Fallen Apple

My Son and I with the BRS

While I had to return from my weekend in New Hampshire without my Favorite Panamanian I was buoyed by the time I spent with my Favorite Son and his incredible family. There’s the old expression about an apple not falling far from the tree and applying it to the children picking up their parents’ proclivities. My son chose to celebrate his first ever Fathers’ Day with a trip to not one but two local breweries. I was along for that very fun ride through the picturesque New Hampshire seacoast area on a perfect summer day. That was certainly ample proof about trajectories of apples falling. I’ll leave it to people who know both of us as to which parent I am referring to.

2 Happy Young Ladies

Favorite Panamanian With the ABFA and BRS at Hayseed

Hayseed Restaurant

The BRS handled the trip with true aplomb, thoroughly dominating her first ever pub crawl. Our first stop was the Smuttynose Brewery in nearby Hampton, NH which had an attached restaurant called the Hayseed. A pink haired hostess graciously seated us in a perfect location to accommodate the accouterment required for a 4 month old. We had a fun time sampling beers and burgers but most of all sharing stories with my son and the ABFA. After lunch the ladies took over driving duties from their beer sampling husbands for the drive to the next stop – The Throwback Brewery in North Hampton.

BRS And her Parents at Throwback

Throwback Brewery

At Throwback with Alfred Between us

Happy Grandparents

BRS Loving her First Pub Crawl

This was a cool stop because the serving area is in a huge old barn that has been re-purposed as both the brewery and the restaurant. Once again we were lucky to grab a table inside with a perfect setup for the BRS. They had a weird kind of ordering system. You have to order everything at the bar and then are given a bobble head doll, ours was Alfred Hitchcock (I know – appropriate). When you order again you have to specify what doll is at your table. My son and I did are best to entertain our wives since we were becoming progressively more charming as the beer intake increased. It was a truly fun afternoon.

Showing ABFA the Wall While Son Mows

So you're my Grampa

This is my Dad

First thing that morning my son and I were back at work at his retaining wall project. He had two more pallets of bricks to install which would have brought us nearly to completion. We had moved all the bricks over to the wall and had installed all but eight of them before one side of the wall decided to lean back into the hill. The only problem with that inclination was that we hadn’t backfilled behind that section with the needed gravel yet. This required pulling some bricks back from the wall until that is done. It’s still looking good though. It is massive.

After our brewery ride we returned to the house for pizza and a couple more beers and I think we watched part of the Red Sox game, at least that’s what my wife told me. Fathers’ Day weekend was off to a fantastic start. The only part missing was my daughter, Wingman, and the FBR. We tried to include them as much as possible but “moving target” would be a gross understatement when describing the FBR. They also had Wingman’s dad on station for the first part of the weekend. The FBR was slowed down briefly when she took a scary fall off a chair that bent one of her fingers back badly.

FBR Has Apparently been Taking Modeling Lessons

Bent Index Finger

They consulted via text with Great Aunt for medical advice and applied some ice to hold the swelling down. While this was concerning for a few hours we soon started receiving reports that she was back to her “bouncing off the walls” energy level and had full range of motion for the digit. Since great minds think alike they spent Fathers’ Day afternoon at a local beer garden where the FBR succeeded in thoroughly coating nearly her entire body in dirt as she raced around the associated playground. We caught up with her just before last evening’s bath where the FBR proudly displayed the results of her beer garden hijinks in the form of dirt coated legs and arms.

Helping Dad with his Father's Day Breakfast - She a Well Known Raider

Grampa - You're Supposed to be Here!

Beer Garden Crew

Our Fathers’ Day was a little more sedate, needed after Saturday’s excursions and my requirement to drive home to Worcester. The ABFA’s fantastic parents arrived for an afternoon barbecue and our respective wives refused to let either my son or I engage in any physical task. We ended up binge watching some episodes of Cheers and then a sci fi action movie together, something I treasured since we rarely get to do that anymore. It was almost a perfect Fathers’ Day.

Hidden Treasure

Dirt Coated

I had to leave all too soon which was much harder than you can possibly imagine. While I haven’t highlighted it, the true hero of the weekend was the BRS. She’s very alert and has established a solid bond with my wife. Any time my wife’s high octave Spanish sounds off the BRS starts smiling. She’s a little more reserved with me but did bequeath a few of her now trademark smiles upon me which seemed to dim the lights in the room whenever that happened. She much more active now and can turn over at will. I will not be surprised to hear that she is crawling very soon. She seems like a very determined young lady, a tribute to both of her superb parents.

The empty house was every bit as depressing as I anticipated, especially when I realized I left my cell phone back in New Hampshire. That should have precluded free movie attendance since my Movie Pass is tied to that phone but my patronage of the local movie theater has achieved a couple free movies on my Star Pass card so I abandoned the house for the movies. I went to see Tag. You wouldn’t think a movie about middle aged men continuing to play a game of tag each year would work. It does. In large part because of a very likable cast headed by Ed Helms as the game’s biggest proponent. There are some very funny moments as the gang of friends tries to tag the one friend, Jeremy Renner, who has successfully avoided being tagged in all the years the game has been played. Isla Fisher is back channeling her best Wedding Crasher craziness as Helms’ wife. An inch deep in weight but a lot of harmless fun this was based on an actual group of friends. The movie ends with a series of clips of some of their real world antics.

Watching Son Install Tractor Attachments