Dad's Amazing Race Birthday: Part Two

On Monday, we gave Dad another clue envelope. Inside were driving directions. He followed them, finally arriving at Zip Timber Lake in Huntington. There were no huge signs, so he was clueless. I gave him a present--a diaper--and then another clue envelope. It told him what was coming, a zip-lining tour for Dad, Mum, The Brother, and I.

I'd done the course before with Rachael, so I knew what was coming. The rest of my family were new to zip-lining. It was entertaining. Especially because The Brother kept announcing he was "Fine" and this was "No problem." Except I could tell he was freaked. He got more comfortable after the first few zips. Mum never quite learned how to stop, and she developed an overwhelming need to perfect the art of stopping before slamming into the platform. My favorite moment was when she was crossing one of the bridges and Dad shook it as he crossed behind her. Here's the video (The funny starts at about the 50 second mark).



I took as many videos as I could, just so I could get all the funny stuff recorded. It was a blast.

At one point Mum turned to me and said, "I'm a bit tired of being brave." She really was brave. For someone to hurtle at epic speed at trees all day, unable to figure out how to stop? I can't imagine how scary that would be.

I had made Dad a chocolate cream pie the day before, so we went home and cut into it...only to find that the chocolate pudding (which I make all the time) had chosen this time to not bother setting at all. It was chocolate soup, served chilled in a pie shell. Everyone ate it anyway, because they love me. I really would like to know what went wrong this time. It was properly thickened in the saucepan...it just did not set when it cooled. Whatever. Pie is evil.

The zip-line guy, Jonathan, took a picture of the whole family and sent it to me. This is now the most current family portrait we have. The last picture of all of us together is almost ten years old! Apparently we don't photograph things.