Diana's Birthday

Usually, the wife and I don't do anything too special for our birthdays, we're just too old for that. She had a busy week, so she asked that we just keep it simple. I still wanted to do a little celebrating, so I surprised her with an itty bitty lil cake! There were, of course, a few gifts and birthday smooches, but we ended up just getting cozy on the couch that night and relaxing. Which is exactly what she wanted anyway! After knowing her for a little over 17 years now, hanging out with her doing nothing at all sounds to me like about as perfect of a day as I could imagine.

Rockford

I found a really great deal on some used DVDs, the only problem was that they were more than an hour away in Rockford. I explained it to the wife and asked if she wanted to come with me. She said yes! A boring drive just became a fun impromptu date! We let the boy know we would be gone for a while, which he was excited about, and hopped in the car. For the next hour or so we got to listen to great '90s music, chat, hold hands, and just be silly together. We finally found the guy selling the movies way back in some random dirt road forest. I started to wonder if this was all a set up and we were walking into a trap... As we turn the corner, we see a huge warehouse garage and a nice older man waving us over. Turns out he just buys huge lots of stuff at estate sales and sells them online for a profit. Phew, no need to worry for our lives! This was by far the biggest DVD lot I had ever bought. He said that he was starting to get out of the business and just wanted all the movies gone. It ended up being over 1450 movies for only $100! Wow! We hardly had enough room for all of them in our vehicle, I had to get creative with fitting all the boxes.

After we loaded them up and started to leave, I asked Diana if she wanted to make it a real date and stop and get dinner. If you know Diana, you know that she will never turn down the chance to go to a restaurant! Growing up, my family would go to Rockford every few months because they have The Corner Bar. Its a place that is renowned far and wide as having the best chili dogs in Michigan. It was a dark and dingy bar, which made it all the cooler. They were known for their hot dog challenge: If you can eat 8 or more hot dogs in a set amount of time, you could get your name added to the 'Wall of Fame' that filled every wall in the place. It was really cool, there were name plaques on every wall that stated the name of the person, how many they ate, and where they were from. There were names from all over the country. The record holder had eaten 42 1/2 hot dogs! Mind-blowing! Unfortunately, my parents never let me try to get my name up there, which as a chubby kid I feel like I could have been successful... Anyway, The Corner Bar had unfortunately burned down a few years back. It has since been rebuilt, and I had never been to the new building. We took the opportunity to stop there and chow down on some of their famous dogs. The atmosphere is totally different, it feels like a nice family restaurant now, but the chili dogs are still just as good!

After sharing all kinds of nostalgic stories with the wife, we finished our meal (no, I didn't try to get my name on the wall this time either) and happily headed home. It was really great to have a little day away with just the two of us- so much fun! (and getting a carload of movies helped too!)

(more pics)

Five Year Landscaping

About a year after we bought this house, we made work of building a big deck off the back door. I enlisted a lot of help from a handyman at work to build the foundation and framework, and then Papa and I finished off the surface. It was a lot bigger than the little rotted out five-foot deck that was on it when we bought the place. The rest of that summer I kept talking over with the wife how I wanted to do some landscaping around it and make it look nice. That next spring I got some things I needed, plastic edging, stakes, steppingstones, and some mulch. Over the course of the next week or so I made work of landscaping around the deck and the back of the house. The supplies ran out so I had to wait to finish it going around the side of our house. By summer's end I had it looking really good. There was one part that I didn't get around to: behind the garage. I told the wife I would get to it soon. Then 4 years passed and it still wasn't done. Oops.

Well, true to my word, I finally landscaped around the back of the garage! I was beaming with pride as I came back into the house after I was done and announced to my wife that I had finally completed the landscaping. She glanced outside and said 'yup. Looks fine, honey'. Clearly, she doesn't appreciate a five-year project finally being completed and how good that feels to have it done. Oh well, she's right. It's not really that impressive, but at least it's done!

(the completed project)

His First Con

A week or two after his last birthday, Ledger wanted to have a little talk. I was a bit concerned, unsure of what heavy topic he wanted to discuss. Turns out it wasn't anything heavy at all. He said that he loves playing different video games so much that he wishes he could dress up like the different characters and walk around pretending to be them. 'Is there any way I can do that, dad?'.  Well, son, you are in luck! There are these little things called 'conventions' and you are allowed to cosplay at them! Well, he was thrilled that such things exist. 'Wow, really? Can we go to one?' Of course, son. I have been to dozens before! He's never really been interested in superheroes or comic books, so I figured he would never want to go to a convention. Turns out I was completely wrong! He doesn't want to go as a superhero; he wants to go as a video game character! I did a little digging and realized that there was actually a comic book convention scheduled for the next weekend! What luck!

