The other thing I love about the summer is family vacations.  This year, we were fortunate enough to go to the beach (the “shore”) and to Disney World.  We went to the beach with my parents and nephew, and we went to Disney with my inlaws.  Both trips were fantastic, so I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures.

Nothing like starting the first day of vacation with a little PILE ON!:

Here’s Hans and Franz getting ready for the beach:

Here they are trying to pump (*clap*) me up:

After a few hours at the beach, it’s always fun to take a ride on a Pirate Ship:

The kids enjoyed hunting crabs with Nana:

Pop is really good at making me smile:

Nighttime at the beach is fun too, especially at the carnival:

Chani even talked Lori into riding the Himalaya:

It was great to get away and spend time with family at the Shore:

A few weeks later, we headed down to Disney World:

We saw Mickey and Minnie:

And, we ran into Tigger too!:

Grammy and Pop Pop always make things a big (fun) Hoopty Doo!:

And, we got to celebrate a birthday too – Happy Birthday Grammy!:

We almost lost Chani in a rogue rocket accident:

Fortunately, we made friends with someone at Star Command who brought us back together:

To make sure no one got lost, Lori decided to dress all of the girls alike:

Meanwhile, me and Ty got roped into some monkey business:

All-in-all, it was a Magical adventure enjoyed by all:

School starts next week, which means fall is right around the corner.  Our family had a great time this summer, and I hope yours did too!  Please read below for how you can share your favorite summer photos.

If you have a blog, feel free to write a similar post about your summer adventures.  Share your favorite summer pictures too.  Link back to this post, so me and all of the readers of Discovering Dad can share in the fun.  I’m already looking for ideas of fun family things to do for next summer!

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I live in Southern California. There are a LOT of people here, and the population grows exponentially every year. Traffic worsens, smog thickens and violence increases. Why don’t I just come right out and say it? It is packed full-o-people. One would be hard-pressed to find an Angeleno who would actually sign their name to the statement “Yeah, I think LA could handle a few more. It’s kind of boring and quiet here, really. Plus, I’m tired of getting to work so fast. I need the extra time in my car to think!”

Yet I continue to witness people having more and more children, and can’t help but wonder why? I myself have one child, but would be more than happy with two. After that my wife and I will call it quits. I’m not suggesting that two kids is the magic number, but I am saying that the birth rate in LA needs to be brought under control.

There are a number of personal reasons for my belief in this issue which I believe apply nationally, if not globally, as well:

1. Financial. In my own personal situation, I would simply not be able to support any more than two children and provide for my family the lifestyle and opportunities that I wish them to have. I believe that we are all responsible for evaluating our own financial situation and balancing dependents against what’s fiscally possible. If you are a billionaire, have at it, at least as it pertains to this particular point. But if you will knowingly need financial support from outside parties and entities, would it not be better to wait until you can provide the resources necessary to give the child a fair shot and the best possible opportunity in life.

2. Environmental. Can we all at least agree that global warming is at least partly a reality now? I don’t need Al Gore or the Internet to convince me. I can see it. I can see it happening all around me. We are slow to react to this phenomenon because of its gradual nature. If, when I moved to LA 15 years ago I had awoken one day to find that the air quality, crime rate increase and population increase seen over the last 15 years had happened overnight I would have high-tailed it out of here in a split second. Overcrowding and overpopulating is the primary factor contributing to the rapidly-increasing degradation of our forests and environment in general. If you think that having ten kids in Detroit can’t possibly affect the Amazon Rainforest, click here. Global warming is simply the Earth eliminating toxin from itself the way our bodies eliminate a virus. Even if we all have 10 kids each, sooner or later at that rate good old Mother Earth will cure herself of the “human flu.”

