Walking on sunshine

The last few days were the president’s day three day weekend in which my boys and I celebrated hard and fast! We played games, we watched movies, we ate junk food, we went to Jump Street, we slept late and they had a sleep over with their friend Jeff to top off the weekend!

Lets see – more details


Friday… Friday… Yeah, to long ago, I totally don’t remember what we did. (that’s age for ya!)

Saturday - We went to the closing of a local Borders book Store. Very sad. I LIKE Borders. They were having great sale prices so the kids and I went to go check it out. Jimmy got a box set of all things that fly. The rest of the day things were whirring and spinning and flying all over my house. Needless to say Onyx spent the next several hours switching between barking and hiding in her crate. Poor dog. New toys always seem to gravitate towards her. Anyway, Nicky got a box set of gags which he inflicted on us for the next several practical joke packed hours. Once again poor Onyx hid in her crate for most of it. I got a very cool book called “Caffeine for the Creative Soul” or something like that. I also got the “Tao of Photography” and one called “Quotationary (I love quote books!). Yes, chess books are conspicuously absent from this list. Borders has never had a good chess section. Oh well. We did make up for this oversight though! We played LOTS of chess! Nicky and I played several games of blitz and I even gave him rooks and queen odds and sweetened it by offering to give him a dollar if he beat me. Apparently cash is a good motivator since he beat me several games! He was very happy indeed. Then Jimmy got motivated and we played several similar games without the clock. (Jimmy has a real aversion to chess clocks, no idea why) He also managed to beat me in a few games and also earned himself a few dollars. It was SO worth the money to see the gleaming smiles on their beautiful faces! Gleeful fun was had by all!

Sunday – We watched “UP”. Nicky insisted that it was a great movie. It started off with the main characters wife dying. I couldn’t believe it! I was already to turn it off but Nicky said he forgot about that and that it would get better. It did but in the end it got kind of sad all over again. Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know. We also ate at Arbys – Nicky and Jimmy always get the Jr. Roast Beef and I always get the Jr Club Sandwich. (Please note that these are all in multiple quantities! They are after all growing boys!

Then we went to Jump Street. We paid for 2 hours and they spent most of the time in the dodge ball room. It started off fairly empty since we got there soon after it opened but it quickly grew packed considering the weather we were having. Still, we enjoyed ourselves. I even remembered to use the video function in my camera to record some video. I will try to post it to this blog entry. Then, to top off the weekend they had Jeff come over for a sleep over. Since I had outlawed video games for the rest of the weekend they had a blast using Nicky’s video camera to make their own zombie movies. (I will have to remember to get one of those off of his camera so I can post it here.) Then, of course, they played with Lego. (see earlier blog)


Monday was a little quieter. They slept late due to the sleep over and then I cooked hamburgers for all of us. They played for the next several hours while I read and did household shores. Nice quiet way to wind down.


A candlelit room
Uncovered a paradise.
Smiles forever.

Jimmy after a serious hit in dodge ball!

Nicky mocking people by sitting down while playing dodge ball - supreme confidence!

Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.

I just ate lava and my heads on fire

The other day I heard quite the commotion outside my house. I heard sirens, the blaring horn of fire trucks, the howl of dogs responding to said sirens etc. Naturally, being the intrepid (read – stupid) person that I am I immediately got up to go investigate. My boys were with me and wanted to go outside with me. I told them to stay inside. They asked why with that ever so innocent look that only kids can pull off. (I seriously wish I could still pull off that look. It would be soooooo handy in so many situations!) Trying to look important and fearless I puffed out my chest (STOP LAUGHING) and told them “it might be dangerous”. They of course replied “then why are you going out there” with the same look. “Because I ‘m curious” I cleverly replied. A soon as I said it I realized how dumb it was. I looked at the kids to see if they bought it… Nope. They both had huge smiles on their faces like someone who was just about to scream out “CHECKMATE” and then do the mocking jig. What followed was a short staring contest. They knew they had me, I knew they had me. They just stared at me as if to say “do we really need to shoot down that lest feeble comment dad, I mean, really?”


I caved first. “let’s go” I said with a sigh. That’s when things got weird.


Outside there was a fire truck just parked outside my house looking in our direction. I looked at the houses on either side of me. Nothing. No fire, no bodies, no commotion, no nothing. I looked back at the fire truck. They were still looking in my direction. That was about the time that the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up. I mean, what were they waiting for? Was my house about to burst into flame? Did they know something I didn’t know but REALLY NEEDED to know? I stared. They stared. I whipped around and looked at my house. No flames. That’s good, right? So what where they waiting for? I swear if I was a cat right then my tail would have been all bushy. They remained there for about five minutes. Five long minutes. Now five minutes may not seem like a long time to you but when you think your house is about to go all fireball on you five minutes is a LIFETIME. After five minutes they slowly pulled away and left. No sirens, no horns, no loud radio sending them somewhere else. Total weirdness. My kids asked what happened. I told them I didn’t know. They gave me that look. I think I lost a few points that day.

But I still have my house.

Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.