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In the car last night Austen is telling us all about the Halloween dance that’s coming up at school. This will be her first dance in middle school. ALL the kids are going. Someone told her about past dances so she’s relaying that info as well. As usual, her younger sister Erin has the line of the night.

Austen, “I heard that the deejay sucks.”
Me, “Uh . . . I don’t think that’s the word you should . . .”
Austen, “Oh, yeah . . . he stinks.”
Me, “Well I’m not sure . . .”
Austen, “Can you believe he played the Hokey Pokey?”
Erin, “If he plays the Hokey Pokey ‘I’d slap him all about’“

Miniature Golf. I used to love miniature golf, now not so much. I’m not sure where or when I stopped giving mini the love. Lots of standing around, kind of expensive for the experience, worrying about that family of 39 jackals that seem to be behind us at every course. I hate it when they start encroaching on us when I’m trying to size up a fairly tough windmill hole. “Hey, do you mind . . . a little quiet in the gallery please.”

Imagine my unmitigated joy when ALL the mini love came flooding back in one big fell swoop. I speak of The Perils of the Lost Jungle miniature golf course in Herndon, Virginia. You can find it at Woody’s Golf Range. It’s a real nice place, hitting range, batting cages and of course the best mini golf going.

Austen near the Mummy's Tomb.

My girls are nuts about The Lost Jungle. You really have to go and play it to see what I’m raving about. Check out a few pics I took on our last visit. The animatronics really separate this place from the run-of-the-mill astroturf lame ass courses that I grew to dislike. There’s a nod to Bogey from The African Queen on one hole, a witch doctor, a pith-helmeted jungle explorer on others. You can walk through a tomb with a mummy laying in it.  Want a pygmy blow dart guy taking a shot at you? check. Want a gator to rise up out of a lagoon to take a chomp at you? check. There’s a tree full of monkeys that have broken into some hooch and are happily swigging away. There’s a cave with bats hanging down from the ceiling. There’s a skeleton stuck in quicksand, a hissing cobra, and much more.

The Mummy at The Perils of the Lost Jungle mini golf

It’s not cheap at $9.25 for adults and $8.00 for kids but hey, it’s fun and it’s outside. Note that you can’t just walk the course with your kids or “share” a putter between two peeps. They’re onto that move, everyone that goes in the jungle pays. Don’t worry, it’s worth it. Sorry I’m late with this review, if you can’t get out there soon, tuck the info away for the spring and summer. Call before you go because they do close the jungle when it gets cold. Now, if I can just hit that ten footer without taking a spear in the ass.

Austen and I jump into Lisa’s car to go to softball practice. The radio is tuned to a country station and the singer is singing something about God.

Austen, “Wow, country music people must really like God, they always sing about him. It’s like they worship God like a . . .”
Me, “A God?”
Austen, “Yeah.”

It’s raining this morning so I’m driving Austen to the bus stop 2 blocks away. Hey, it’s raining hard, leave me alone. Of course she wants to stand in the rain and look cool. Uh, no. I did the same shit, “What? I don’t wanna wear a coat to school. (Insert Mom reason #37) So? I don’t care if it’s 43 degrees out . . . my coat makes me hot.” (Read uncool)

And now here I am :-)

Anyway, while we’re killing time waiting for the bus Austen asks how the Skins are doing overall this preseason. She watched some of the brutal beatdown last week, a loss to Carolina 47-3. I said we were 3-0 before that. I then uttered something like, “man did we get killed”. And that started a list of variable terms on the Redskins beating.

Me, “slaughtered”
Austen, “liquidated”
Erin, “beat”
Me, “eviscerated”
Austen, “smashed”
Erin, “creamed”
Me, “pureed”
Austen, “all isn’t well”
Erin, “whipped”
Me, “stomped”
Austen, “exposed”
Erin, “crushed”
Me, “blasted”
Austen, “emotionally scarred”
Erin, “crying to their mommies”
Me, “sliced and diced”
Austen, “frappéd”

And then the bus came.

We’re talking about real ice cream here kids. No Slenderita in sight at the University of Maryland Dairy. This is one of our favorite places to get ice cream. We like our ice cream here at The Dad Report. The trouble is the hours of operation make it tough to frequent. Open only Monday through Friday from 10am to 4pm. That’s a tough pull for most working adults.

If you can make it, its definitely worth the effort. Washington Times writer Karen Goff just wrote a nice article on “The Dairy”. I’m really pleased she did because the place is so unknown outside the school. I hope more people will make the effort to go. My favorite flavor is Fear the Turtle. Oooohhhh, white chocolate with caramel and pecan goodness. It is hard to explain how good it is so I won’t try except to say this is creamy ice cream with tons of flavor. Erin always goes for the super flavorful lime sorbet. (I know, sorbet in a great ice cream place) Austen usually tries a different ice cream flavor each time. ALL of it is great.

The Dairy is located right off of Route 1, next to the UMD Visitors Center. There is a small parking lot right there, but pay attention to those 30 minute meters or that $3 ice cream will quickly become extremely expensive.

