Dads and grads

Nothing like a cool, rainy weekend to foster family togetherness.

That’s what we got this weekend, as we celebrated Father’s Day five days after Frank’s graduation from high school.

Given the chilly weather, we passed on our tradition of a backyard water fight and went bowling instead. I’m pretty sure we scandalized the couple next to us, who had their own balls and shoes and bowled three (maybe four?) games to our two, including one where none of the five of us broke 100.

Yes, we’re really bad at bowling.

That didn’t matter, though, as there was pizza and soda all around and ever-changing family nicknames on the scoreboard.

The bowling trip came after a late family breakfast at home, with waffles and bacon and hash browns and lots of talking around the table, and before an evening showing of the movie “Iron Man,” part of an effort on Caroline’s part to get us all more culturally current.

Yes, I realize that’s an 11-year-old movie.

Overall, it was a great weekend, including getting the kitchen sink fixed after four days of not being able to use it, all of those days with house-guests. Let’s just say we used a lot of paper plates, and carried a lot of dishes back and forth from the sink upstairs. Suddenly putting the dishes in the sink and turning on the hot water (and not having the water run out through a hole in the drainpipe onto the kitchen floor) seemed a luxury. Fun, even.

I think my husband had a good Father’s Day, with all the kids home and all kinds of low-key family activities going on. I know he made it into a good weekend for all of us, despite Caroline and Frank’s disagreement about whether a rabbit should be a welcome guest in our backyard.

By next weekend we’ll be off again, Teresa and I to family reunion in Iowa, the rest staying home. Frank has to go to Boston for college orientation in July, and he and I are planning a trip east to watch baseball in August (three cities and three games in three days — which pretty much sounds like torture to the rest of the family). Caroline’s planning her own trip east to see friends as well.

Soon enough, we’ll be playing luggage Tetris, trying to get both of them and their stuff to Boston, where Frank will start his freshman year and Caroline will start her senior year of college, and Teresa will get to be the only child at home for a while.

But in the meantime, we’ll take the rainy days — and the sunny ones too — spending time playing games and doing nothing at all.