3. Philanthropic. Its easy to argue that you do have enough money to support a large family and that you use compact fluorescent bulbs in your house and drive a Prius to work every day. But there’s another factor that I believe is much less tangible than the ones listed above. Human charity. I live in Los Angeles, yes. We have a severe homeless crisis. Our public schools are typically in the Top 10 worst in the country in national test averages, drop out rate, gang violence and illiteracy. The picture is pretty grim, right? Wrong. LA is Easy Street compared to other areas in the world. Bangladesh. Pakistan. Ethiopia. The list goes on and on. These countries represent our future. Imagine a human race that was able to sustain itself globally, rather than nationally. Imagine if, when deciding whether or not to add another child to the family, we stopped to think about how much resource could be contributed to people suffering in OTHER parts of the world first by opting not to. In theory, the human race would be able to regulate itself, instead of panicking when Mother Nature decides its time to do it herself.

I thought a long time before writing this post and, to be honest, I almost didn’t do it. My concern is that it may erupt into a hotbed of criticism and negativity. This is not my intention. No, this post was born out of a sadness I feel within from time to time. A sadness that comes from hearing that my neighbor’s oldest son (one of many) has no hearing in his left ear because he was gang-beaten to within an inch of his life in an LAUSD school when he was eight. EIGHT. Two or three less kids and a safer, private school would have been an option. Or, even better, two or three less kids and perhaps a teacher or parent at this school may have had just a bit more time in his impossible schedule to spend with the kids who administered the attack, maybe preventing it from happening in the first place. Two or three less kids in more than one of the families with students that attend that school and perhaps the parents would have had a bit more time to spend on their own children, preventing not only this brutal act, but others as well; potentially breaking the chain and leading to a safer and more eco-friendly existence, as well as benefiting the human race as a whole.

What do you think is the right number of kids to have? How many are too many kids per family?

Matt Pfingsten is a Contributing Writer for Discovering Dad. His personal site is The Playpen. You can also connect with Matt via Twitter @mattredsparks.

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My family and I just returned from two weeks of vacation. I barely survived it.

Two years ago we relocated from Minneapolis to Portland, OR, for a job, leaving behind family and friends. Being apart from family has been very hard on my wife and kids, and so it was with great anticipation that we boarded an airplane and flew our family of five across the country.

For those of you who have to travel far to see family, you know how hard it can be. There are always high expectations, and inevitably, there are moments of tremendous disappointment when those expectations aren’t met. We had a tight agenda for our visit—our first trip back since last summer—and were unprepared for the pestilence of strep throat that sidelined us for most of the first week.

Sonny duels with his cousin.

With Mommy and our five-year-old daughter stricken with strep, I was responsible for keeping our three-year-old twin boys alive, something that I take for granted when I am at home and working most of the time. After the better part of three days, they were angry and I was ready to die. I kept thinking, if only I could get back to work for a bit of rest! During this time, we split our nights between my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law’s houses.

Like many fathers, I am in a passive-aggressive duel with my mother-in-law. She is a wonderful woman, and we have a great time ribbing each other and cackling like lunatics with shared twisted senses of humor. However, she can drive me into a rage in the flash of an instant when she begins to undercut my authority as The Dad. My MIL is always snacking on something: cookies, suckers, candy, soda pop—whatever—and when my kids are around, she is constantly filling their pie holes with crap! When I ask her politely not to “feed the animals,” I am suddenly a controlling troll of a dad. Nevertheless, she will usually ignore me and continue to pass out the goods.

Connie with her cousin

I digress. As the creeping death loosened its grip on my sickly better half, we began to re-examine our social plans, cutting out some of the visits that now were lower-priority. The middle part of our trip was to be spent in Northern Minnesota, where my wife and I both grew up. There, we would again split our nights between two houses: my mother’s, and her father’s. My mother lives deep in The Woods, and routinely has wild bears and deer walk up to her picture window. You’re also likely to find my dead father’s coffee mug right where he left it on the table thirteen years ago, which can make for an emotional atmosphere. My father-in-law is remarried, and lives in his new wife’s town home, and at times we feel as though we are imposing on her family when we stay there.

Throw in the visits with both of our grandparents—all of whom are struggling in their health—and you have the makings of one hell of a trial for three little kids! Before we’d even reached the halfway point, the boys were both ready to go home. Ah, another wrinkle: This was the first time that “home” was Portland, and not Minnesota, a development that we were ultimately glad to see, but it carried an undeniable emotional weight for my wife.

