Birthday recap

Although ES's birthday was last weekend, we figured people would have other plans to go out of town for the holiday weekend, so we waited until this weekend to have his birthday party. That plan sorta backfired because 2 out of the 4 friends ES invited to his party were unable to come. Even so, I could hardly believe the level of noise and chaos in our house from three second grade boys (plus 5-year old YB).

For his birthday, ES wanted to go see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. This was my first time going to the fairly new theater at Brambleton, and it was pretty nice. My wife bought the tickets in advance on Fandango, so we just walked right in without having to wait in line for tickets. I thought we were going to need a home equity loan to pay for the refreshments though. Holy cow I think we spent more than the tickets cost on candy and soda for the kids alone.

The movie was pretty good. Not as good as the original if you ask me, but it was entertaining nonetheless. The boys really liked it though, and that's all that really mattered. After the movie, we headed back to our house for P2C2 (presents, pizza, cake, chaos).

I tried taking pictures of opening presents, but they were all blurred like this. Deja vu.

We tried something new and different for the pizza. We decided to let the boys make their own individual pizzas.

My wife made her usual batch of pizza dough, then divided it into quarters.

I rolled out the four individual pizza doughs, put them on parchment paper, and trimmed the excess paper.

My wife set out bowls of sauce, cheese, and pepperoni, and we let the boys go to town making their own pizza.

I think they had a good time. There was a lot of laughter. I should've taken a picture of the after-action MESS though. There were pieces of shredded cheese and flour and birthday cake ALL OVER the floor by the end of the evening - thank goodness for Roomba!

Of course, I had to work a traditional blunoz self-portrait in there somewhere, right? This is the white pizza we made for the adults (i.e. me and LW). It's just olive oil, sauteed garlic, and cheese.

Those of you who know our boys know that they're obsessed with dogs, so it should come as no surprise what the theme of the birthday cake was...

8 candles plus 1 for good luck

My wife got the cake at Super Target and it was a really delicious, moist chocolate cake. Two thumbs up for birthday cake from Super Target!

One of ES's friends had to leave, but the other stayed long enough for a game of chess before his mom came to pick him up.

Tangent.

Our chess table is one of my most prized possessions. My dad bought the carved wood chess pieces while he was on deployment in WESTPAC (Western Pacific) many many moons ago, but we didn't have a table big enough for the pieces. My Grandpa is an expert with woodworking and used to love doing wood-inlays of different colors, so he made this chess table to go with the chess pieces my dad bought in WESTPAC. Back sometime around the 2000-ish timeframe, my mom decided to let me take custody of the chess table, and I am very grateful to my dad for the pieces, to my grandpa for the love and care he put into making the table, and to my mom for allowing me to have it after it being a regular fixture in her house for so many years. Our boys love the table and it brings me great joy to see them using it.

End of Tangent.

Overall, I think the birthday went pretty well. Kudos to my wonderful wife for the make-your-own-pizza idea for the birthday party. It turned out great. Kudos also to my wonderful wife for the great cake she picked out, the presents most of the presents she picked out :-), and for the time and effort she put into planning the whole day.

Memorial Day and Birthday wishes

Happy Memorial Day all. My thoughts and prayers go out to those families who have lost loved ones in the service of our country as well as to those who are on the pointy-end of the spear right now and not able to spend the holiday weekend with their families. I'm grateful that I get to spend the weekend with my family this year.

BT BT

In addition to being Memorial Day, it's also ES's 8th birthday. Last year, I posted a collection of some of my favorite photos of / with ES, so I won't redo that. Since it happens to be on a holiday, we let ES open his presents this morning so he can play with them all day.

Unbeknownst to me, my wonderful wife bought ES a shovel for his birthday.


Um... Sweetie???

"What?" She said, "He said he wanted a shovel!"

Um... Sweetie... if he had asked for a machine gun, would you have given it to him? I'm having flashbacks to, "the hole was already there, I'm just taking the dirt out of it" from last year.

He's also very excited about his Nerf dart gun set. We have also ordered the Wii game to go with it. It's pretty cool, you can pull out the Nerf dart part of it and insert the Wii remote to play the Nerf Wii game.

