Summer With Jack

I arrived at home this morning at 10 AM and said goodbye to Natty and Andy as they left for Alaska with their mom.  That is a hard goodbye for me.  It is simply part of being a divorced parent though I don't know that any parent could truly enjoy saying goodbye to their kids.  I am sure there are some, I just don't relate to them.  Well, this summer is a little different because Jack decided he did not want to go to Alaska and from what I gathered when they came home last summer he had the support of his mother in this decision.  And so he remained with me today when Natty and Andy drove off down the road.  And so the summer with Jack begins.  The first thing he wanted to do was have me take a picture of him in the car.  Not sure what he wanted done with that picture but I took it and he was happy.  I guess we can save it here.

We moved on to cleaning the house for a bit.  That took a while.  Threw a lot of stuff away.  Papers from the school year that there is really no reason to keep.  Sometimes the amount of paperwork that gets sent home can be overwhelming and I am not fast enough to throw away the junk fearing that there may be something in it that is important and I may need to refer back to it.  That never happens but I accumulate junk and just need to have a day where I can toss things out.  It feels good.

We went in to the Brick House for work and I managed to get some things done while Jack hung out and watched some videos.  We had a chef come in yesterday from US Foods and he made a salmon dish for us that was fantastic.  I am not a fish fan but quite loved this fish.  He served it on a bed of spinach - cooked spinach that was phenomenal.  Today I decided to give the dish a try.  I have to say that I think I pulled it off.  Not quite as perfect as the chef but I didn't do too bad.  Got the fish a little done on the ends so I need to watch my time a little closer on that one but ultimately it was very tasty and full of the flavors like the dish yesterday.  Since I am in to pictures today I will share this shot off the dish.

It was really quite good.  I had a couple of employees try it and they were impressed with how well it turned out.  I might have to become more of a fish eater if I can make it taste that good.

One of the things I told Jack when he said he was staying in Cedar this summer was that he would be going on hikes with me and he would not be allowed to complain about them.  He agreed.  There was no time like the present to get him on the trail so we went out to the C-trail this evening and gave it a go.  We went prepared to knock out some requirements for scouts.  The hike up and down to the C is over 8 miles.  We were going for it and got 2.5 miles up when the boy decided he could go no further.  Actually, he was ready to quit a short way in and I had to use the art of persuasion to keep him going.  I kindly reminded him of the agreement made and the no whining part.  Eventually we got past the whining, which was really nice.  I had to push him to make it to the next marker - there were benches along the way.  He made it.  Sometimes it seemed to take forever to get from one bench to the other but we got there.  We were running out of daylight at the last bench before the top and that was where we turned around.  A 5 mile hike is not a bad little run.  The boy did good.  Here are a couple of shots of him on the trail.

It was a good hike and a good way to kick off the summer.  The first of many hikes to come as we make our way through the next several weeks.  We did get to hike out in the dark for the last half mile or so.  Good times.