A Father's Day Memory

My favorite Father's Day memory is from 1995. Shawn would have been 12, Jay 10, Josh 6 and Megan 10 months.

I got the idea to kidnap Steve that Sunday and I enlisted the boys help. We decided that after church, we would surprise him by driving him to French Creek State Park for a picnic lunch and an afternoon at the park. We had a lot of fun planning how we could manage to get the van packed with all the things we needed for the picnic without Steve knowing what we were doing.

Fortunately, Steve wasn't around much that Saturday so I got all the food ready and hid what needed to be kept cool deep in the refrigerator where I hoped Steve wouldn't see it. The non-perishables we packed in a cooler or box and hid as well. Since Megan was crawling we decided to take the playpen (this was before pack-n-play's were popular) along to keep her somewhat contained. This proved to be the most challenging, because we needed to get it into the van and we really couldn't put it in the evening before because we were afraid that Steve would notice that it was gone. We decided to try to get it in Sunday morning while Steve was in the shower.

I'm surprised that Steve didn't notice that the boys were up bright and early on Sunday.  They were excited, but did a good job of acting nonchalant and like this was no different that any other Sunday. When Steve went to take his shower, we all jumped into action. What you have to know is that Steve takes incredibly short showers so we did not have much time at all. I remember that Shawn ran for the playpen and quickly folded it up and got it out to the van. Jay, Josh and I grabbed everything else that we had packed beforehand and dashed it out as well.  Shawn shoved the playpen in and we all hurriedly threw everything else in and slammed the door. Then we dashed back into the house and tried to act as normal as possible when Steve emerged ready for church. We prayed that he wouldn't notice that there was something unusual sticking out behind the back seat.

I can't believe that Steve didn't notice the concealed excitement that accompanied the boys and me that morning but thankfully he was completely oblivious. We went to church and afterward the children and I went out to the car to wait.  When Steve came to the car after his normal after-church visitation, he found his wife sitting in the driver's seat grinning broadly and three boys with smiles as big as their faces. (I'm sure Megan was probably smiling too, but she was too little to know what was going on.) With a questionable look he got into the passenger's seat and we yelled "Happy Father's Day!"

I drove him (and the family) to French Creek and we had an absolutely delightful picnic lunch and afternoon at the park. The boys and I were overjoyed that we had managed to pull of such a feat and I still look back on this day with fond memories.