This year marked another first. This is the first time I've ever seen ES actually READ much less even notice he got any birthday cards.

ES is doing a great job reading. His teacher says he's reading at the 5th-6th grade level. He brings home lengthy non-fiction books and devours them within a day or two of checking them out. Last week it was a book about the Romans. This week is was a book about the Vikings. Yesterday, we watched Battle for Britain on Blu-Ray, and I was impressed that ES was able to read the subtitles for the German parts fast enough that I didn't have to pause the movie for him to read it. (Aside: For a 1969 movie, that was very nicely preserved and produced in Blu-Ray).

We've had a busy holiday weekend here. We had friends over for dinner Friday and made spiedies. We had friends over for dinner Saturday and made pizza and raspberry martinis. We had a church home group meeting at our house Sunday.

Limited Edition Pizza

Wheat crust, Chili Man smokey mountain barbecue sauce, Monterey Jack cheese, onions, cilantro, and leftover steak and chicken spiedies. It was SO good! This is my last bottle of Chili Man since he closed his business.

Both Friday and Saturday we ate dinner out on the deck and enjoyed watching the ducks and the turtles and fish in the pond and listening to a bullfrog croaking. The quack mafia pays us a visit each night looking for handouts. It's neat to see how the mamma duck always stands in between us and the baby. It took some trickery to lure the mamma out of the way so someone could get a picture of the baby.

Tonight we're going to the Japanese steakhouse for ES's birthday dinner (his choice - darn!). We aren't actually having his party until next weekend because we figured his friends would have other plans over the holiday weekend.

I hope you all are enjoying your weekend! I'm off to do things outside around the house.

Monday Rants

Some things I don't understand...

1. To whoever it is that spilled coffee all over the counter in the men's room in my office building and didn't wipe it up:

Um... why? There are plenty of paper towels in the dispenser. Do you think your mother works here and is going to clean up your mess???

2. To whoever it was that caused the urinal in the men's room to overflow and did absolutely nothing about it:

Okay, I know you may not be a nuke like me, but still, why wouldn't you at least TRY jiggling the handle of the flush valve to see if it would STOP gushing water everywhere? I was in the stall (sorry if that's TMI) and I heard you flush the urinal and then wash and then dry your hands while the urinal was noticeably GUSHING water and overflowing and SPLATTERING all over the floor. Yet you did NOTHING. "Ho-hum, not my job to fix it, so I guess I'll just let it flood the building." Luckily, before I could get up and before the water reached my feet, someone else came in the men's room, immediately recognized the casualty and source of the flooding, splish-splashed his way across the men's room, and jiggled the handle. Ya know what? The water STOPPED! What a concept!

3. To the guy standing on the sidewalk who flicked your cigarette butt into the street right in front of me:

I must say, that was quite the debonair flourish and fancy flick of the wrist you used to dispose of your cigarette butt. You must've spent a lot of time in front of a mirror practicing that move at home to get it JUST RIGHT. But dude... you were STANDING RIGHT SMACK NEXT TO A GOSH DARN ASH TRAY!!!!!!! It made you look pretty darn STUPID if you ask me.

Granted, anyone who flicks their cigarette butts in the street annoys me, but to stand next to an ash tray and do it just added insult to injury.

4. To any other husband/father types considering starting their own blog:

DON'T WRITE BIRTHDAY POSTS. If you write "Happy Birthday" blog posts for one child... and then another child... and then DON'T write one for your wife... YOU'RE GONNA HEAR ABOUT IT!!!

Happy belated birthday Sweetie! ;-)

Aside: I got LW a pottery barn coffee table she wanted...


...which the boys promptly turned into a "fort." (YB is actually IN that picture, although you can't see him.)

Great Wolf Lodge Williamsburg

Tuesday was YB's 5th birthday. He was born at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, CA. I was actually born at the same hospital, but in the older pink buildings that have since been torn down. Last year I wrote a Happy Birthday post for him with a collection of some of my favorite YB pictures.

In honor of YB's birthday, we went down to Williamsburg, VA, and met up with our old friends and neighbors from Hawaii. Their two boys, Z & C, are the same ages as our boys, and our boys were devastated when they transferred to Norfolk. YB has continued to talk about his friend C ever since we parted ways back in September 2007.

