Unique little stories from the last two weeks include the fact that Eban requested an avocado with cracked pepper, sea salt and fresh lime juice. What kid requests that type of snack? His palate is incredible.
Two weeks ago we saw How to Train Your Dragon and loved the movie.
I think all of us did. Jack said his favorite character was Hiccup and Eban’s was Toothless (the dragon). I thought it was cute all around. What wasn’t cute was the cost of our excursion. Movies aren’t cheap and neither are the snacks. I will be a champion of bringing in my own food (or sneaking it in) as that will be an incredible cost savings! My philosophy is the same for baseball games or basketball games. The officials always market to families saying it’s a family friendly event, but it’s not friendly on the wallet or the average American family. Oh well…
Speaking of hiccups, poor Jack has my hiccup ailment. He gets them for roughly 10 minutes and they are loud and long. Poor thing. I hope he outgrows it as it can be a hindrance when you’re on a conference call or in a meeting with VIPs. That always makes for a unique impression.
Last week, Eban scored two goals at his soccer game. We were SO proud. He got in the car and slumped in his seat saying he was upset that he didn’t score five goals.
On Sunda
y while Ryan studied for one of his last classes for grad school, I took the boys downtown Denver to meet up with Grandpa Morgan to go to the 2010 Car Show. It was great. The boys took turns in the various vehicles. One would drive while the other sat shut gun. Then in the next 
car, they would switch positions. They always talked about speeding and getting a ticket by the police while they were in their vars. They LOVED the pi
ck-up trucks and the RVs. Getting the boys out of the RVs was like pulling teeth. The screaming and the sheer torture of making them leave was enough to make me crazy – good thing I was adequately caffeinated as I didn’t lose my cool as I had them both in football holds exiting that area.
At least their attention was diverted when we came to the motorcycles...Eban looked at them and went the to next display. Jack wanted to ride them. He kept saying, "Look at me. I'm Uncle Steve!" I would correct him by saying the Uncle Steve wears helmets, but I don't really think he cared as he thought he was the coolest cat in town riding a big BMW motorcycle!
At the Lexus cars, I think it was Eban’s turn to drive and Jack was sitting shut gun when a strange occurrence happened. After four minutes or so of the boys “driving”, a crazed man came up to me and got in my personal space and got his face five inches from my face and sneered while he said to me, “DON’T YOU THINK YOUR BOYS HAVE BEEN IN THERE LONG ENOUGH!”Shocked and intrigued by this man’s lack of ability to communicate effectively, I cocked my head and didn’t move from my position and sternly said, “I’m happy to get my kids, but next ti
me you talk to someone, you don’t need to be so snarky about it.” While this was happening, Grandpa Bob saw an old man angrily yelling at his daughter and he wanted to “help” while I thought I had the situation under control.As I’m retrieving the kids from the car, the man is moving towards the driver’s seat and he angrily responds to me, “I AM AT A CAR SHOW AND WANT TO GET IN THE CAR!” I ignore him as he’s obviously unstable but out of the corner of my eye, I see Grandpa approaching him and Grandpa says something like, “Use your words next time rather than angrily confront a woman and her kids!” I want to tell Grandpa to ignore him but he was obviously mad at this guy’s choices. (By the way, the kids didn’t notice anything as they were happily onto their next car and driving it.) Basically they get into a minor confrontation at this point and Grandpa wins and the crazy man slinks away until we are well out of the line of sight. I told Grandpa to leave it alone when he got back to me but his adrenaline was pumping from the sheer rudeness of this old man.
I haven’t seen Grandpa so mad - - to say his protective instincts are still intact is an understatement. I’m glad nothing more came of it as I was fearful that I’d have to bail Grandpa out of the jail with the kids in tow - - they would find it AWESOME to be in a police station though.
A highlight was the big truck again. They have an 18-wheeler that shows up for a “Share the Road’ campaign by the American Trucking Association. It was a highlight for the boys last year and they were there again. You can sit in the driver’s seat of an 18-wheeler, see the bed behind the driver’s seat and also experience all the blind spots of the road so you can relate to the driver. It educates the public and the kids have fun with this hands-on experience.
So I was telling the ambassador of the program that this was a highlight last year and that I was glad they were here again. I was pulled aside after going through the truck with Eban and Jack as the ambassador wanted me to restate what I had shared with him for his video camera. He said he wanted to use it on the ATA’s Web site. So I did. He thanked me and said to keep an eye out for it in future months. (I went to the Web site to look for it, but all the content is from 2009 so I realize I’ll have to wait a little bit to see Eban, Jack and me on the ATA’s Web site.)All in all, it was a great car show. Memorable to say the least - - for multiple reasons!
We had to pay a buck for both boys to get pushed arround with a broom in these contraptions
Why I don't take a lot of videos - - I can't keep an eye on both my boys (and Eban has to pee)
