I Love An Arcade

My boys love a local place called The Nicklecade, which is an old school arcade where all the games I played a quarter each to play 25 years ago now only cost a nickel. The boys ask to go there every time we drive by, so I thought I'd make them work for it. I told them if they cleaned up their playroom every day for a week we could go, and it worked like a charm. Here's some photos of them enjoying their reward:


Watching Max play Donkey Kong Jr. took me back to my favorite arcade back in the early eighties. I was weird for a girl; I loved video games (and I still do, although I very rarely play them) and my sister and I were total junkies. My favorite was Mappy, and I remember playing it at an arcade (which is now a Restoration Hardware store) by the local movie theaters. If you want to try it for yourself, click here. I would stand there for hours playing and spending way too much money with my big bangs, white pumps, and jeans from The Limited.

Oh, those were the days.

Now That I'm Here, Now That You're Near...

There's something about summer that reminds me about Xanadu. Yes, Xanadu, the 1980 movie starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly at the low point of his career. I loved, loved, loved this movie when I was about 13 years old and watched it nine, yes NINE, times in one summer in my cousin's basement.

If you don't know the story, it's your basic boy meets muse and decides to open an opulent roller disco before his time runs out to fulfill his dreams and her time runs out before she gets sucked back into the eternities by Zeus story. And if that little summary didn't quite do it for you, here's the final musical number that will (go on, you know you want to watch it):



I'm sorry, but this movie is still all kinds of awesome. And if you've never seen it (which I really just cannot imagine anyone could make it through life without viewing this piece of cinematic cotton candy) the good news is it is available to rent through iTunes.

You're welcome.

You Scratch My Back...

I love it when I catch the boys doing something really sweet for each other. The other day Max asked Jack to scratch his back, and he dropped what he was doing without hesitation and did it.

Man, I love these guys!

A ReAL Good Time

I'm not a sports fan. Actually, I'm pretty anti-sports. A friend of mine once asked me if I could eliminate one thing from the world that people love but you hate, what would it be? My answer: professional sports. Can you imagine how much beneficial all the money that goes into professional sports would be if it was put towards, say, starving children in Africa? But I digress.

I'm also not a Nazi about sports though, and I decided that if the boys show interest in something, even sports, I will be 110% supportive. So this year, for career day, Max said he wanted to be a soccer player when he grew up, so I asked him if he wanted to sign up to play soccer and he was totally excited. He had a great soccer camp in June and loved every minute of it.

The league he plays with offered discount tickets to the Salt Lake ReAL soccer game Saturday night, so we decided to take the boys. It was so much fun that I almost forgot I was at a professional sporting event (but not so much that I forgot about those children in Africa). Here's some photos:

Max, the newborn ReAL Soccer Fan.

Max's friend who came with us enjoyed it too.

Watching the last few minutes of the game. We won 3 - 0.

Jack and Steve had fun with a big tub of popcorn...

...and I had fun discovering Kyle Beckerman. Can you say HAWT? (No, that's not a typo. This man is so hot it must be spelled with a AW.) Too bad I'm (almost) old enough to be his mother.

I will admit I am a bit of a sleep Nazi though. I train my kids to sleep at 4 months old and they have a strictly set bedtime. The game ended at about 9:30 PM, which is way past the kids usual bedtime, but I am learning to be more flexible. I realized that I may need to be a little bit more flexible when we were walking to the car and they asked me "Mommy, why is it so dark outside?" I told them "Well, it's night," and they were all "Woah." When they kept saying "Wow, look at all the lights" when we were driving home, I realized maybe it's time for this Nazi to change her ways.

At least a little bit.

Happy Sorta Father's Day

We celebrated Father's Day today instead of a week ago because we had just returned from our week long cruise and a) I had nothing to give Steve for Father's Day, and b) I had no energy to put anything together for Father's Day. So, today we had his favorite dinner, Shrimp Fra Diavolo, Lemon Spaghetti, salad, bread and my Famous Triple Layer Chocolate Cake. We invited my parents eat dinner with us so we could celebrate my Dad too.

I have to say here and now, that I am so lucky to have my Dad. He's a great friend, has taught me some of life's most valuable lessons, and is someone I can always count on. If everyone on the planet had a Dad like him, this world would be a much, much better place.

And as for Steve, well, he rocks. When we were at his brother's wedding a couple of months ago I thought back to how I felt about him when we got married, and it's funny to say I loved him then because the way I love him now makes that kind of "just married" love seem so trivial. And he's an amazing father that is a HUGE part of Max and Jack's lives. If everyone in the world had a Dad like him, the world would be a much, much better place too.

If only we could figure out how to clone these two guys, we might just have a chance of figuring out that World Peace problem.

HAPPY SORTA FATHER'S DAY!

Our Ibiza, Chapter 19: Miracles Never Cease

Look!
It looks like a real house!

And we will actually be living there by the end of July!

Well, at least we should be.

Stay tuned...

The Terminal

The day we got off the boat to come home we found ourselves in the airport at about 10 AM and didn't have a flight until 5 pm (it was the only direct flight of the day, which after our very bad layover in Atlanta, was worth the wait). But the question loomed: What do you do with 27 people (15 of which are kids) in the airport for all that time?

First of all, we were in the Orlando airport which has a ton of shops and restaurants, so we did a lot of walking around. I was really excited to see that they had a Lush shop, which I was totally addicted to in London. We don't have one locally, so I stocked up on my favorite Butterball Bath Bombs and some hair products. The boys both got a little treat too:

These guys have an unhealthy attachment to Lilo and Stitch.

And there was a lot of fun playing with the cousins (and thanks to Lynette who had the forethought to pack a big bucket of play dough). Jack found it a good opportunity to bust out his dance moves.

When we finally went through security to get on our flight, the boys loved sitting at the front of the train to our gate.

In the end, it was a whole lotta time to spend in an airport, but the boys didn't complain once since they got to hang out with all their cousins. I wasn't complaining because of my new Lush buys.

I did kind of feel like I was living the Tom Hanks movie The Terminal, but in the end it was a great chance to hang out with family.

Not bad at all.