Michael catches a bullhead with grandpa

After returning to the Twin Cities for the final days of our trip, I was pretty eager to get back to our house, with our own toys, our own beds, and our own cats. It was great to see our family members, and we were constantly reminded of what we have given up by moving far away: cousins running around together in play; Grandpa’s visits to soccer practice; hanging out on Saturday morning watching deer out of Grandma’s picture window; hearing stories from my grandparents about my father’s childhood, and watching their moist eyes stare at my young kids with joy and amazement. These were all things that we took for granted when we lived here.

I was reminded of how important the trip was to our family, and of how important it was that I keep my attitude positive throughout. Next time, I must do better. It takes so much energy (not to mention money) to take the family on a long trip, and it was so terribly important for my wife to see her family, and for both of our families to see how our children have grown in body and in mind. Despite the many barriers thrown in our path, it was a wonderful trip.

Thank goodness we don’t need to do it again until next summer though!

Get to know more about Josh by visiting Raging Dad and subscribing to his feed.

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Personally, I don’t like to swim in the Ocean.  When I was a teenager, my cousin and I were body surfing in Myrtle Beach.  A storm was about to roll in and the red flags were up.  This meant that there were no life guards on duty and you were not supposed to go swimming.  The waves were huge and the water was brown and murky from all of the sand being stirred up.  In other words, it was perfect conditions for two stupid teenagers to go for a swim.

The waves pounded the crap out of us, but we kept on going out for more.  After about an hour, there was a lull in the action, apparently the calm before the big storm hit.  My cousin and I were standing about ten feet apart from each other when it happened.  Bam! My cousin got knocked off balance.

Then I saw it.

A six foot shark was in the water between us, and it was heading straight for me.  How did I know it was six feet? Because it was about the same size as us.  Bam! The shark hit my leg with it’s fin too, knocking me back a few feet in the water.  Panic set-in like I’ve never experienced before, and we walked on water out of there.  Fortunately, we weren’t that far from shore, and the water was only about four feet deep.

We probably should have known better to be out there alone, especially since we were swimming right next to the pier where a world record for the largest tiger shark ever caught on rod-and-reel happened (Cherry Grove).

Anyway, that’s why I don’t like to swim in the ocean, unless I can see everything around me.  Or, like when I was in the Coast Guard and sailed across the Atlantic and we stopped in the dead center for a swim call, only crew members were posted along the bow and stern with rifles just in case.  Even then, I jumped in and got out quickly.  The only times I have really enjoyed swimming in the ocean are when we’ve gone snorkeling or diving in the Caribbean, but that’s another story altogether.

Back to Ocean City and the family vacation.

I played with Ty a lot on this trip.  We built sand castles; we went for walks; we swam in the outdoor pool; we swam in the indoor pool; we walked for several miles each morning (he rode – I pushed the stroller); and, we got to explore the parking lot of every restaurant we went to while everyone else ate.  As long as we were doing an activity, Ty was awesome!  As soon as we stopped to do something else, he pitched a fit.  Typical 2-year-old stuff.

In addition to the beach, we also went down to the boardwalk two of the nights.  If you’ve never been to the boardwalk in Ocean City, it’s like going to a carnival only you’re at the beach.  There are tons of rides and games, as well as shops and food stands.  It is a decades old remnant of the past, but it’s nostalgic in a fun way.

Ty and his little cousin got a chance to go on some rides by themselves for the first time ever, since both of them had finally exceeded the 36 inch tall requirement.  It was fun seeing them experience both fear and exhilaration, and it really made me think how the last two years have flown by for us.  Ty is getting to be a big boy now.

In between the sand castles, carnival rides and meltdowns, the best thing about this short vacation was that we added dozens of new and exciting family memories to call upon and remember when we get older.  I’m not sure if Ty will recall the fun we had, but we did take a bunch of pictures to remind him – here’s a few of them:

Daddy and Ty building sand castles

Daddy and Ty say Hello from Ocean City

Mama and Caitlin lounging

We squeezed into the caboose at the boardwalk carnival

Ty (right) and his little cousin on the teacup ride

Ty (right) and his cousin on the roller coaster

Ty on the red shark airplane

Ty four wheelin, bouncy fun

Daddy and Ty on the caterpillar coaster

Fun times at the beach and boardwalk!

