negative subjects

My wife and kids made Father's Day really special for me. This was the best one ever, and I hope to tell you more about that later. Mrs. Craver is so great! But it was not a perfect weekend; we suffered a couple of low points on Saturday.

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You may know that I serve as assistant coach on my son's soccer team. Sadly, one grown up argued with a ref, and I have to give him the news this week that the board of directors banned him from the field. I wish I could go back to Saturday morning and give him the Vulcan nerve pinch just in time so he would refrain from speaking instead of letting the situation escalate out of control. He's a big boy though, and I'm not his daddy. The fact that he cannot attend any more of his niece's games is a consequence that he brought upon himself. I must fully support the board here, because if the young ref was my own son, I wouldn't want a grown up giving him grief, either.

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Soapbox: We have offered several training classes for the families, and this uncle never went. People, if you're given the opportunity to go to one of these Positive Coaching Alliance trainings... GO! Be a part of it. Learn what youth sports is really about, and let's keep the environment fun for everyone.

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Then we went home, and one of the dogs killed two hamsters. My daughter cried so hard that day, and there's not really a whole lot we could do to console her, so we just held her and let her cry. I'm sure she will be just fine.

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Things got busy, as they do EVERY Saturday. The pain did not disappear, but it became less noticeable as we engaged ourselves in the rest of life. Father's Day came, and we all had a great time together from sunrise to sunset.

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Do you think you can identify any the flowers in the negative collage?

manly store

What a weekend! I went to S2's soccer game in the rain on Saturday. That was good fun! Afterwards, we visited the brand new Bass Pro Shops/Outdoor World just to look at all the cool manly stuff. We did yard work, and the lawn is nicely edged, and the bushes nicely trimmed. I did a couple of minor repairs. Late at night, I grilled the very best (by accident) hamburger I have ever tasted. It felt good to be a man this weekend!

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Here's the cherry on top: I just learned that my Father's Day gifts came from Bass Pro Shop. Mrs. Craver and D2 went to this new store, a.k.a. Testosterone-ville, and shielded their eyes from all the yucky man-stuff to pick out some nice camping gear for me, because they know that I (for some foolish reason) want to go camping soon. Wasn't that nice of them?

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Image by Write from Karen

bocced up

Father's Day was quite a busy day. I think I could take a day of rest and relaxation to recover.

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Our church's Spanish group invited my family to a picnic. It was almost unbearably hot. Mrs. Craver will not attend outdoor events until the cicadas are gone. My kids do not speak Spanish (yet), and my own Spanish is only so-so. But we had a brief, cool, refreshing rain, great food and the company of really nice folks, so it was a good time. They had a few games, but I brought Bocce Ball. I like that game. It's low impact, but it gets people off their seats and out on their feet. First, you toss a little yellow ball (the jack), and then each team tries to toss or roll their wooden bocce balls as close to the jack as possible. My kit even includes a measuring tape, because sometimes it's hard to see which one is closer.

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There was another group in the park that day. I gathered that these were the wives and children of soccer players. The uniformed athletes dropped them off and then drove away. There was one toddler from their group who was running around in his underwear. His haircut was like a mullet gone from bad to worse, spikey on top, with a super long, thick "tail" halfway down his back.

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My 17-year old son was forced into an awkward situation. He would either have to play with the little children or sit speechless with the grown ups. Mercifully, I asked him to play bocce ball with me. He's good... real good. But while I was soundly receiving a whoopin' in the game, that underdressed kid with the crazy hairdoo decided that he should go to where we were tossing the bocce balls and move them around, even the jack ball! Do you know how hard it is to try to get a toddler to stop doing something without making them cry? He just acted like he didn't understand what I was saying.

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There it is, both of us beaten by this little pantless spikey-tyke stranger. We packed up and went home.

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Image by mrettig