Birthday Fun

Wow, a few days go by and I have so much to post about that this is either going to be a really long post, or very sketchy on details. Okay, let's face it, this is going to be BOTH!

Well, DS#2 turned 10 yesterday. On Wednesday night we had a sleep-over party for him.


Basically, we started out at the neighborhood pool when his friends arrived. One of his friends joined us a little later at the pool. One thing DS#2 had to withstand was the fact that his brothers and sister would be there too. DD LOVED playing with the boys, even if they were trying to ignore her. DS#2 has fantastic friends that all tolerated her sometimes-silliness well.

Fortunately, my lovely wife showed up to help cart people home as with the late arrival my van would have been over-filled. This wouldn't really be a problem on the short drive home from the neighborhood pool but the trip out for ice cream after everyone changed wouldn't have been possible without the extra car. DS#2 is not a fan of cake, he'll choose a milkshake over cake every single time. In fact, there are lots of things he'll choose over cake. In any case, we went ahead and went to Brindles, our favorite ice cream shop. DS#3 fell asleep in the car on the way there, and, in fact, ended up sleeping all the way through the night.

After we got back home it was video game and movie time, for, well, quite a long time. I eventually ordered pizza which we all ate while watching a Pixar short films DVD. Then, you guessed it, the boys played more video games. We decided to get two more Wii controllers because it would be nice to have for the family to play together and we knew that having enough for all the boys would be a huge hit.

The next morning I got up early, cooked bacon, and made banana-chocolate chip pancakes (M normally makes these but I decided to "step up" because I know how much DS#2 likes them). The boys actually all got up before I was planning to wake them (yes, they went to bed very late and we all know they stayed up later talking).

Then, after another round of video games, I took the boys home and ran DD and DS#2 to their Summer camp this week.

Summer camp for DD was "Adventures on the Magic School Bus" where they did some nice little science projects and learned some interesting things about rocks, fossils, plants, etc. DS#2 was in "Medieval Battles" which is basically a very large scale war game with lots of participants. It has both historical troops and fantasy elements so it was perfect for him. Interestingly, I might be helping the creators of the game publish the rules in the future.

I love this type of game and this particular game has been played for over 20 years so I would really like to help Professor Allen Hamilton and his boys get the rules out. We'll see what happens with that in the distant future.


Basically, this has been a very busy week. Add a broken dryer, ruined cell phone, and a few other chaotic elements to the birthday, summer camp, swim team, etc. mix and I am thrilled that it is Friday. Today provides an example for the week, we left this morning at about 8:15 to get DD and DS#2 to camp, then we ran off to the AT&T store to see what could be done with DS#1's cell phone (long story, won't go there now), then on to DS#3's haircut, followed by some side trips (the haircut went REALLY well and took less time than I budgeted) including a stop at Brackenridge park, to pick up the kids... well, let's just say that brought us up to 12:00 noon and the rest of the day was busy enough that DS#3 was napless.

The good point is that DS#3 did super well at his haircut today. I was amazed. This might have something to do with the new chair they had in place of the airplane he sat in before. He loves cars, and loves his "car shu" as well as his car sheets (yes, Cars, he loves everything do do with them, don't know if he could sit through the movie though.

I thought I would close with this funny picture of some old guy and his youngest baby. Father's Day is coming up and despite how busy I always seem to be, I have to say I wouldn't trade my life for anything.

I know I should get more posts up so family and friends know what is going on but sometimes, well, a guy just has to have fun.