We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg and had a great time. (Aside: This is actually the second time we've been to a Great Wolf Lodge. The first time was when we stopped at Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City on our way across country.)

Reunion at the Great Wolf Lodge

In case you're not familiar with the Great Wolf Lodge, it's a hotel built around a ginormous INDOOR waterpark.

Obligatory Blunoz Self-Portrait

Many hotels in vacation spots will have a weather report posted in the elevator. I really liked the top line of the weather report in the GWL elevator:


Instead of room keys, they issue these waterproof bracelets with an RFID chip to open the door to your room.


If you stay one night at the GWL, then you get admission to the water park for both the day before and the day after your night's stay. So we went and played in the water park on Sunday, stayed the night, then played in the water park again on Monday.

ES and I enjoyed going down the super-fast double-tube slides like this one:

Yellow Slide forward view:



Yellow slide rear-view:



YB didn't work up the courage to go on the super-fast slides with us. Even so, I think YB enjoyed his birthday weekend...

YB in the little kid's section

YB in the lazy river

The camera wasn't the only one with a dead battery at the end of day two.

YB chose Foreign Residence of Tasty Flatbreads for his birthday lunch.

Other pointers if you are headed for the GWL:

- Attire: Apparently I missed the memo on this one. It seems all anybody else packed for their kids were swimming suits and pajamas. All the kids in the water park were wearing swimming suits (no surprise there). All the kids in the restaurant at dinner were wearing pajamas. After I stopped to think about it, it made sense to me. Spend the day in the water park, go to your room and shower / bath / get cleaned up, put the kids in their pajamas, eat dinner, put the kids to bed. Why wear another outfit just for dinner, eh?

- Food: If you eat in the restaurant, stick to the buffet. If you decide to order something off the menu, be prepared to wait a LONG time. We got there at 6:30. They told us it'd be 20 minutes for a table for 8. We were seated at 7:09. Those of us eating off the buffet commenced stuffing our faces at 7:10. The three orders of food that went with the waitress to the kitchen were not delivered until 7:52. I think they had to go hire a chef, go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients, go to Walmart to buy the pots and pans... Like I said, just eat the buffet.

- Timing: If you have a choice, I recommend going on a weekday for less crowds and shorter lines for the waterslides. Our visit was over MLK Jr. weekend. The lines for the four-person slides (the tornado and the canyon) seemed to take between 20-30 minutes, and the ride lasts about 20-30 seconds (totally NOT worth it - we did each once and didn't bother going back). The lines for the single and double tube slides actually moved pretty quick. I don't think we ever waited more than like 5 or 10 minutes for one of those slides.

- MagiQuest: Not all of the fun things to do at GWL are in the water park. There's a video arcade, there's a big animatronic show around the clock tower in the lobby, there's story time by the fireplace after dinner, and there's MagiQuest.


There are two increments to your investment in this adventure.

First, if you go into the MagiQuest shop, you can buy the base-model, simple magic wand for $14.99.

The Mark 1 Mod 0 Magic Wand

Warning: The MagiQuest shop has all sorts of trinkets and merchandising to further drain your wallet. You might want to just go in and buy the wand(s) for your kid(s) without them so he/she/they don't go nuts wanting to buy capes and amulets and wand-holsters and fancy wand-toppers and wand-chains and higher-end wands. Whoa, I just had a flashback to RIMPAC.

With this basic wand, there are lots of things you can do around the first floor of the hotel. Wherever you see a Q symbol painted on something, if you wave your magic wand at it, you will cause something to happen. For example, you can turn the lights on...

YB turns the lights on with his wand.

The second increment of this adventure costs another $10 to register for the actual adventure quest. On the second and third floor of the hotel are four corridors of things like treasure chests, spell books, crystals, paintings, and other artifacts. There are actually several quests you can do. The first simple one to get you into the game is the quest for the Lightning Rune. You have to find a suit of armor, a shield, and a sword, then you have to go talk to a gargoyle to get your Lightning Rune.

The suit of armor in the first quest.

So you search the hallways of the hotel until you find each item and wave your magic wand at it. It'll light up and play a sound telling you that you found it.