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We went up to the mountains a few weekends ago. We had the opportunity to rent a quaint little cabin form a friend of Aline’s on the cheap, so we jumped on it. If you have never spent time in the Angeles Forest, I recommend it. I’ve seen a lot of the U.S. landscape, and the California mountains are beautiful and unique in a way that few areas rival. It’s not beautiful by traditional standards, rather magical in a haunting, strange sort of way.

The first day was a bust. There was no air conditioning in the cabin and it was hot. Damn hot. We found ourselves irritable and angry, and Frankie was too. I can’t really explain why, but it seems to take us a full day of vacation to really settle in to what the local area has to offer. I’ll never forget the concierge on our honeymoon in Maui looking over the table at my feet the day we got there. He looked up at me, raised his eyebrows and said with a sarcastic tone, “Nice boots.” The boots were replaced with flip-flops the next day.

We chalked the first day at the cabin up as a loss and went to bed slightly frustrated.

Thankfully, the next day was different. We woke up feeling acclimated and ready to explore. There was a local fair in town and, after a fluffy, buttery pancake breakfast we decided to go adventuring.

Our daughter Frankie was beside herself. Everyone there had a dog, which meant lots of petting, licking and running around. They had funnel cakes, Hawaiian-flavored Ice (she got hers in a blue toucan cup with an extra-long straw) and pony rides. Frankie formed an immediate attachment to a dilapidated white pony named Snowball, who twitched when you stroked her mane. Oh, how she rode. The only way we could peel her off of that horse was by promising her that there were bigger and better things in store around the next corner of booths, which in reality turned out to be a bunch of rhinestone-studded belt buckles with bald eagles on them and double-barreled shotgun cigarette lighters. Not our cup of tea, but it didn’t matter.

After a fun-filled day, we had a near perfect night. There was a small grill in the yard behind our cabin. I had scoffed at it the day before when I was City Boy Matt, but now it seemed appropriate. We opened up all the windows to the cabin and started dinner. Everyone was sun-kissed, lazy and happy. Aline lounged at the picnic table out back, sipping a margarita and flipping through a magazine.  Our dog laid on her side, legs outstretched, eyes closed under the patio roof. I prepared dinner, while Frankie “gardened” in the dirt. We didn’t have a care in the world – it was the complete opposite from the day before.

We finished dinner and I brewed coffee. Dusk in California is one of my favorite times of day. The sun sets over the mountains and everything is bathed in a bluish light. It gets quiet, too. Especially when you’re away from the city. I heard the echoing tok-tok-tok of a woodpecker carried by the wind. Frankie was sitting in a white plastic chair reading her orange bear book. She was happy.

These are rare moments when you have a family and everyone is content. Willie Nelson played softly in the background, muffled, as if we were listening to the music played in the gym of a high school dance from a distance. I went over to Frankie, gently picked her up, and we danced.

Stardust was playing. One of my favorite songs. It drips with nostalgia. I couldn’t help but feel warm, happy…maybe even a bit emotional. I welled up with love for my family as my daughter laid her head on my shoulder, her hand tightening on my fingers ever so slightly. I glanced over at Aline, who had closed her magazine and was watching us.  She had a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

The sun had gone down and was replaced by a warm, gentle breeze.  It blew the thin wisps of Aline’s hair that covered her cheek ever so slightly. One of these wisps got caught in her long, dark lashes, and it struck me: after twelve years, her beauty continues to amaze me. Frankie was drifting cozily off to sleep and, as she did, I couldn’t help but wonder if we hadn’t, at that very moment, created a memory that she would cherish forever.

This was a rare experience. They don’t happen very often. For some, they never happen. My family was lucky enough to have one, though, and I will never forget it.

What experiences have you had with your wife and/or children that you will never forget?  What about experiences that they will never forget? Please share your stories in the comments.

If you’d like to learn more about Matt and Aline, I recommend visiting their site and subscribing to their feed.

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