Spontaneity has never been a strong suit of mine, but when we first started dating, Beau thrived on it. I think it's one of the first things that attracted me to him - he was always ready for a good time and a good time always seemed to follow him. And as work and kids and schedules have become a bit more complicated than they sure used to be, I sometimes feel like we've lost all efforts toward spontaneous. Can I even use effort and spontaneous in the same sentence?! All week, I kept asking Beau what he wanted to do for Father's Day and all week, he kept giving me no direction, no plan, no vision. I forced myself to embrace this lack of plan all week and see what came of it. And as I sit on the other side of our unplanned Father's Day, I'm reminded once again that I need to embrace the spontaneity in life, for it almost always produces the very best surprises.
After a late night playing salad bowl with my family after Mila's dance recital, we accidentally slept in on Sunday morning, right up to when we usually leave for church. Beau first said he wanted to go to breakfast somewhere, but the cool air coming in from our French doors was calling me to our deck for a slow Sunday morning around our fire. It was an easy sell to keep Beau home when I offered to make homemade biscuits and try Chip Gaines' homemade sausage gravy. And it was as if God himself had stocked our fridge that morning with every thing we needed for both the biscuits and the gravy - it's once in a blue moon I find buttermilk in my fridge!
In our quiet house on a cool and cloudy day, we listened to a little Avett Brothers and made Father's Day biscuits in our nightgowns. We sat around our deck table and shared homemade strawberry jam and fresh honey from our stay at Luna Valley Farm, toasted our orange juice, and took turns sharing things we loved about the dads and papas in our lives. Cruz talked about how much he appreciates that Beau plays with him and takes time to coach his little league teams, and Mila shared that he is her favorite snuggle buddy and brushes her hair really good. We shared that we love that Grandpa Ray is such a good problem-solver, that he can create contraptions and devices to solve pretty much any kind of problem, and that he's always shared how much he loves Grandma Mary. And the kids both said their Papa Curt was an easy one - he plays with them and he's really really funny.
After breakfast and some new Cubs gear for Dad, we all just sort of laid around the deck for a really long time! In fact, I didn't get in the shower until almost 1:00 in the afternoon. We are a family of doers, so on the rare occasion we stop doing it feels so strange! We had coffee and blankets and books and nowhere to be but under our deck together.
By the time we did get up and moving, we decided it was a good afternoon to go for a hike under our favorite tree canopy at Hartman Reserve. We left phones and cameras in the car and let our favorite nature guide lead the way, that is, until the mosquitoes proved to be thicker than we were hoping for. We ended up at Lookout Park, a rare playground stop for us, but essential in the spontaneous direction our day took nonetheless. If we hadn't stopped at Lookout, you see, our favorite Patterson kids wouldn't have spotted Cruz and Mila from their front porch and ran over to say hello. And we wouldn't have ended up in their front yard on lawn chairs with Luke, Katie, Luke's sister, Rachel, and his parents. And we wouldn't have had beers and leftover coconut cake from their Father's Day grill-out we had only sort of crashed. And we definitely wouldn't have had a conversation about the proper way to make a mojito, which would lead to a blind mojito taste test in the Patterson's backyard, a completely impromptu and wonderful barbecue, and a lively game of kids vs. parents wiffle ball. The only thing we were missing was Natalie!
I tied in the mojito contest with Luke, although I still think my mint-infused simple syrup would beat his carbonated Sprite concoction any day. But the real winner of the day was the unplanned part. Beau declared it his favorite Father's Day of all time. He's always trying to get me to do two things - 1) show up at someone's house completely uninvited, just to say hi and 2) throw together a good backyard barbecue every now and then. Our little Father's Day was a good reminder for me that sometimes no plan, a group of friends, and a barbecue of whatever we can pull from our fridge is the recipe for the days we'll talk about forever.
And Happy Father's Day to all the dads. There's just something about a really good dad. A dad who stays and who plays, who leads well and loves hard, who says I love you and says I'm sorry, who works really hard, but always puts family first. A dad who coaches little league and organizes nerf wars for neighborhood boys, who sits on the floor and plays Barbies in a British accent, who writes me songs and secretively teaches the kids the lyrics in the basement every morning before school. A dad who loves a good IPA and a well-timed dad joke. Happy Father's Day to all the really good dads, especially the one under our roof. I sure love being in this crew with you.
And to my own dad. I always knew I was blessed with a good one, but getting to watch him as a grandpa has given me a new vantage point to truly see just how natural he is in this role. The kids have adored him since they were old enough to smile or reach their arms out to him, usually because they knew they were about to get tossed in the air like a monkey. He rolls on the floor, chases them around the house, riles them up like no other, and teaches them words we scold him for. But man does he love them. Saturday night after Mila's three-hour dance recital, we were standing around our kitchen island and he was showing us all the random pictures on his smart phone he still doesn't know how to use. And most of the pictures were of the kids. Sweet little videos of him timing a very happy Mila as she ran around the cul de sac while we were in Hawaii, or pictures of Cruz on every bridge from Allison to Clarksville on their epic bike ride together a few weekends ago. He was proud of his pictures, proud of the kids in them, and happy to have a front row seat as their Papa Curt.
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