 backward). You have no idea how little electric vehicle made our vacation so much more enjoyable!! For example, in the morning, we would load beach chairs, an umbrella, boogie board, life vests, beach bag and more onto this cart, and then drive it out of the community, across the road and straight to reserved parking for golf carts, that is right up against the beach! So we would only have to carry these beach accessories for about 100ft (30m), from the golf cart parking to the perfect spot on the beach! After spending time in the waves, the sand and the sunshine - we would reload the golf cart and head back to the community, and head straight to the warm outdoor pool! Again, there is reserved golf cart parking right next to the pool gate! Once we had our fair share of fresh water, we would head back to the house for Lunch. The golf cart also transported us to the playground, the indoor pool, and the tennis courts! Life was so easy in Oceanside Village!

There were so many fun things that we did, that instead of boring you with pages of descriptions, I will list a few of our highlights.

• Feeding the ducks
• Extreme adventure golf
• Impromptu donut stops
• Helicopter rides!!!
• Boogie boarding
• Indoor swimming pool
• Free ice cream
• Eating fudge
• Fishing
• Sandcastles

Finally, take a look at the slide show below for a better idea of what we got up to over the last week!