A Very Long Day and Dragging the Kids Along

Since we’re a hockey loving family and it’s summer, we are experiencing a bit of different worlds colliding in that we are combining winter and summer activities. In other words, life is good. Summer up here, as it is in most of this country where parents are neurotically overbearing or are looking for somewhere to dump their kids, means camps, and lots of them.

For us, this meant clown camp, at least for this week. The kids love it, it’s their third year doing it, and the guys running the show, JM, MZ, and JM, do a fantastic job. Kudos to them for their efforts. Anyway, the camp runs until noon, and we had many other things to do after that. A had her guitar lesson after lunch, and then we had plans to go to open stick at UA. After that, I had a game, and didn’t really have time to drop the kids off, so they were forced to hang out and watch me play.

This, of course, required all of us to eat supper away from home. Now any normal family would have simply picked up pizza or had a hot dog, but we’re not a normal family. In the quest to have a healthier diet, the only course of action was to make something healthy and bring it with us, which meant more planning. During the day when the kids were at camp, I had to make a meal that was not only vegetarian, but was something the kids would like, and could be eaten on the road. I decided on spaghetti puttenesca, which has become one of our favorites. Pasta is good at room temp, and the kids love it in most of its forms. Included a mesclun salad and some roasted peppers, and we have a meal that would satisfy even the staunchest vegetarian.

We had about a half hour break after A’s guitar lesson, so we came home, dropped off the guitar, grabbed the supper and hockey equipment, and headed for UA. We had a blast at open stick, and then had about an hour and a half until my game. I set us all up on a table with supper, and it was kind of sad melancholy because we were the only ones there. There was a practice with a HS team, but we were alone in the lobby, eating supper. In retrospect, I could have brought the kids home and made it in time for the game, but it would have been rushed, I would more than likely have been late, and A&N said they wanted to watch me play. Say no more. Even DF commented on the fact that we were still there as he headed home for the night.

Right after supper, we had some dessert, and the kids took to the stands to watch me play. They were, needless to say, really cute in the stands, and one of my teammates even commented on how cute they were being, but she was probably just being nice, even though I completely agree. I don’t think they were too bored, and they got to see their dad getting worked over on the ice. After the game, we headed home after an exceedingly long day, but what else is new in our lives?

At least once we got home, I didn’t have to make supper. Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to ~ petel ~' for the pic.