Father's Day Weekend

Father's Day Weekend started Friday night, when Brooklyn and I went on a 'Daddy/Daughter Date' to the Seattle Storm basketball game (WNBA). We had just signed up Brooklyn for Basketball Camp later in the summer, so she was excited to go see the girl pros. Brooklyn's first question before we were even seated was, "which team is the Storm?" Once she learned that they were wearing white uniforms, she wanted to know the score. Once she learned that the Storm were ahead, she smiled, relaxed and began her incessant cheers of "Go Storm, Go!"

A local middle school cheerleading squad performed a routine during one of the time outs. Brooklyn observed, "those look like cheerleaders, but I don't think they are." I dug deeper into her doubts, and she stated simply, "well, they don't have pom poms". How can you argue with that?

The game was awesome for 4 reasons: 1) I got to wolf down a foot long hot dog, 2) Brooklyn got to 'high five' Doppler (Storm mascot) and be involved in the end-of-third-quarter train on the court, 3) the Storm won in a blow out game, and 4) I got to teach Brooklyn about some basketball rules, how to keep track of the score, and how to tell how much time was left in the quarter/game.

Father's Day Weekend continued early Saturday morning at 5:45 a.m. Usually, I'm a nothing-positive-ever-happens-at-5:45 am kind of guy, but the prospect of white water rafting got me out of bed at that ungodly hour in order to get to the 'Put In' in Leavenworth at 8:00 a.m. As it turned out, I not only had a blast during my first river rafting experience, but my eyes were opened to an entirely new vernacular altogether ("but my eyes were opened to an entirely new vernacular" a la Airplane) Yes, indeed. I think it's awesome that there's a whole set of vocabulary meant only for river enthusiasts. For example, I was informed that we would have a snack break after we 'portage' at the 'weir'. Now, if I were to explain the same thing, I would say something like 'we'll get some food when we get out of the river before we go over the thing that looks like a dam but really isn't technically a dam'. Another example, I heard that the river was at 6500. I tried my darndest to think of a metric to make a number like 6500 make sense instead of having to ask the rookie question "What does 6500 mean?". Luckily some other rookie sap asked the question and I profited from the answer (cubic feet per second). I also enjoyed how various spots of rough water had names associated with them. For example, we rafted through Satan's Eyeball, Drunkard's Drop, and The Suffacator. I didn't see those names on the full page waiver I signed prior to getting on the water, otherwise I might have had 2nd thoughts. The weather and scenery were gorgeous and I pushed myself a bit outside my comfort zone. Truth be told (because I absolutely insist on post integrity) the experience was amazing and I had a wonderful time.

I returned home in the late afternoon in time for the babysitter to arrive. Rachelle and I went out to dinner at a new Mexican restaurant in the area and loved it. We miss good Mexican food since moving from Arizona, but this place we agreed merits a 2nd visit. We then went to see The Proposal at the movie theatre. Rachelle enjoyed it quite a bit, and I'm pretty easy to please (my own family doesn't value my movie recommendations), and it was just nice to spend an evening just the two of us.

Father's Day itself has been great. Brooklyn tackled me in bed at 7:00 a.m. and was excited to give me the card she had been talking about for the past 3-4 days. When I open the card, there's a funny song that plays thanking Dad for all he does for the kids. One line says that without Dad we'd be 'naked, homeless, no TV'. The word 'naked' still made her roar on the 32nd time we listened to it. I got to see Brooklyn sing with the Primary in church this morning. It's so fun to watch Brooklyn do anything that she's been looking forward to doing. Her excitement slash relief of finally able to unleash something she's had difficutly holding in is almost palpable.

I laid down this afternoon to watch Bolt with Brooklyn. It was my first time seeing the movie and Brooklyn 14th (we've had the movie for 2 weeks). Though I thought it was funny/entertaining, rafting from the day before caught up with me and I was zonked on the couch about 30 minutes into the show. Dad took a solid nap this afternoon. The crowned jewel of Father's Day was dinner and dessert. Roast beef and potatoes are not staples in my house, but they were much appreciated this afternoon. Oreo pudding pie for dessert. Are you kidding me? Roast beef followed up with Oreo pudding pie? That's like following Christmas with...well, Christmas!

Father's Day Weekend was awesome.