Thanks GG and PapaJohn

Thanks for the ton of cookies GG and PapaJohn (and the card, too)

School Buds and the "Meat Pile"

I went over on Tuesday afternoon to his "school" (Child Care Center) and brought some of the cookies my Mom sent (Thanks Mom!) an we all had a snack and sang Happy Birthday to Jack. A couple of his buddies lined up for a picture and as always, it ends in a "meat-pile". That's when they all grab eachother and fall down in a pile. Its like wrestling, but there isn't any pinning of your opponent, actually, there aren't any opponents. Its just a meat-pile.

The Cousins

Joe Jr. and Beckett were out back playing with Jack, so I got them together for a minute to get a quick picture, not easy with a 3, 4 and 5-year-old to stand still for more than ten seconds.

The first picture is when I said they had to stand still, the second is when I said they could start to act like Monkeys.

Serious-Boys


Monkey-Boys.

Golf Course Cake

Reet was kind enough to make Jack his own Golf Course cake for his birthday. He picked it out from a book that Kate bough an Reet made it just for him.

Thanks, Reet! On top of it all, she was sick this last week, so extra, extra kudos to the worlds best Aunt.

Gerbil Balls

There was a new ride I have never seen before this year at the Fair. It was a pool with air-filled plastic balls that had kids inside them. Here is the video of how the kids get inside. Once they are sealed in, they are just like human gerbils in those little plastic balls that roll around.

They already have Habitrails for kids at some restaurants where they run around in tubes that connect to each other, so I guess I should have expected this would come to fruition.

Celebrate Fairfax

The Fair was in town last week for the weekend, so we had to go. Lots to do and since Kate's Mom and Papu were in town, they joined us for some of the fun.

We of course, fueled up on all the fair food, pizza, gyros, steak and cheese, chicken tenders, fries and ice cream. We topped it off with fried dough (elephant ears or funnel cake). Good eats at the fair, always.

We visited the Petting Zoo and saw Chewy the Camel again. He is nice to me, but I saw him spit on a girl that was beside him - he did not like her at all and she was sooo embarrassed.

Chewy


There were other animals like ducklings, chicks and chickens, turkeys (one of the turkeys laid an egg), billy goats, goats, lambs and pygmy bulls. They even had a few alpacas, one of which allowed Jack to put his arm around him and stand next him.

Ducklings


Did I mention the Baby PotBellied Pigs?


The Alpaca


There was a riding train that we took for a spin around the childrens area and Jack seemed to like that a lot.
Riding the Train


Next was a huge inflatable bounce area - he really liked that, so much that we went back again later and he jumped around for another 20 minutes.

I did notice that it had a misspelling on the front of it. "Train Sataion"


There was a train display set up inside across about 20 tables so we visited inside the Government Center and enjoyed the air conditioning for awhile, too. He didn't seem to mind that none of the trains were named Thomas or that they didn't look like those trains.

After that we waited for the fireworks, which were pretty good, but only lasted 20 minutes or so. All in all, a good time and getting out was easy, not much traffic at all.

City of Fairfax Firemen

We went to Dairy Queen the other night and when we wet out to the parking lot, some Firemen were pulling in for some ice cream. Jack stopped to look at the trucks and one of the firemen went and got a plastic fireman hat and gave it to him. Nice guys.

Dentist Visit

Jack went to the dentist this morning and he did good. Last time we had to hold him down to get his teeth clean, he just did not want to get them cleaned. We even took a timeout outside, away from the office - I talked and pleaded for a half hour and he didn't budge.

This time, he was a dream. They showed him hat they were going to do and explained everything. I He eventually became very relaxed and let the girl do whatever she wanted, polish his teeth, flouride treatment, x-rays. I had to remind him about presents, and being good and his birthday coming up, but he was great. It was like a magic pill - instant good kid. Lots of praise for him during and afterward.

As you can see, he was pretty relaxed this time.

Out of Area

We get an inordinate amount of "Out Of Area" calls that show up on our Caller ID. These are usually political calls or "surveys". These surveys are just a masked telemarketing call that is disguised thinly as a survey. Are you happy with your current brand of siding? Well, if you aren't, or would like to know more about siding, let me connect you with someone who would like to talk to you about siding and siding products.

Gimme a break. I checked my caller ID and 14 out of 32 calls are "Out of Area", which translates easily to telemarketing call. Why do we even have caller ID if for the original reason we got it was to spot and stop those goddamn calls? We pay how much each month for this "Service"?

I also thought I was on the Do Not Call list too. What happened to that? Something needs to be done I tell you (shaking fist in the air).

Happy Birthday, Beckett

Beckett's birthday party was on Sunday so we went over to celebrate his 3rd. They had a blow-up jumping thing set up out back and burgers inside. We got him Play-Doh and a Mr. Potato Head.

Happy Birthday, Beckett!

Star Wars and the Great Chasm

So Adidas made (remade?) a commercial for the upcoming World Cup. You know the World Cup, where every country in the world except for the US goes absolutely crazy over the biggest sports championship in the world and only happens every four years.

See it Here

Well, Adidas made a commercial that is a take off of the Cantine scene from Star Wars, it has David Beckham, Snoop Dogg, Ciara, Daft Punk and Noel Gallagher in cameos. So I am explaining this to my wife and she is looking at me like I'm from outer space. She then drops a bomb: She's never seen Star Wars. So she has no clue about the Cantina scene.

Even my boy said:

I'm Different

We went to Viva Vienna last weekend and as we were walking away, we passed a picket fence. It was a long fence that was all white, with one picket that had been replaced and left unpainted.