Lesson Learned / A Word of Advice: Overall, I think it's a pretty fun game. However (comma) we paid to register each of the four magic wands for all four boys in our group, and that was a mistake. In hindsight, if I could turn the clock back and have a "do-over," then I would have only paid the extra $10 to register ONE wand as our "team" wand.

By registering all four wands, we all went around together finding all the things, and we had to stand there as each child waved his magic wand and waited for the artifact to light up and play the sound effect, etc, etc. Rotate children, NEXT! Wave the magic wand, wait for it to do light and sound effects again. Rotate children, NEXT! Wave the magic wand, wait for it to do light and sound effects again. Rotate children, NEXT!

That may not be so bad you say. Well, it got pretty frustrating when we got to the gargoyle and it wouldn't give the birthday boy the Lightning Rune because it said he didn't find all the artifacts. So the other three boys took off on the next quest while I went and back-tracked with YB to retouch the first artifacts.

It would have been a lot easier and quicker if we just had one registered team wand (or maybe one registered wand per family - one for our two boys and one for their two boys). OR, I guess the alternative would have been a little more parental QA on the tapping of each magic wand to make sure each one registered at each step.

Update 01/26/10: In case you were wondering, can you reuse the wand / use it when you go back to Great Wolf Lodge another time? Yes, you can. However, when you pay that $10 registration fee, it only lasts for a certain number of days. If you go back a year later, then you'll be able to reuse the wand, and it'll work for the lights and animals on the first floor, but you'll have to pay $10 to register it again to play the MagiQuest game on the second and third floors.

Travel Log: Sisters, OR

In case you haven't already figured out, my blog posts for the next couple of weeks are going to be about our trip across country. It may not be anything terribly interesting other than to keep family and friends up to date on our progress as we work our way across America and the sights we see along the way.

After a brief stop in Portland, OR, we drove down to Sisters, OR for my step-brother's wedding on Saturday.

The scenery along the way was spectacular.

Mt. Hood

We stopped in Madras, OR and had some awesome burgers at this place...

I really liked their black and yellow sign out front.

The name of the milkshake flavor had me wondering if I'm going to pop-positive for cocaine on my next urinalysis. It was a darn good shake though. (It actually tasted sort of like blueberry.)

We got checked into our two rental houses at the Black Butte Ranch and had a wonderful family dinner last night.

Grandpa continued to enjoy MFA (Most Favored Adult) status.

Grandpa teaching YB to use a knife.

I also got to indulge in a bottle of my favorite wine...

Stag's Leap

This morning, the boys were really excited by the four deer on our back porch looking for breakfast handouts.

ES took this photo with his camera while standing at the edge of the deck. The deer came right up to the deck and ate out of Grandma's hand.


I took my dad and aunt out to find a geocache today. This one was a perfect example of why I love geocaching. It takes me to places I never would have gone to if it weren't for the geocache placed there.

I was panning across the map of nearby geocaches, and I saw this listing with "observatory" in the title, and saw that it was an Earth Cache (geology related, approved by the Geological Society of America). The description made it sound like a pretty good panoramic view of the area, and it was "only" 22 miles away, so I figured we'd give it a shot.

It felt like we were driving around the Big Island (Hawaii) because we were on these narrow roads winding through miles upon miles of barren volcanic wasteland. The geocache was at an "observatory", but not the type of observatory you would normally expect. This was just a spectacular view point to see several mountains in all directions.

The Observatory

Inside the "observatory" were a series of viewing windows. Each was carefully constructed to limit your view to a single mountain peak, and each window was labeled with what peak you were looking at and how far away it was.

Windows for Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood

Mt. Jefferson View through the Left Window Above

More Windows

Mt. Washington through Right Window Above

If you continue on up the volcanic rock steps around the outside of the observatory...

The Steps

...on top of the structure you find this compass rose with pointers to each of the peaks in view.

View on top of the Observatory looking North
(Mt. Washington on left and
Mt. Jefferson in distance just right of center)

View on top of the Observatory looking South
(Three Sisters)

If you'd like to see a different view of the volcanic wasteland we were in, click here, then zoom out a few times. I wanted to copy and paste the image from Google Maps, but their Terms of Use prohibit any form of copying. Hopefully the link will work to take you there.

