Day 128

Houston, we DON'T have a problem.

A colleague of my wife's invited us to the beach on Saturday, and we were happy to oblige.  We spent the morning in the Centre Ville in the never ending quest to update our sad American wardrobe.  Not a terribly successful outing, but we managed to avoid major incident, which is often considered a success around our house.  Back home, we quickly fed the kids and hit the road for the beach.  After a gridlocked drive, we finally joined our hosts and let the kids splash in the water for the afternoon.  The reason for the trip was to introduce our eldest to a young man whose mother is dating my wife's colleague.  He is a nice young man from Houston, I think.  The boys seemed to get along famously, and my eldest enjoyed himself so much that he wanted to stay and camp with this family.  I think the familiar dialect made him feel more at home than he has in several months. Unfortunately, our weekend's dance card being somewhat full, we could not indulge the request.  Nevertheless, we spent a long afternoon, well into the evening hours with some very pleasant company.

Unfortunately, the boys (both) and I have found another recreational passion.  Body boarding.  Even my youngest seems to have a thirst for this sport, which will in my case, and my eldest's as well, likely lead to other board sports such as surfing.  My wife's colleague seems keen on kite surfing, which he indicated he might have a go at.  I may join him for the schooling if I can get approval from the wife.  At any rate, it would seem that there are at least 4 new body boards in our near future.  Fortunately, the boards aren't so expensive and the beach we now call local is very tame indeed.  The youngest would acutally find his way into several sports this weekend.  I am pleased to see him focus a bit of his energy in a positive direction and will encourage his endeavors as I have his elder brother before him.

The long drive home had me praying for sweet slumber, but the children that had slept for most of the drive had different ideas.  We would finally coax them to bed as the morning would come very quickly for day 129 and we would have a full day indeed.  For now, I am relishing in the pride a father has when raising "sporty" kids and the new opportunity to explore new recreational opportunities with my youngest.  Day 129 was full indeed, so I will bid you all farewell for now in hopes to have the energy to recap the entirety of the weekend before I go to bed.