January 22 is an extremely special day for me, it is the day that my amazing, wonderful, sweet wife was born. Growing up January 21 and 25th were important because they are the birthdays of my Dad and my brother Kyle respectively, so now Ashley's birthday joins the ranks of important days from January 21-25th. Perhaps we can have a child on the 23 or 24th to compact the celebrations even more! As Christmas was the first one as a married couple, this was our first time celebrating Ashley's birthday together and as a married couple. Again, no pressure! You would think with all this positive pressure that I wouldn't mess up... well... growing up our birthday was special. Mom would make us a special dinner that we picked out and would make us our favorite cakes (that means January is Angel Food Cake time!) and we would celebrate with just our immediate family. Usually the nearest Sunday would be reserved for time with the extended family and then the Friday or Saturday would be a day for friends. So, with all this importance on birthdays growing up, what did I do? I took Ashley to play disc golf in the local Ice Bowl charity tournament (http://www.icebowlhq.com/) on January 21st! That is right on the day I could have taken my wife out to eat, or to an event she would have loved, we played disc golf! (not really helping me in getting Ashley to love the sport, don't you think?!?) We had a good time though! It was a gorgeous day, a cool 60 F and overcast. Not a whole lot of "ice" for us in the ice bowl, which is good because this tournament would not be cancelled for anything... the tagline is "No whimps! No Whiners!" We registered in the novice division and at the end of the 21 hole round I tied for 1st place! Then I played a CTP playoff to determine first place and won! I got a sweet disc for winning with the logo of the Ice Bowl printed in color on the disc. Before you think that this was how I celebrated my wife's birthday, let me tell you how that went. First off, Ashley had visits to make to some of the sisters in the church nearby, so during that absence I took the time to secretly prepare for her birthday. I picked up a bouquet of flowers, a card, and the ingredients to make sweet and sour pork from scratch, as well as two slices of pie from my favorite pie place: House of Pies. Then I dropped the pie and flowers off at a friends house for safe and SECRET keeping until after church on Sunday. I then went about my business as if the 22nd was just going to be a normal day... mwahahahaha! So, on Sunday after getting home from church Ashley was again scheduled to make some more church related visits, so I then retrieved all my surprises and prepared to celebrate her birthday in style! The flowers were ready with her card and gift and I was making dinner when she got home... and then it hit her! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLEY!!!! She was shocked, amazed, and relieved that she could tell all those asking her that I did indeed do something special and that she did indeed not marry a dead beat! We had a wonderful afternoon and evening celebrating my wife for the fantastic woman she is! And since I didn't learn my lesson I signed up for a disc golf tournament the very next Saturday as well! It was my first PDGA (Professional Disc Gold Association) sanctioned tournament. I entered in the Recreational division (one step above Novice, and also known as the MA3 division) and played in a group of 19. It was a load of fun! We played on 9 holes that were permanently part of the course and 9 temporary holes. These holes were fun as we had to throw over soft ball fields or between two adjoining fields (a narrow fairway) without throwing into the field. I was definitely the most green of any of the players in my division, most had played multiple tournaments, some having played for years already! I ended up in 15th, however I did improve my first round score by 4 strokes in the second round (Check it out here). Shortly thereafter Ashley made a trip back home, it was a special trip home so that Ashley could surprise her sister Megan who had spent the last 18 months serving a mission for our church to the wonderful people of Peru! I really missed her while she was gone, (so to cope and because I could I took a trip to San Antonio to spend time with Mark and his family, and of course play in a disc golf tournament with him. It was cold and windy day, we didn't end up getting to play together, and a lot of other things went wrong but Mark and I toughed it out and came out the better, but we learned some important lessons!) but luckily she arrived back on Valentines day (where I once again was able to surprise her at 10:30PM when we finally got home)! However Ashley wanted to make it a Valentines Day celebration over the weekend since she had been gone and we didn't really get to celebrate Valentines day very long on the day. So, what did I do? Yep, I signed up to play in a disc golf tournament all day Saturday! Ashley is such a wonderful wife and was going to come cheer me on all day! Then the day came and perhaps karma kicked in because it was pouring rain. I almost didn't go but decided to tough it out! I also got to try out my new Keen boots! I purchased these particular boots at an REI garage sale for $6.50, so worth it! They kept my feet dry and warm even though I had to stand in puddles that covered my feet! This particular tournament is called a day-of-course, meaning there is no disc golf park here but people bring their portable disc golf baskets and set up 18 hole in the park. Major modifications to the park were made due to the rain, most of the planned baskets would have been underwater because the water run off/ drainage ditch expanded from 10 ft wide and 20 ft deep to over 100 ft wide and over 6o ft deep. Being a day of course, well the organizers just designed a new set up and off we played! It was a fun day and I met new people and got wet (but not my feet!). At the end of the day I went home and spent the rest of the night with Ashley so she would not hate disc golf or rather my involvement in the sport!
No comments:
Post a Comment