Father's Day

I asked Joel the other day what he would like to do for Father's Day and we came up with a picnic at the park Saturday.  Great idea!  Well, this is Michigan and that means the weather is completely unpredictable.  We actually decided to wait till the boys got up from naps that afternoon to go so when it rained that morning, we were thankful we still had several hours for things to dry out.  At around 2pm, things were looking good. The sun was out, the grass was green, not too hot, not too cold.  Joel and I had a relaxing Saturday afternoon curled up on the couch watching movies and reading books.  Perfect day.  We got the boys up a little later than planned but then headed to the park.  As we drove away from the house, Joel looked to the sky and noted the very BIG storm clouds heading our way.  He looked at me with that question in his eyes, "do we keep going, or do we turn around and go home?"  I said, "let's go!" so we did.  Jack was totally excited to get to play at a park and I just couldn't dissapoint him. 

 

We got to the park and it was full of people, so we obviously weren't the only ones with this great idea.  We laid out the blanket, unloaded the van, and then took note of how much time we had before it dumped rain on us.  I guessed 30 – 40 minutes.  Enough time to grill some hot dogs, right?  Well, yes if you remembered the matches to light the grill.  Ooops!  What now?  There's a Wendy's around the corner, we could go get hamburgers to have with the other food we brought.  Ok, sure, great idea and that will give us a chance to see if the rain will pass by.  Now, load us all back in the van and drive to Wendy's.  We got the burgers, parked the van in front of a much more empty park, hmmm, everyone's leaving – ah, they're just chicken of  a little rain.  Not us! 

 

I set out the blanket again and got Jack out and as we began unloading again, it began to sprinkle.   Ok, so we decided to feed the boys in the van and wait it out since it looked like it would pass over quickly.  We fed the boys without a drop of rain falling the entire time!  Hmmm, ok well we'll go play now.  As soon as we got out and I laid the blanket out once more, it started raining again!  By this time, Jack and I were already on the blanket and I had grabbed our big umbrella so I looked at Joel and Owen over at the van and said, "we're not going anywhere.  Come on, we'll eat our popsicles in the rain, under the ubrella.  It will be a great memory!  So that's what we did!  And when we were done, so was the rain and we finally got to play. 

 

It wasn't an ideal picnic but it was a memorable one.  Joel won't easily forget this father's day!