My best friend and his beautiful wife just had a gorgeous little girl, naturally launching my lovely wife Lisa into baby gift buying action. Actually she launched months ago only then we didn’t know boy or girl, just baby. We were heading back from the Takoma Park Farmer’s Market when we saw a beautiful new store on Carroll Avenue.

“Oh my god, this is EXACTLY the kind of store I’d love to have”, so said Lisa when we stepped inside The Pajama Squid. This is truly the type of store that a staid and pretty boring Takoma Park needs. The PS is smart and tastefully designed with a well thought out selection of toys and gifts. Do not miss the excellent array of childrens books. We even met the owner’s husband, very nice guy.

After perusing the entire store (and taking into account our daughters numerous suggestions) we settled on a super soft striped baby elephant. I had my eye on the music box, was overruled. Something about not knowing the theme of the room, the baby’s sex . . . yeahbut . . . yeahbut . . . it’s a music box . . .

So get down to The Pajama Squid today. Right now. Go. The owner Tiffany is just giving parking money away. What are you waiting for? Huh? Oh, yes you can order online. You have no excuse now for not supporting a great local resource.

Our Sunday mornings in the summer usually start with Einstein Bagels and Starbucks Coffee. Well, actually for me it’s a blueberry muffin and a grande Diet Coke. What? Diet Coke with sweets, uh yeah. In fact, there is nothing better than a stack of pancakes and a DC, more commonly known as the Elixir of The Gods.

Next stop is the Takoma Park Farmers Market. What a fantastic place to take the kids. First of all it is pedestrian friendly. Traffic is closed on the street where the market sets up. Secondly, there are generally lots of samples set out to taste. Apples, peaches, peppers and cheeses are but a few. The farmers who sell at this market can only sell items they produce. You won’t see bananas here. What you will see are many, many diverse types of people. Lastly, it’s just a great place for a lazy stroll to get your Sunday off to a very pleasant start.

We have a favorite farm, Twin Springs Fruit Farm. Twin Springs brings their produce down from Orrtanna, Pa. Right next to them is the guy that we buy our basil plants from in the spring. My girls love to hang out at his stand and smell all the herb plants. Directly across from TSFF is a father-son team that sell the best white corn and later in the year delicious Lima beans. What? Lima beans are good.

In addition to the tastings and sights there are also sounds. The Banjo Man is usually there playing songs for the kids. While they listen, they can also draw on the sidewalk with a rainbow of chalk. Get down there this Sunday and check it out. Here are a few pics from the market, I hope to add some new ones soon. I keep forgetting my camera, ‘doh!

I’ve got my eyes (and hands) on a much larger concern. There exists a staple that I absolutely cannot live without. I can drive less. In our household that priceless commodity is toilet paper. TP, Toilet Paper, The Big Wipe, Ass Cleaners, Dook Scrubbers, Sh*tBegone, you get the picture.

I never really thought about toilet paper before. Before a wife and two girls entered the picture. Now, it is one of my obsessions. It is a minor obsession I assure you. A major obsession would be those Cottonelle flushable wipes. More on that in a bit.

With 3 gals (1 adult, 2 fast growing kids) in the house I started to notice a pronounced drain on the tp supply. Hhhmm? Must be my imagination. I could’ve sworn I just changed that roll yesterday. Oh well. A day later, no mistake, another new roll. Should have been more alert to the clues. Kids, as many know like to use the bathroom, then leave sans flushing. Me, “Hey, who left the foot high mound of toilet paper in the toilet? Is that much paper really necessary for a pee?” I shudder at the number of trees needed for a “number 2″ natural event in my house. At this rate, my family is denuding forests at a clip that would make rainforest/slasher farmers look like they were moving in quicksand. Read more »

It happened to me again the other day. I had to ask one of my daughters to repeat what she had just said. I just couldn’t hear it. Well, I could hear the words but I wasn’t really listening. That’s what happens when beauty gets in the way.

There are times when I look at my daughters and am totally stunned at their beauty. I just stare. I’m simply talking about looks here. Of course they are absolutely beautiful inside. I know them to be warm, considerate and funny girls but they also have their Mom’s natural beauty.

It is wonderful to be a Dad to girls. I love them so.

Family and I went to see Kung Fu Panda and I was very pleasantly surprised. Jack Black voiced the lead role of the panda Po, but it was decidedly un-Jack Black. Black is one of those always “on” characters, off and on screen. This effort was different and it allowed the story to come out and the animation to dazzle. NYTimes review describes Black’s work as “gratifying restraint”. Dustin Hoffman is wonderful as Kung Fu master Shifu. The movie has the obligatory message for the kids, this one: Fat kid unhappy, fat kid works hard, fat kid finds niche, fat kid happy. New buzzword: Squidoosh.

We saw it at our fave AMC Tyson’s Corner theater in DLP Digital format. The show times for the DLP version are well worth finding out in advance. It is so much clearer and allows us geeky animation lovers to swoon. Can’t wait to see Wall-E in DLP.

Once again, here’s a site Kids in Mind that gives you more info than you probably want about violence, sex, gore etc. in movies. Here is the review from The Washington Post.