Pastor Mike has officiated at most of the important events in our lives (wedding, Clara's baptism, etc.) not to mention he's been Amy's family's pastor for the last umpteen years. (In case you're wondering, "umpteen" means a large number of years that I'm not certain of and I'm too lazy to figure it out specifically.) This was to be no different and in fact one of the delays in scheduling the event was waiting for him to wrap up a sabbatical and vacation.

We got to the church almost on time for a pre-game briefing, but I was so busy shaking hands and saying hello that I didn't even get to finish my frappacino. (Thankfully, it was preserved for better or worse by Amy and Ryan. No wonder we chose them to be one of Lilly's sets of godparents. (Katherine and Paul were the other pair even though they had nothing to do with my coffee.)) Mommy Amy snuck up to the alter and doctored the baptismal font while Pastor Mike was distracted by the rest of us.

We were the first order of business and everything went smoothly. Pastor Mike was a little surprised when he saw a rock in his font. No doubt he flashed back to Clara's baptism when we similarly messed with tradition.

The rock was taken from the stream in Oregon where Amy's grandfather's ashes were spread a few months before we were married. For Clara, we added some water from Source Lake, the source of the South Fork. (Dan and I had stopped at Source Lake on a snowshoe trip up to Snow Lake just before Clara's birth.) Lilly got water from the source of the Middle Fork (collected when Nick and I went over Dutch Miller Gap) and from Lake Lillian, her namesake, that Tokul and I visited earlier in the week.

Lilly was mesmerized by Pastor Mike and clung to his crucifix for dear life. Rather than risk upsetting a happy situation Pastor Mike held on to Lilly instead of giving her back to us before introducing her to the congregation.

The only problem of the morning was that my frappacino had melted significantly, but that was rectified by Les and Janelle who stopped at Starbucks on the way back to Amy's parents' house for the party royale. (That brought the count of espresso shots for the morning to eight, but who's counting?)

The party was the typical little kids running around like humming birds and humming birds buzzing people on the deck. The weather was surprisingly good and provided sun for a good portion of the late morning and early afternoon.

Lilly went down for a nap and Clara took center stage. She blew bubbles and kicked the soccer ball. She even took a spill and pretty much ruined her tights. To show me up she instructed me in the way of the gentleman's arts like so.

"Daddy, you should stand up so Mommy can sit in your chair."

Hmph. I thought Amy wanted to be standing. (Yeah, right.)

Clara did eventually go down for a nap (and a decent one at that) after most everyone except family staying for dinner left. We headed home around 7:30pm as both girls were really starting to wind down. The festivities will likely continue for another couple of days, though, as Nicole and Molly don't head home until Thursday.