Charleston Wedding

The Pate clan headed south to my cousin’s wedding in SC.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone’s Thanksgiving went well. Here are some highlights from ours.
Everyone gathered at my parents’ house which got crowded fast. Here is a pic of an assortment of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandmothers.

It was good to see Kait again (whom faithful blog readers and friends will remember is my cousin that lived with us last year). She is doing well and recently made the honor roll.

Long overdue, I borrowed my cousin’s skateboard and proved yet again that my athletic prowess knows no bounds. Don’t I look graceful?

The highlight of the day easily was spoon wrestling. If you aren’t familiar with this gag here is a video clip I found on youtube to see it in action.

Matt introduced me to this game in college. I usually played his accomplice. We even did this to one of our college professors once.

Basically 2 people are given spoons and told to face each other. One player will put his head downward (facing the floor) and the other will put the spoon in his mouth and hit the other player in the back of the head with it. They trade off hits until one gives up. This proves to be exceptionally hard to do with any force. This time I was the referee while my brother played against our new victim, my cousin Brandon. Here is the rub (its easier to understand to watch the video above)….Chris (my brother) was in on it and when it was his turn to hit Brandon I would grab another spoon from my back pocket and whack my cousin in the back of the head (pretty hard) and then slide it back in my pocket while he was still facedown and unable to see our little ruse. This inevitably proves frustrating for the victim because he is getting whacked pretty hard while being unable to counter his opponent with any real force. Always great family fun. Here is a pic although it isn’t a great shot.

On a side note, I was just reading an article on Slate about there being a new rally cry against “the secularization of Thanksgiving.” Much like a few years ago when the “War on Christmas” was in full fervor, the new focus is on Thanksgiving. I have one objection……I have never assumed Thanksgiving was a religious or Christian Holiday to begin with….therefore it would be hard to secularize it. I don’t even recall ever seeing a church do a special event for Thanksgiving. What do you think? Religious holiday or just another holiday?

de plane, de plane

Last weekend marked the inaugural flight of the r/c plane my parents got me for my birthday. My parents and Caden were there to witness my mad pilot skills. The plane survived the day but just barely. Despite my father’s protest I convinced him to take the controls….he then inadvertently flew the plane into a dense thicket like a heat-seeking missile. The result was quite a few dents and parts of the wings were dangling by a thread (generally not a good sign). A little scotch tape and some TLC nurtured the plane back to life. But dad is banned from flying the plane from now on if there is a tree/thicket with 1,000 yards.

take me out to the ball game

We continued our Independence Day tradition (3 years running) of going to our local minor league baseball game and post game fireworks. We were joined by my parents and Chrandy (sorry we didn’t get a group pic). We had excellent seats (front row behind the backstop) both because of the vantage point and that there was a funny heckler nearby that kept it interesting. The post game fireworks were definitely my least favorite at the park so far, so we may need to get our fix on the 4th.

Bonus rabbit trail: Shortly after the game, I decided to take a walk on the field to look at the bull pen. It looks like those guys are pretty relaxed back there during the game and just hanging out so I was half expecting to find a TV, a foot massager, and a little refrigerator, but there were no such perks. On the long walk back, an older employee seemed to be a little peeved that I was wandering on the field as he approached and asked if he could help me. I replied no, that I was looking for another exit…….yeah, he didn’t fall for that either.

front row seats baby

Caden is not digging the fireworks

The 1st Annual Fathers’ Day Pate Bowl

My parents (with Kait’s siblings in tow) and “Chrandy” came over last night for a little father’s day desert. At some point I convinced everyone (including my mom, Mandy and my wife….but not Caden, even though he may have been slightly better than my mom) to play in a 2-hand-touch football game in the backyard….and a tradition was started. Since dad and I were the 2 fathers in the crowd, we were the captains and picked the teams. As usual dad was a bit too aggressive on the field and Chris was the last one picked. Sorry that there are no pics, they would have been quite amusing.