Aaron and Kennedy are playing water polo this year. Above is Aaron getting pulled as Kennedy guards the goal at the deep end.
Watch what happens.
The opposing team takes a shot and Kennedy propellers (this is what they call moving your feet to gain elevation in water polo) herself up to block. Aaron watches with mild concern.
The block is good. Aaron exults.
Kennedy acts like there was never any doubt, but I know she loves hearing her brother cheer for her.
Holly has a new post up at her site. It’s a cute story about Aaron. Everyone go look all at once and crash her server!
With an athlete like Aaron in the family, Kennedy is always getting the short shrift. It’s not that Kennedy isn’t an athlete. She just has a much different approach to sports than Aaron. But swim team is the right sport for her. With all the kids milling about, the meets feel more like afternoon picnics than sporting events, and Kennedy really thrives in this kind of environment. She’s also pretty fast in the water.
I was explaining all this to my in-laws last week at the reunion. Kennedy was within earshot. I said I remembered standing on the side of the pool and noticing an enormous rooster tail of water making its way from one end of the pool to the other.
Grandpa Jim raised his eyebrows and nodded his head.
I told them I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it looked like a motor boat and it was getting all the parents in front of us wet. The rest of the swimmers were cheering.
I asked Holly what it was and she said, ‘Silly man. That’s your daughter.’
All the in-laws smiled and politely shooed off my tall tale, but I didn’t care. I was watching Kennedy, who looked up at me with her googly eyes and a smile that just wouldn’t quit.
Every other year my mother-in-law and her sister organize a family reunion at a different destination. This year it was in Oregon’s Hood River valley.
We had a great view of Mount Hood from our front porch.
The Colombia River wasn’t a far drive.
We hiked up Beacon Rock, which has a lot of man-made switchbacks, rails, and bridges and looks a lot like a pachinko machine.
Some of us leapt into adventure on Hood River.
Others of us were content to sit on the sidelines.
Never disparage the sidelines. You never know what sights you might see. This woman and her three cattle dogs stole my imagination.
But the highlight of these sort of things is always meeting family and friends for a few days.
I took the kids to the company picnic yesterday. Thirty-thousand geeks, 3 days in July, 1 farm nestled in the foothills of the Cascade mountains: Big fun.
The afternoon started off with motorcycle daredevils on a twenty foot ramp.
The sky grew dark, but no daredevils were lost.
The children were impressed.
In boot-camp, they said the smoking lamp was lit and it meant you could have a cigarette whenever you wanted to light up. The first time I heard it, I wanted to know where this lamp was. I wanted to keep my eye on it. On the way to the park, I told the kids that if they ate a good lunch, the soda lamp was lit for the rest of the afternoon. Both their eyes got big as cans of pop. Neither asked to see the actual lamp.
We played games.
We waited in lines.
Went on rides.
And then the soda lamp was extinguished.
Aaron has a knack for hitting the ball. He’s so good, his nickname is A-bomb. He made it into the Little League All Stars this year, so earlier this month, we deocrated all our cars for the big tournament. Recently I’ve been getting strange looks at stop lights.
On my driver’s side rear window, I drew a little mushroom cloud and wrote, “GO A-BOMB!”
I got The Complete Led Zeppelin for $9.99 at Rhapsody, RealNetwork’s music service. That’s 165 MP3 files encoded at 256 kbps with no DRM for less than 10 dollars. It must have been some sort of goof up because they have raised the price to $59.99. I love MP3 with no DRM. You never know when a DRM provider is going to change the standard, go out of business, or abandon their technology.
More love shark, compliments of Coca Cola Zero at Qt3.
Becuase it’s funny (and I love 70s movies), the header for this post was shamlessly stolen from Brad Grenz.
When Aaron was five, he drew the image that appears in my new header for Father’s day. I have always loved it. The gang over at Qt3—especially Coca Cola Zero and Fugitive—helped me turn it into a nice looking banner. Thanks guys!
Present Tense 