Hockey Night

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A new family has moved into the neighborhood and they have three kids with whom we have all become fast friends. The two girls, Sunny and Kesley, just love Dada and Dada loves them. The whole family is very cool and interesting (they have had and are having quite the family adventure, which you can explore here: barenakedfamily.com).

Anyway, when I got home Monday night, in a particularly vile mood after a not altogether joyous day at work and fighting traffic and what not, we had dinner and then right after dinner I had to take a phone call and Dada wanted to go see Sunny and Kesley, so we went down the block, where the kids were all out playing "street hockey" in the street. I didn't really want Dada to be running into the street trying to play with the older girls, so I invited everyone to come play in our driveway [our architect had specifically said "the kids will want to play on the driveway" and he was right].

So we convened a game of "hockey" in the driveway and the girls let Dada play with them. This is Dada in the jersey and holding her hockey stick.

We all ended up playing until dark. Sunny and Kesley's brother Austin came over with his skateboard and I got out my Tierney board (a snowboard simulator with wheels) and we all ran around until it was too dark to play so we went inside and Sunny and Dada played Wii tennis and Austin, Kesley and I rocked out in the music room.

It was great fun and the perfect antidote to a foul mood. By the time we went to put Dada to bed I was remarkably not tired (considering that I've been waking up around 5:30 a.m. lately) and the soul of patience as we read this very tedious Curious George book that provides endless opportunities to name things and count things and identify shapes and so on.

During this time, Julie was out in the yard working on landscaping and whatnot, which she enjoyed as much as I enjoyed playing with the kids.

Here is another picture of Dada in her hockey gear. I call this one "Kabuki hockey":