He picked out the character he wanted to be, and we made quick work of assembling his costume. He decided on a character from the game Regretevator (I have no idea, don't ask me). So we made a list of what he needed to create the costume, then headed to the craft store to see what they had. We got a shirt, some paint, and everything else we found and ordered online. We worked together to paint the shirt and made it looked like what the character wears and assembled it all together when everything arrived- just in time too, the last parts didn't show up until the day before the convention! He was super pumped with how it turned out- just like it looks in the video game! He was really excited to wear the costume and play the part of the character, but he had one lingering reservation: what if no one else knew who he was dressed as? He figured there would be a ton of different superhero costumes, but maybe he picked a character that was too obscure. He was concerned that he would only get blank stares or confused looks.

Saturday we drove down to Kalamazoo, about 45 minutes from home. As we walked from the parking lot to the convention center, his worries were put to rest. Even before we got inside, someone from across the parking lot pointed at him and yelled out 'You're from Regretevator!' His face lit up he excitedly waved back at them 'You're right!' they shouted back 'That's so awesome!'. We basically could have left right then and there, and he would have been glowing for a week! Over the course of the afternoon he was recognized eight to ten times, with one person even asking if they could take their picture with him.

The actual convention and booths? Eh, he said they were fine, but in reality, he wasn't actually interested in any of that. This was all about getting to be the character for the day and he absolutely loved it! We did check out all the different booths, seeing the cool artwork and toys. He found a plush alien that he liked, as well as a handful of enamel pins from The Amazing Digital Circus. I found a super good deal on an Avatar Banshee toy, so I was pleased. Overall, we both had a great time and are already making plans to go to the Grand Rapids Comic Book Convention in the fall!

(more pics)

Chicken Jockey

As we were bringing Ledger's friends home last weekend from his birthday party, I suggested we do it again the coming weekend and this time go see the Minecraft Movie with everyone. They were all pumped at the idea, so we made it happen!

All the friends that came to the party were invited back Friday to go see the movie together. Four of the boys were free and able to come over again. They walked home together from school and funneled right into Ledger's room to continue their gaming fun. At around 6 we piled into the car and stopped for a pre-movie meal at Wendy's. Finally, it was time for the big show: Minecraft at the local movie theater!

It was opening night and all five of them were beyond excited, they had been talking about it and quoting the commercials nonstop for the last month straight, hardly taking time to breath and now it was finally here! 

Fortunately, the movie was pretty good and very funny. The crowd was all in on this opening night, even erupting in cheers when the endlessly memed lines were spoken. In fact, when Jack Black uttered the phrase 'chicken jockey' I even saw a few high fives. It was so strange, I don't think I've seen a more raucous movie crowd in my life! And it honestly warmed my heart to see this young generation loving the movies!

Afterward all the boys recounted their favorite parts and quoted the parts they loved. It was a boisterous drive as we brought each of them back home. 

(more pics) 

Turning the Big One Three

It finally happened: our little boy became a teenager! All right, in all honesty, he hasn't been a little boy for quite some time now- he's five foot nine! Anyway, we knew we wanted to do something special for his birthday, so we had him invite over a bunch of friends and have a party. In the past we've had birthdays with different events and activities, but this year he just wanted to hang out with his buddies. No problem, kid. We settled on 6 friends, certainly enough for a party.

The party was on a Friday, so the boys walked home with him after school. I was ready and waiting with a bunch of snacks and drinks for them to devour! After a quick feeding, they all piled into Ledger's room with their devices and played a bunch of online games together, pausing only briefly to ask what the Wi-Fi password was. Loud laughing and talking poured out of his room for the next hour or two while Diana and I tried our best to stay out of sight, letting the boys have their fun.

Eventually the pizza arrived and they all came flooding out of Ledge's room to chow down! After they almost filled up on pizza, it was time for some singing and a birthday cake. The boys were loud and rambunctious, as 13-year-old boys are want, and we just got out of their way. Now with all the food eaten, I shepherded the boys to the living room for gift time. Most of them had brought gifts for Ledge, a very nice and thoughtful thing to do, so he went through and opened each one and joyfully thanked each person he got a gift from. I figured they might get a kick out of the gift we had gotten for him, and I wasn't wrong. As Ledger opened up his last gift from us, the boys realized what it was and the room exploded with excitement! I'm not even exaggerating- when he unwrapped it all the boys screamed, punched their fists in the air, and stood up with excitement! They laughed hysterically about it for a good 5 minutes before anyone was able to collect themselves enough to make a complete sentence! (check the pics to see what the gift was)

They had about an hour or so before it was time to bring everyone home, so they filed back into Ledger's room and kept playing their different games. Finally, a couple parents arrived to pick up their boys and the rest filed into our car and we brought them home one by one. Phew! An absolute success on a fun birthday for our newly minted teen!
(more pics: 1, 2)