I Won At Bowling! I Won!

Ok, it was with a 91 in my second game so I'm not quite approaching my wife's average in the 130s yet, but she's been on a bowling league at her temple until one foot's in the grave … but I digress. I was up at North Hill Bowl with my daughter Sarah at a birthday party for one of her classmates Saturday night because I'd agreed to bring her to that one BUT Martha asked if there were enough adults there to come straight home after I'd brought our daughter there.

Please forgive me if I think our kids' birthday parties are also good opportunities for the adults/parents to meet and maybe learn something about each other. Got to meet Kayden's dad Daniel and grandparents (Daniel's mom and dad Kim and Warren) among others and in addition to participating in the pizza party – actually, TWO pizza parties because many more kids showed up than expected, apparently – I did get on a bowling team. And I was told as Sarah and I were about to leave that my being there was greatly appreciated! That built me up.

Likewise our visit to McDonald's where Martha works Saturday mornings six to two to meet her for lunch (her idea, I was looking forward to meeting her with the kids and going for something more, but the girls are addicted to the wraps) … even though the kids always seem to want to sit with Martha and not with me, I think because they respect her more. And even putting the kids to bed – yes it was Saturday night – I was hearing this in Sarah's voice how she loves me “from the sky to the floor” and “mommy from God to the ground”. She amended that, but … perhaps I'm taking it too hard. I shouldn't have to fight to be the better parent.

Sunday morning we got to church and saw snow come down AGAIN (as one church person said, “Is this some sick joke?”) on our way downstairs. It stopped soon after, but it's all slushy and icy outside just like this morning – anyway, downstairs I had the sixth grade Sunday schoolers in Parable Playhouse for the last time, for this fall they'll be starting confirmation class which will carry them through ninth grade. For the lesson about Jesus healing the ten lepers, I had come into church Thursday before and stuck push pins into the puppets I was going to use as lepers, so when Jesus “healed” them the pins could come straight out. And the six with Krista in the class helped me put the pins back and otherwise set up the room so the Boy Scouts meeting at our church could use it tonight …

But again, I digress. Sunday afternoon I brought Jeffrey to Splashdown, the indoor water park at Sleep Inn for another birthday party. Martha was going to do it, but she was having a hard time singing in church yesterday – I didn't want her to push it, but she insists for the Bethany choir – and was also not feeling quite herself so I agreed, pinky-promise pinky-swear, that I would bring Jeffrey to his classmate Drake's birthday party if she would drive the kids to school all this week. Met Drake's dad Andrew and mom Jessica and several of Jeffrey's classmates whom I'd seen. And the chlorine smell (another concern of Martha's, as she's particularly sensitive to it) was really not evident; in fact, so not evident that two of Splashdown's pools were closed down while we were there, but as the party was winding down anyway, son and I stopped at Dairy Queen to treat the girls and went home.

Simple but awesome, David