Father's Day Weekend 2008

Bro and family will be moving to AZ this summer, so I'm trying to spend as much time with them as I can before that.

I returned from my last Leadership Academy week on Friday night, and went to their place for dinner. When I arrived, V had not yet come home with our Vietnamese food (mmm...pho), but Bro and Brady were still home. As the dogs did their standard greeting of barking and jumping on me, and Bro did his standard greeting of "Cadence! Presto! Back UP!," I said hi, and Brady looked at me, smiled, and said, "Tita!" Aw, it warms the heart. He walked over to me as I was trying to calm down the dogs, and somehow handed me something. When the dogs finally left me alone, and I could look at it in the light, I realized that it was a miniature Pez with a blue animal on it. I asked, "What is this? Is this a crocodile? What is this, Brady?" He said, "Hippo." OK, so now the boy has said my name AND the word "hippo" in one night. I was way pleased. Bro was surprised. Apparently, Brady had not only remembered that V had told him to give me the hippo the next time he saw me, but this was also the first time that Bro had heard him say "hippo." Our food was yummy, and afterward, Bro found out that he could download some Jimmy Buffett songs on Rock Band. He sight read the expert level of a couple of songs, and his performance was QUITE impressive. Those songs were not easy, I can tell you that. Gotta get him to download more RUSH, if it's available.

On Saturday, I met up with them and my parents at Huntington Beach, where a friend of the family was celebrating their son's graduation from high school. It was a beautiful day to be at the beach, and Brady spent much of the afternoon laying down on his tummy, directly on the sand. I asked him if he was going to swim right there, and he proceeded to move his arms around as if he was doing the breast stroke. Yes, in the sand. Crazy boy. Whenever I'm at the beach, I miss my college days, when my roommates and I lived on Balboa Island and could just walk to the ferry and hang out on the beach. I only wish that I'd still look good in a bikini. Then maybe I could swim in the sand with Brady, and be covered in sand. At least on my front.

For Father's Day, we all met up at Bro's house, and Dad was happy with the Kobe Bryant MVP shirt that he received. We had lunch at Johnny Carino's Italian Restaurant. They serve their bread with oil in roasted garlic chips. OMG, that's yummy! My pecan-crusted salmon salad was tasty, although it had a little bit too much lemon in the vinaigrette. Afterward, we went to Sports Chalet and Brady tried out the little putting green with a golf club that was just his size. As with all sports involving balls, he loved it, and Bro and V decided to buy the golf club and a practice green. Brady had a meltdown, though, because they told him that they weren't going to buy the golf ball. They have plenty of home, since Bro and V play golf themselves, but apparently he wanted the exact one that he had used in the store. The crying didn't really stop until we were able to leave, but at least they didn't give in and buy yet more golf balls. I didn't stay to see the happy ending, but he doesn't usually cry for very long.

I hope that everyone had as nice a FD weekend as we did.