Happy Father's Day

Before you read this post, I'd like you to take a quick review of this account of Mother's Day.

What an idyllic day that was.

Father's Day began in much the same way, with the lovely HannieC getting up early to make me breakfast. 6am early. She made me two toasted English muffins with butter right at 6am. Now, I'm not normally up at 6am. I'm not normally up at any AM starting with a 6. But I know this because when HannieC finally came in to wake me up to serve the breakfast at 6:45am, The Mrs. informed me that it was made at 6 and "must be ice cold by now." Then, she claimed this, "I tried to hold her off as long as I could."

Those of you who went back and read the account of Mother's Day know what a task it is to try to hold these childrens off when they are excited about Mother/Father's Day. I did the technique where I get up out of bed and take The Childrens downstairs and then keep running around, chasing The Childrens as they individually escape up the stairs to try to wake The Mrs.

The Mrs. employed a completely different technique. It involved lying in bed and, whenever MaxieC started climbing on my head to much, lifting him off and saying, "No, Maxie, it's Father's Day and Daddy is trying to sleep in." I'm not entirely sure what techinque she used to fend off HannieC long enough to assure my breakfast had reached thermal equilibrium, but I do know that it did not involve The Mrs. setting one foot on the floor out of the bed.

After HannieC presented me with her loving breakfast, which also included ice water, "to keep it simple to make," I tried to eat it while both childrens jumped on me and on the bed. Again, a completely different technique from the one I used - which was to hustle The Childrens out of the room so that The Mrs. could enjoy her breakfast in peace. I'm learning a lot about how to improve my holiday technique so that it flows much more smoothly and with a lot less effort.

The rest of Father's Day was a day of work. Work is what Father's a re for, so this is only appropriate. We loaded a whole bunches of more stuff into the PODS unit. This photo is kind of early on in the process, before I unloaded the content of the storage shed. HannieC is climbing up to "her spot" on top of a bunch of boxes on a set of shelves.


Then, after that, we took the truck that had been loaded up with junk the night before...

And drove it to the dump.


Then, as if a trip to the dump weren't enough excitement for any father on Father's Day, we followed it up with a trip to my favorite family-friendly restaraunt for lunch.


I had two beef'n'cheddars and a medium Diet Coke. The fries are for The Mrs. The Childrens also had a great time.


We spent much of the day packing up stuff. The Mrs. packed up the kitchen, not for the move (since the van lines packs us), but for the painter who is coming on Wednesday to paint the cabinets. We had bought a big giant role of styrene-like packing material that had been kicking around and hard to manage, but I had an epiphany when I was looking at the pile of lumber and spotted an old closet hanger rod. A couple of benches and a couple clamps, and we're good to go.


I cooked us up some dinner on the grill. T-bones, from the looks of it.


Later, MaxieC went through his top shelf, carefully removing books one by one and setting them neatly on the floor until he came to just the right book he was looking for.


Then, the best part! HannieC had a dance recital from 7pm until 10pm that I was to take her to. Just the two of us! What better treat could a whole auditorium full of dads want than a three hour dance recital from 7-10pm on Father's Day. HannieC was on at 9pm, and then again at 9:50. She danced to Elvis's "All Shook Up." She did well, though the girl next to her kept getting confused and was bumping into her all the time. No flash photography allowed. Sorry.

HannieC fell asleep in the truck on the way home. Then she faked being asleep when The Mrs. tried to get her out of her costume and into jammies. But she did go right to be with no fuss.

Bloggin is going ot be light the next few days. I'm out of town in Vancouver, Washington at a technology forum for the company. Will have to do a lot of schmoozing, which will put me very close to death.