A Great Dad's Weekend

June 19th

Saturday morning I woke up a little early. I had to get ready for the World Cup. Grace, Nick, and I were going to watch it at Corvallis Sports Park, or more specifically, the Upper Deck Pub located above and around the indoor soccer facilities there.

So I readied Grace and myself, and I called Nick. No answer. I waited. I called Nick. No answer. Well, I wasn't going to pack Grace to the pub without support. As a last ditch effort, I called Anne-Marie. Success. Yes Nick is there. Yes he'll get out of bed and be ready.

Grace and I snapped and buckled into the car and took off. Nick was on the way to the pub, so we managed to get there shortly after the starting whistle.

Watching the game with Nick was great. It was a game nobody really cared about, so the pub was basically empty, and it was quite easy to keep Grace happy. What was harder, was finding a way to hold Grace, when she was awake, where she couldn't see one of the many large and compelling TV screens, but we managed.

After the game, Grace and I dropped Nick at Anne-Marie's and went to get Betsey. The next stop for the day was the Corvallis Saturday Market. At the market we bought some kettle corn to eat for breakfast, listened to some blues, and bought strawberries for dinner's dessert. Grace kept it real by sleeping in the Baby Bjorn.

After getting home, we relaxed for the rest of the day. Grace, especially, took that task to hand.



June 20th

Father's Day... apparently. We didn't realize it until the Saturday, so it was not something we'd really prepared for. Separately, we'd made plans to meet with our friends Jeanette and Annmarie and their kiddos. It occurred to us that our Sunday morning brunch plans may have just become a little more crowded, given we were sans reservation. We pressed on undaunted. We did end up waiting in line for a very short period of time, but the kiddos seemed to handle it pretty well.



Brunch was at the Broken Yolk restaurant downtown. It's a kid friendly location with free wi-fi. The food was standard breakfast fare, but Betsey seemed to think the sausage links were above average. The restaurant makes their jams in-house, which I think is cool. I asked for a jam that didn't contain corn-syrup and they looked at me like I was crazy. Uncool!

During brunch, each of the three children managed to have some sort of melt-down. The staff had cleverly seated us at the back near the rear exit and restrooms, so it was easy for us to step outside with a screaming child, or make any necessary diaper changes. I found it a little odd that it is now perfectly acceptable for me to walk into the same single person restroom with my wife and child, but didn't let that stop me from helping with the diaper change.

At the end of brunch, I was especially touched when our friends covered the entire bill. They said it was a father's day gift to me. I gave big hugs all around and felt pretty special. Unexpected gifts make for great presents, but the greatest gift at that moment was having amazing friends. We're really looking forward to our next get-together.

The rest of the day was very relaxing. At night we finished off the Saturday Market strawberries in some delicious ice cream. A perfect end to a great Dad's Weekend.