We had to high-tail it out of there. This geocache was 22 miles as the Google Maps drives, but I didn't anticipate the narrow, winding, switch-back roads at 20-30 mph, so we had to boogie to get back in time for the wedding rehearsal at Black Butte Ranch.

My wonderful wife got me an awesome new camera for my upcoming birthday, and it takes panorama photos. I tested out the panorama photo feature during the wedding rehearsal.

A different view of the 3 Sisters.
(That's the wedding party in front of the trees)

We had an awesome rehearsal dinner and really enjoyed the food and the company there.

As for now, it's time to hit the rack.

That's a first

I can't say that I've ever been to a dog's birthday party before. Last night we celebrated our neighbor's dog's birthday. Actually, our neighbor B promised to make me her awesome chicken enchiladas in appreciation for me replacing the battery in her van while her husband is TAD to a school on the mainland. It just so happens that yesterday was Copper's first birthday, and the kids wanted to throw a party for the dog. I'm not sure which the kids enjoyed more - eating the birthday cupcakes, or feeding the birthday cupcakes to the dog.

The guest of honor.

B Serves Up the Enchiladas

LW Made Pomegranate Martinis

Here Daddy, you can have the rest.
(The frosting is the best part, isn't it?)

Tonight, LW went out to dinner with a friend, so the boys and I had pizza and watched Spies Like Us. Man I love that movie! It always makes me laugh so hard I end up with tears streaming down my face. The boys really enjoyed it, too. I had to pause the movie a few times to explain things to ES, and we got into a lengthy discussion about what the Cold War was and why they were launching a nuclear missile. You could actually say it was a somewhat educational experience! ;-)

Lastly, I just want to say "Welcome to the Blogosphere!" to our friend MN Tall Girl. I really liked the tribute she wrote to one of her high school teachers who is retiring.

SEVEN?!?!

Man I feel old. How the heck did I become the father of a SEVEN year old???

Seven years ago today in Monterey, California...

LW and ES at CHOMP

Happy Birthday ES! You have been such a blessing to us, and I have enjoyed watching you grow and learn. Here are some of my favorite pictures and memories of your life so far...

LW and ES visiting our friends C & V in Hawaii

Victoria, BC
March 2003

I had a port call in Esquimalt, BC, so LW and ES flew up to Oregon then drove up with GMJ and took the ferry across to Victoria to meet me.

Watching Toy Story at home in San Diego
June 2003

Horizons in Orlando
October 2004

Geocaching in Northern Virginia
Winter 2005

San Diego Model Railroad Museum
August 2005

Ready to Roll in Daddy's MGB
Ashburn, VA circa 2005 or 2006

Dalai ES
Waimea Falls
Oahu, 2008

Due to conflicting plans on Sunday, we had ES's birthday party on Saturday at the Jungle River Miniature Golf course next to the Toys R Us and Pearl Ridge Mall. It's nothing fancy, but I think it's a pretty good bargain. A normal round of golf there costs $6. If you have a birthday party, then for $13 per kid, you get :
- A round of golf ($6 value)
- The kids' choice of pizza, hot dog, or burger and a soda. (I forget how much they were, but that's probably around $5).
- Ice cream (those little ice cream cups with the wooden spoons like we used to get in elementary school). (These were like $2 on the menu)
- A coupon for another round of golf that you can either use right away or save and use another day. (Another $6 value)
I thought that was a pretty good bargain. The kids really had a good time, too. John B. (neighbor and fellow cub scout) really impressed me with his mini-golf skills. Based on his stance and his swing, I could tell he's played before and had some practice. At one point, one of the other kids whacked the ball HARD and it FLEW off into the distance. John B. said, "Hey! That's not putting! That's REAL golf!"

Here's a photographic recap of the party...

ES Tee's Off

Yep, that's ME! I'M the Birthday Boy!

Presents!

Another Delicious Cake from the Commissary
(ES opted not to have the cupcake version.)

ES licks the frosting off his tank.

I love you and I'm so proud of how you've grown.
Happy Birthday, ES!