How was Father’s Day? All things considered, it was pretty good. As you might recall I had promised Chloe that she and I could sleep out in the tent this weekend. On Saturday morning I set up my tent in about 10 minutes – they boys will have no trouble with this when it’s their turn. And let it air out for the rest of the day.
The big project for the day was getting the air conditioners installed. This may have come up in the past, but this day comes once a year and the only good thing about it is that I don’t have to worry about the AC units for another 3 months. I hate this job. It has to get done and there’s nobody else who can do it, so I have to get it done, but I can’t stand it. Nonetheless I got it done in record time with the help of Chloe. She followed instructions well and only made a couple of mistakes in getting in my way while I was holding 75lbs of AC over her head.

After I got cleaned up, me and Peterman walked Gabriel over to a birthday party and came right home so we could drive Ben to an end-of-the-year/birthday party at the house of a girl in his class. What’s interesting about this is that she and her friends have discovered boys. But the boys have no idea what they’re up to. So she invited all the boys she and her friends liked to this pool party, but in a drastic change from tradition she didn’t invite everyone from her class. I was just pleased that Ben was invited to go while none of his regular buddies were. I don’t think he noticed that. Because this was also a beginning of summer party for the hosts friends and family they did it to the nines. They had a DJ, half an acre of pizza, burgers/hotdogs. But they also hired someone to do cotton candy, sandart and midway games of chance and skill. Holy cow, they had EVERYTHING there. They really went overboard. But I have to confess that it looked like a pretty rocking party!

Afterwards I took the girls over to their babysitter’s house because she had a wild turkey and 7 hatchlings (chicks? turkettes?) stuck in her yard. They wouldn’t leave. The gate was wide open and everything but I guess they’re just stupid birds. So the girls loved the turkeys and chicks.

When we returned home it was time for Liz to go get Gabriel from his birthday party. She brought the girls and his swim-trunks and brought them all over the local swimming pools. She said later that it wasn’t that much fun bringing ALL those kids who needed attention to the pool. She wished I had been there to help.

See, I didn’t go because I had to bring Ben over to his SECOND birthday party of the day. When I picked him up, the little girl’s mother jokingly forbade Ben from leaving because he was her favorite. The funny thing is that I know she likes Ben a lot and he really is her favorite of her daughter’s friends. She said that if his other party got boring that he should come back.

His buddy Finn was having several of his best friends over to LaserQuest for a couple games of LaserTag. This was a birthday party that had no girls and was 100% 10-year-old boys. It was a perfect birthday party for them. And this was a group made up of Ben’s regular friends. He later reported that he liked both parties a lot and that they were equally fun.
While he was doing that I went to Bugaboo Creek steak house and watched the USA tie Italy in the World Cup. I had a beer and some good BBQ Chicken Nachos. All in all, it was a very nice way to spend 90 minutes.

After dinner I took the kids to the local arts & crafts supply store where they have a good selection of model rockets. I bought each of the kids a model rocket and some engines in preparation for a rocket launching that the cubscouts are arranging in Amesbury. I guess there’s a model rocketry club up there who owns or leases or borrows 500 acres of fields. They’ve poured proper concrete launch pads that people can use and July 8th there’s going to be a big event there. So we have to get ready for it. I think I have a lot of model-building to oversee before then and I accidentally got some rockets that weren’t at skill level 1. So I have to cut out the balsa tail fins and carve notches and things. Its going to be some work to oversee this!

When evening rolled around Chloe started getting the tent ready by unrolling the sleeping bags and the self-inflating air mattresses. She kind of decorated the inside of the tent and got all hear gear situated. She also thought it was stuffy with all the windows open and the rain fly on. Since there was no rain in the forecast I took the fly off so we could sleep under the stars. Sadly, Grace couldn’t keep from crying because she knew she wasn’t coming too. I couldn’t bear to see the tears so I brought her along. What a softie, huh?

It was a mistake.

While we all three fit ok, we didn’t fit great. Grace is kind of a mobile sleeper and she wanders all over the place in her sleep. She and Chloe kept each other up for quite a while. There was bickering and tent-etiquette that needed to be learned. I eventually managed to doze off despite all this. But around midnight it started thundering and lightening. It was the rain on my face that woke me up though. And I can tell you I was in a lousy mood about having to get drenched while putting the stupid rain-fly back on.

The good news is that the girls weren’t disturbed a bit. They were passed out cold and have no recollection of foul weather. I had a hard time sleeping on the overly firm ground. I think its been too many years and too many twinkies since I last slept on the ground because I tossed and turned all night. At 4:30am Chloe decided it was morning time and she started to get up and go in the house. I told her to forget it and go back to sleep. But I was too late. Grace was awake and wanted to go in the house too. I fought it for about half an hour.

Then we all went in and I decided this would be a great time to more fully appreciate my own bed. It’s a good thing I have Peterman to wake my ass up at 5:30am to feed him and let him out. What a good and loyal dog. Well, he’s a loyal dog, anyway. I napped for a while on the futon in the basement but never quite felt like myself for the rest of the day. I was wiped out from the “camping” and some allergies flared up. These things combined to make me a very tired daddy.

We cancelled the fishing I had talked about and went to pick strawberries. I hate picking strawberries because all the berries are so close to the ground and I don’t like bending over and picking them. So I chose to stupidvise instead. We had a fine time at our favorite you-pick farm.

But I was pretty happy to go to the Outback Steakhouse for my father’s day lunch. We decided that Grace would probably not be able to behave at 5pm so a lunch would be better than a dinner. It was a FINE lunch and I enjoyed the daylights out of it.

Liz and the kids all went in on a VEX starter kit. Remember this thing? Well now I have my very own robot-kit and I can’t wait to get going on it! I spent the afternoon sorting out the documentation and getting the three-ring binder loaded up with the appropriate literature. Considering how sleepy and grumpy I was this was a perfect way to spend the afternoon.

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