Originally posted on Facebook HERE
I am once again relegated to the garage for today’s post. The house you see is full of people. Today is our annual “supercoolfunday” excursion with the grandkids. This will be the 12th year in a row. What, you might ask — what is “supercoolfunday”? It started out in 2013 when I had the idea I was going to take a day off from work every year and plan a bunch of stuff together with my wife to do with the grandkids. Really fun stuff. Super cool fun stuff. And thus, “supercoolfunday” was born. The first year was incredible. Man, we did a lot. They were 2, 4, and 6 years old. We totally pooped them out. Can’t remember exactly what we did, but I think there was a movie, a park, a zoo, a water park… it was awesome. We have a great pic I’ll post below of the three of them out like a light in the back seat on the way home. And we’ve managed to keep it up for now 12 years in a row. Some were better than others — trying to plan a whole day of new, fun things to do isn’t always that easy. And this year it almost came close to not happening at all, too — the grandkids are now 13, 15, and 17 years old. The oldest is driving. The two oldest have jobs. They’re all involved in sports. We have more trouble working around their schedules than ours, it seems. But in the end, we managed to make it work. They don’t know what we have planned for the day — that’s part of the fun, I guess — there are usually at least four “phases” to every supercoolfunday — and they try to guess where we’re going, what we’re going to do as we head to the next excursion. They all have smartphones now, so it’s not so easy to surprise them as we get closer to our destinations any more. But even on the times the planned events didn’t go so great — it was still awesome, because we got to spend the entire day together. And there have been a few times the day was absolutely incredible, too. We joke about this year my grandson Ben will be driving us home and Laurie and I will be passed out in the back seat. Probably much closer to reality than the other way around these days. I really feel kind of honored that as teenagers, they’re all willing to spend a day with us at all, I guess. And today is going to be a great day, too. I can’t wait to get started. It’s an unusual Sunday post from an unusual location today, but — maybe… just maybe — you can start something like this within your own family. These excursions have some memories that we’ll all remember and cherish the rest of our lives. And that twelve years?… it blew by. Time waits for no-one. The best time to start a new tradition is now. We started last night with popcorn, malts and a movie… phase one already complete. At some point, this tradition will probably have to end. Ben will head off to college, the kids will grow up, you know? This could very well be the last year. But the memories will last forever. We’re about to make some great ones again today…
