Road Trip

Last Sunday morning I waited outside Anna Rose's room at Windy Gap with a surprise in my bag. The surprise in my bag was a clue, and the clue was really a clue to the surprise. Through the crack in the door I saw her slip one sock on and then the other. She was not in a hurry. Like most mornings, she was grumpy. And the thought that her father was getting her out of bed early wasn't helping to assuage her natural tendencies.

She huffed out and sat as far away from me as possible. I patted the cushion beside me on the couch. She huffed over and plopped down. I told her that there was something special I had been planning for her, and that there was a clue in my bag. She moved toward it, a little confused, slightly aware that her mother was video taping. Gruffly, she pulled the flap of the bag back.

A wand.

Like magic, her jaw dropped.

"You're taking me to Harry Potter World?" she half-asked/half-exclaimed.

"Yes," I replied.

"When?" she asked.

"Right now," I said.

Her jaw dropped again.

Thus began the whirlwind road trip I had been planning the last month or so.

It was perfect.

We stayed with friends Sunday night, spent the day at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, spent the night at relatives, woke up at 5am, and drove back.

Perfect. It really was.

"It really feels like it is our special day," Anna Rose said as we suddenly got ushered to the front of a line.

I admit. It really felt that way.

My friend Chris said that every once in awhile he will take one of his children in his arms and tell them, "I really love being your dad."

I don't do that enough.

Though it is true...I really love being Anna Rose's dad. 

We may not ever again have such a spontaneously magical, secret adventure like we had last week. But the wildly wonderful thing about being Anna Rose's father is that we don't need adventures like that to know the true magic of love.

And man do I love being her dad.

And as great as Harry Potter World was (the frozen butterbeer is better than the unfrozen by the way), it paled in comparison to the hours we read the books together; it even paled in comparison to the time in the car together; in the end, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was just a good excuse for all the moments that really mattered. For that I can be grateful.

Until the next adventure, Anna Rose...