An Awesome Day

Today was a pretty amazing day. The girls woke me up asking for a big daddy breakfast. I threw together a nice sausage, egg and cheese scramble and even the picky six year old ate it like crazy. Of course big sister, an impressive eater almost all the time, destroyed it and raved at what a great cook her daddy is. Flattery will get you very far around here.

What should we do today? It should be nice, I asked. Their list began. We need to go to the park and play. Flying kites would be fun, if there is enough wind. There is a book sale and plant sale at the library, can we go there? Can we take the blue boat fishing at Teal Lake?

I was floored. I wanted to know how they possibly thought we could do all that stuff today. Big sister said "today is going to be awesome". At 7 1/2 she delivered this with expert confidence. I said we could see how it goes, off to the shower with the two of you and you better make it clean and quick if you want to get all that stuff done today.

They hit the shower and I loaded up the truck with helmets, bikes, kites and fly rods. Okay, I threw in the fly rods hoping we'd do some casting. I did, but no one else was interested, but that is out of order.

At the school playground park there are three distinct age level playground apparatus. Is it apparati, apparatuses or what, hell I don't know. We played on the kindergarten level one briefly, then moved to the next and then the next. Can we ride our bikes? Sure, mom and I went and got them out. Helmets on, they were off. We live in a really hilly area and our driveway really slopes so neither are free of training wheels yet. We don't ride much either, so this is not their fault. Today Olivia, the oldest, stated she thought that if I held her and helped her get going that she could ride without the training wheels. I said okay, she kicked the wheels up so they were straight back, like she had that planned all along, and with my hand guiding the seat she was soon off and riding...and riding well. Little sister did great too, even tried big sister's bike but perferred her smaller one with the training wheels.

Off to fly some kites. Sophia, the younger, has a triangle box kite and it takes very little wind to get it up and going. She was in business right out of the gate. Olivia's is a bit tougher, but soon hers was filled with air and soaring high above. The Mrs. had her box kite going and all of a sudden we saw it taking off across the field...unrestrained and on its own. We caught it, reconnected the string and no more than a few minutes later the spool was pulled from her hand and the kite was off on its own, flying several hundred yards away before coming to rest atop a small school portable classroom. No worries, we gently and steadily tugged it off.

Off to the house for some lunch, then I gathered the evening fishing gear while they hit the book and plant sale. An hour later they were back, I packed the rig and we were off to the lake. By now the day's sunshine has given way to overcast skies and a fair bit of wind and I'm thinking this is a bad idea. I expect this to be a very short outing and me biting my tongue about all the work I put into packing for a few minutes on the water. Boy, am I glad to say that I was so very wrong. I'm rowing, they are trolling. Olivia has a trout master cream streamer just below the surface. Sophia has an olive woolley bugger with a bead head a bit deeper. I'm rowing and a few minutes into the journey Olivia's rod tip jolts, she raises it, shouts "fish on" and then "I think this is a big one". A couple mintues later she's expertly brought a 20" nicely colored triploid to the net and is smiling from ear to ear about her success. She even bragged to Sophia, who's personal best is an 18" trout, that mine was bigger than yours. Competition?

Sophia had a few strikes, but nothing hooking up, so I switched her to the same type of fly as sister. Lots of missed strikes for Sophia, sometimes strike after strike after strike and the fish just did not stick. She was undeterred though, and kept at it very focused. "I know I'm going to catch one too" she said.

It started to drizzle. Anyone want to head in I asked? No was the resounding answer. Now it is raining steadily. Is everyone still okay? We've got our hats so the rain is not bothering us they chirped with grins. Now it is really pouring, do we want to head to the dock? Make one more pass they agreed, then when we get close to the dock we can head out. A lot of fish swirled and hit the flies on the troll, but none would end up with a hook set.

Back in the car, I got the ladies all buckled and safe, heater running and I strapped the raft atop the rig. I get in soaked and they chimed in stereo, "thanks for an awesome day dad".

I don't care who you are. A great breakfast, three playgrounds, kite flying, bike riding, more playground play, quick lunch, book and plant sale and trip to a local lake that ended up with a 20" personal best trout...all because that is what THEY wanted to do...this is the making of an awesome day.

I guess it could have been better if I would have brought along the camera!