Kids, Kids, Kids

Part 1
I took the kids to the beach yesterday. My sister had been telling me about this little lake off of Ann Arbor Rd in Superior Township for years. Apparently, she used to sneak in as a trunk monkey when she was in high school. I'd heard these stories for years, but you can't see the lake from the road, so it would slip my mind whenever I was thinking about going swimming. Well, she mentioned it to Stacey at the kids' last soccer game (more on that in a moment), and Stacey bought a membership. It's kind of pricey, but she took us as her guest yesterday and the place is great. There are two lakes, Murray lake is the bigger one and then if you drive through the woods, there is a smaller, more kid friendly lake w/ a cool little island in the middle. They also have camping in the woods and a soccer field.
Part 2
Speaking of soccer fields, the kids had their last games of the season last weekend. My daughter's team never won a game, but watching them get better every week was awesome. She didn't really seem to enjoy it at first, but by the end she was having a blast. She even got a great assist. My son, on the other hand, never lost a game. In fact, they won by about 10 goals every time. I did everything I could to try to hold down the score, but it never seemed to work. My biggest mistake was explaining to him what a hat-trick is because he then just tried to score all the time. He knocked in 4 in the last game including one that was going in anyway when he tapped it over the line and stole the goal from another kid on his team. All in all, we all had great times and I can't wait to do it again in the fall.
Part 3
We watched a couple films last night after we got back from swimming, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl & The Fantastic Four, neither of which was very good. SB and LG was complete shit, in fact. I was disappointed because Robert Rodriguez did such a good job w/ the Spy Kids movies. My daughter picked it because her first choice, The Love Bug, was out. We watched Herbie, Fully Loaded last week & she freakin' loved it. I'd never seen a Lindsay Lohan film before... I wasn't very impressed w/ her, but the movie was alright. The Fantastic Four, on the other hand, was better than I expected. The main problem is similar to my main issue w/ X-Men. It's too short so there is no time to develop the characters or give a damn about the bad guy. Obviously, they've been developed for decades in the comics, but the films should still take time to introduce people w/in the context of the story line & for the people who aren't comic book nerds.