Daddy daughter date

It isn't every day that you get to spend over three hours and $300 at a car dealership and it ends up being one of the most fun days you've ever had. But that's what happened to me today!

I get my oil changed at the dealer, because when we bought the car, we got some warranty thingy that basically gave us free oil changes for many moons (well, we paid for it...maybe we paid like $15,000 for oil changes and got a free van!). So I went there at 1:00 with Delaney in tow. Last time, we had a great time (and we got glow sticks and had a glow stick party that night), so I figured this would be a great time to get some great quality one on one time with my oldest. This paragraph is brought to you by the word 'great'. 'Great'- It's better than 'good', but worse than 'excellent'. Or 'amazing'. Or 'awesomefantabulouscious'.

First, I'll lay out why we were there for three hours. I had to get an oil change, and I figured I'd have them take care of my brakes also, since they were starting to squeak. I'd had someone do them a while ago when they started to squeak, but they didn't fix it, so I figured I might as well have someone professional do them. I also had them look at the alignment (last oil change, they suggested that). Of course, they told me that my calipers may or may not seize up soon, and that the steering column (I think?) might be in need of changing soon or else later. But that's neither here nor there.

I had SO much fun with Delaney that it didn't even bother me. First, we went and looked around in the show room. There is some special sale going on, and all the cars had helium balloons attached to them. Then we walked out of the show room into the adjoining strip mall. We went into Dunham's sports, because they had tons of bikes by the mall entrance. She loved it! Then close by they had these MSU and U-M foam hats, so we took some pics with those:


Then we walked around some more and stumbled upon their selection of kayaks and canoes. Oh my goodness, she just LOVED those! She kept saying 'oh my', and I honestly wish that I would have had a video recorder with me...because my words are much too pale to describe how I felt inside while watching her wander through this (pardon the pun) sea of kayaks and canoes, and watching her talk about them, and look at them! I never tire of seeing my children experience this world as a thing to be explored in newness at all times.

After this, we went to the nearby dollar store, where I got her a helium balloon (a Disney princess one- first one she grabbed, and she couldn't see which string she was grabbing- I thought that was kind of cool). Then I bought her a pair of red fairy wings (she is really into Tinkerbell right now) and a sparkly baton.

We came back to the strip mall, and found out that we had about another hour to go (argghh). What else to do? Well, Delaney laid down on the bench (she was a little tired), and I told her some stories- made 'em up all by myself, thank you very much. Then we started playing with these two cars that were sitting out in the hallway between the show room and the strip mall. Oh, we weren't vandalizing them, rolling down the windows, or spitting on the windshields...we pretended that the cars were alive (mommy truck and daddy truck), and I pretended to be their voices, and then Delaney pretended that she was the voice of the balloon! I love the imagination of a child, and we hung out in the hall for probably a good half hour or more.

Of course, when a child has a helium balloon, it is Murphy's law that the child will inevitably let go of that balloon exactly underneath the point in the room where the ceiling is the highest. Which is what she did. So we tracked down a Dunham's employee and got an extendo tool to get the balloon down. I could have just let it go (or just gone back and bought another balloon for $1), but I thought it was my fatherly duty to get her balloon back for her. Needless to say, I feel much more fatherly now.

After that, we went into their waiting room and watched some TV while they finished up...at this point, it was going on three hours and Delaney was starting to get a little tired (she did REMARKABLY well for the whole excursion, especially when you consider that we had forgot her juice cup at home and that it was three hours). We build a Lego castle...well, I built a Lego castle. Then it was done, and we left.

So here I am at home, $300 poorer, with around $800 of future auto labor possibly or possibly not lurking to strike (can you really trust people who take care of your automobiles? I've never really trusted that they'll be on the up-and-up), but feeling like the King of the world. I love my daughter, and I'm so thankful to God that anything we do with children can turn into the most amazing thing we've ever done.