Father's Day Weekend in 3 Acts

Essentially I live blogged Saturday & Sunday into a Pages document, and will be unrolling three posts over an equal number of days. No pictures in the Friday post, some in Saturday and whole poop-load in Sunday's! For those that aren't aware I was at the lake all weekend with Teresa while Cara galavanted to Grand Forks with her mom & sister.

Without further ado, here's Friday:

Cara & I both worked Friday and we got home around 4:00. Cara helped (did most of the) pack(ing), and then we gave Teresa a snack and I hit the road amid the beginnings of Red River Ex & Tornado Warnings...

We arrived at the beach on Friday around 6:00 and much to my amazement there was no one at the gate, so I went to Doris’ and bought a park pass. Pulling up to the cottage a few trees had been blow over / broken recently so I cleaned it up a bit. Sadly THE TREE is still alive, though weakened... After getting into the cottage and giving Teresa & Rowdy some time to acclimatize themselves to the cottage (Teresa immediately went for the spinny Fisher Price ball toy thing she loved last year) I got us changed and, sans Rowdy, took the wagon to the front beach. Not surprisingly, Teresa booted it straight into the water and wandered up until near her mid thigh (which was quick where we were, as there was a quick drop off to her knee level). The water was surprisingly nice, as we have had a brutal spring / summer for warmth & a late melt. She only fell once, and I even kept her face from hitting the water. She really enjoyed playing with a cup of water and having me fill it and her dump it ad nauseam and she also stomped in the water to make splashes, but needed to hold my hand to do this. She stayed out there until I decided that her shivering was too much and as expected she cried as I took her back to the beach to wrap her in towels and try to dry her as best we could.

Once on the beach, she had no problem with the sand and I made her some sandcastles which she enjoyed destroying through her new favorite move: the stomp. She then helped me fill the pail with her shovel and patted down the sand (while saying ‘pat, pat’). It was getting late and she hadn’t had any real dinner yet so we headed home, with her once again upset at leaving the beach. Unfortunately as I hid the wagon when we got back, I got her hand caught between the van and the wagon which caused a need for consoling...

I then got her a big snack ready, and we tried to get the water working, which failed miserably... I had to call in the cavalry and Bill Evans came over and was very helpful (which will cost me some future beers), figuring out that there were a couple of drain bolts that had been taken out in the fall which I had not known about. Otherwise I had done everything else correctly. Nevertheless by the end of the evening we had hot water, a flushing toilet and a well fed Teresa. I put her down to bed quite late (almost 9), and she didn’t fall asleep until almost 10, as I forgot to give her her soother... I forgot my new book at home, so I ended up watching an episode of The Office (UK), and began watching 3:10 to Yuma. I hit the sack around 11:00 and slept well.