Fathead's Day

In memory of my mom's dad, I misread the card Justin gave me - of course, Justin took this into account when creating the card which reads:

Happy Fathead's Day (otherwise known as Father's Day)

so naturally I read it as:

Happy Father's Day (otherwise known as Fathead's Day)

On the inside of the card he offered up a croissant moon.

Rachel's card announced that I was the 1st place winner of the Great Dad Contest, and included a t-shirt that announces that I'm the Best Dad in the Universe. After trying on the 2x3" paper cutout, I decided it must have shrunk a bit in the wash... =)

The kids picked out the Hook and Sahara DVDs for me - the first being something a favorite that we had on VHS, the second something I wanted to see; both items were from my Amazon wish list.

Those were only appetizers, though: they also gave me a certificate for canoe rental at Beltzville. We've hiked the trails, and Deb and the kids have been out on a boat with her dad and/or her brother, but I have yet to get out on the water. It's been a while since I've been canoeing at all - looking forward to it!

Despite some teasing yesterday, Deb did pick up some croissants, so I had them for breakfast. Now dinner - pork sausage, mashed potato, and corn - is almost ready. Yum!

Fathead's Ramblings

I am either out of shape or can't take the heat. In reality, of course, it's both, but the heat (even in the forested shade) was enough to wipe me out. We walked down to the corner and back (something like a 1/2 mile-mile round trip.) I wasn't quite huffing and puffing, but it wasn't as easy as it is in more reasonable weather.

Speaking of which, there's allegedly a 60% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow, 40% on Tuesday, and 40-50% Thursday through Monday. Which would be good - we're heading back to parched earth syndrome out there; grass crackling underfoot, and the ground solid except where it cracks open. Rain would be welcome, even if it causes the cookout on Sunday to move indoors or interferes with a possible outing to the PA Ren Faire Celtic Fling on Saturday. New Englanders are still getting flooded and mudded and I'm looking into planting saguaro and sagebrush. Okay, it's not quite that bad here, but I wouldn't mind a bit more moisture.

Just stepped outside to say hi to Brandon, Deb, Joe, and Lola. Looks like it might rain, but that might just be the humidity.

I'm getting a Kubb game but I don't think it will make it here before Sunday. For the curious, rules for Kubb can be found here and in the Wikipedia article. This local company makes a variety of Kubb games, as well as some other stuff - I ordered a set of Nine Man Morris/King and the Knights from them. They were actually the ones who introduced us to Kubb at the Leonardo da Vinci festival a few years ago.

I'm also looking into a set of quoits from another local company. I'm going to give them a call tomorrow. Like Kubb ("koob"), quoits ("kwaits") are also pronounced differently than one might first think. And they're a fun lawn game.

The new yard games will join our collection of bocce, badminton, and the MIA horseshoes - the latter really needs to have sandpits built for best no-bounce performance, making it a permanent installation, and we just haven't determined the best location. Most of the places either don't have enough space, have overhanging branches, would involve dealing with an incline, are around very young trees I planted that would be destroyed by a misplaced ringer, or some combination of the for. The best place - which narrowly misses several trees - would put anyone going to or from the hammock, firepit, or across the stepping stones at the top of Stone Stream in danger.

While I was looking around, I discovered Croqkick - I did manage to find a couple of Canadian distributors (and one in Australia,) but nothing in the US...

While I was doing all this browsing, I updated and added a bunch of wish lists (Amazon, Lee Valley Tools, Plow & Hearth, and Chefs) - something I used to love writing up when I was a kid, and now I get to post them out there for everyone to see... =)