Today our youngest turned 1 year old. In typical fashion for a 1 year old, he could have cared less about the whole affair, but it was more for us than for him at this point. He did, however, have fun with smearing cake everywhere, so the evening wasn’t an entire loss for him.
Today Evan turned 4 and, as requested, we took him to the Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) in Tacoma and he had a great time! We spent about 4 hours there, from the custom pizza party to the $30.00 in game tokens, and he was all lit up like a firework the whole time… it was great!
Spending so long there, however, made me realize that it’s so true that the the more things change, the more they stay the same. Back when I went to CEC it was often with a group of friends. We’d each have about $10.00 in quarters on us and our pockets would sing a jingly tune as we furiously pedaled our way to feast on greasy pizza and play video games like Gauntlet for hours by the Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach. We’d just head out on our own and most of the time our parents didn’t know we were; they probably assumed we were just at a friends house.
The Tacoma CEC had some things that the ones I went to never did when I was growing up, like blacklight-reactive numeric identification (placed on hands, stickers, etc.) for children and their parents, mandatory supervision for teens, and an armed police officer watching the floor from the salad bar. There certainly weren’t any cops watching over the CEC I went to when I was younger.
I guess it’s better to have the added security, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of message an armed guard sends to the kids as they feast on their greasy pizza and play their video games.
Tim, a staight-laced friend and co-worker was talking about his World of Warcraft character when asked a question about one of them. This was his response:
I only have one miner, and she hasn’t done it yet. She doesn’t have the experience.
And then much laughter ensued.
So the last few days haven’t exactly gone off as expected. I was hoping to be able to spend about 12-14 hours a day painting and getting things in the new house ready so we can move in nice and easy this weekend, but it looks like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.
First off, there’s some unpainted wainscot in the room that Bryce will be in, and we’re not too wild about it in there. We decided to rip it out and just paint in the room, but there’s some issues with that. Primarily the holes made by the nails from the wainscoat itself, and then the deep blue color on the walls underneath the wood. So four coats of primer and two coats of paint later the room is finally ready… mostly. Evans room required 2 coats of primer on one wall and only one on the remainder. Sheesh!
So I’ve taken the remainder of the week off as well and will have to finish up what I can before we move the big stuff this weekend and begin the last stage of purging ourselves from our old home. And some time soon I should really try to get more than 4 hours of sleep in a day.
In the current state of the real estate market, selling a home is very easy… but buying a new one is another story altogether. We’ve been looking for about six weeks now and we’ve just now found a place that looks like it’s a go on all fronts. We’ve been pre-approved for the loan, which is usually what’s problematic for folks, but for us it’s finding the right place, with the right schools, the right interior and exterior size, etc. It’s not that we’re picky to the point of craziness, but rather that homes are being sold in less than 24 hours (like ours was) so finding the really good houses has been tough. Really tough.
Today is both sad and joyous because we’ve got a nice fat check in our hands (that’s already all but spent) since we closed on selling our home today; but it also means that we’re back to renting… renting the home we owned just 24 hours ago. It’s a very odd feeling.
So we’re rushing to get out of the house to visit our friends Jennifer, Greg, and Cindy, and as usual we’re running behind. Greg plays guitar, as do I, and he asked me to bring my guitar so we could noodle around a bit. Sounds great, and just before we’re ready to head out I decide to put the diaper bag and guitar in the back of my Suzuki XL-7. Evan decides to come outside to watch me and leaves the door open… and Lily promptly bolts outside.
Let me explain something about Lily: she’s a whippet, and whippet’s are sighthounds, and they’re like the second fastest dog in the world. When I say Lily bolts out of the door, I literally mean she bolts out the door. At about thirty-ish miles per hour. There ain’t no way I’m catchin’ her without a large net or a tranquilizer gun.
This isn’t the first time Lily has escaped, but usually she runs around the yard a time or two and then lets us catch her. Not this time. This time she races around the neighborhood as I’m screaming her name at the top of my lungs like a nut-case and other neighbors begin to help by trying to corner her. Of course, she thinks it’s a game, so it eggs her on to start running faster and farther away. Then she runs out into the road, full-bore.
The first thing I think is that she’s gonna get clipped by a car and I’m going to have to walk back home with a dead dog in my arms and Evan’s gonna see it all. I get a little nauseous thinking about it as I’m chasing her, but maybe it’s not the thought of her being hit as much as I haven’t run like that since high school and my body is saying “Um, no!”. My hearts pounding, my hands are shaking, and thankfully no car is coming down the road as she slides into the left hand lane like a race car.
Finally either exhaustion or my incessant screaming of her name registers and she stops in the middle of the road. Of course by this time cars have reached her and are stopiing in the road… about six of them. Finally she comes to me and I pick her up in my arms so that she can’t run anymore and I wheeze my way back home.
By this point the entire neighborhood has either come outside or peeked their heads out of the window to see who the idiot screaming “Lily” was, and what’s happening. And of course the comments start coming as I’m heading home: “She ran fast!”, “You should put her on a leash.”, and “Is that a greyhound?”, and all those comments are doing is making me cranky.
By time I get back to our yard I find Evan standing in the middle of the lawn asking me if I’m OK. On one had I want to blame him for letting her out in the first place, but he’s not even four yet and won’t get it, and it was an honest accident. All I could do was to explain to him, yet again, how Lily will run away and if she gets into the road again she could get hurt.
She’s OK now, as are we all, and we made it to Greg and Cindy’s house to visit with them and Jennifer only being about 15 minutes late. And for us, that’s pretty normal.
So we’ve decided to sell our current home and buy another one. Yep… I said it. We’re buying a new home. Sure we’ve only had this one for two years, but we figure we can make a little profit off of this one, pay off all of our bills, and find a place closer to work and with a bigger yard. It’s kind of a tall order (I’ve only skimmed the surface of our requirements), but we should be able to do it.
It’s a good thing I finished the fence finally. 
The morning started off really nice because I got to sleep in until about 10:30AM, which almost never happens any more. After some tasty Eggo waffles we headed over to Kimberly’s parents house so she could drop off a card to her dad and visit for a little bit. We ended up taking a little bit of an in-county road trip from there.
Our first stop was Indianola, where we drove past the house where we first fell in love, and then got some sandwiches from the country store where we used to get movies and snacks from all the time. We headed on over to Kingston and ate a mini-picnic lunch at Arness Roadside Park and watched the water traffic go by and then played on the beach for a little while. Evan had a great time throwing rocks and shells in the water, which is a favorite past time of his these days.
Fathers Day at Arness Park
After that we drove all around Kingston, mostly because I almost turned down a one-way street right in front of a bike cop and didn’t want to have to drive past a cranky cop again. We headed out to Point No Point and saw where the lighthouse was, and then we popped on over to Port Gamble and had ice cream at the general store. A word of warning: if you ever stop there and decide to get ice cream, be sure you want a lot of ice cream! These people don’t fool around with their portions… Kimberly and I both had problems finishing our waffle cones, and Evan had to throw away half of his.
After that we headed back home, but it was a nice, relaxing day spent with the family, just like it should have been.
Holy smokes, kids… daddy’s been working his tail off the last few weeks. I’m currently on my 11th straight day of work, and I am super tired! Lots of cool stuff is happening, but I haven’t had to get down and dirty like this for a while.
Sadly that means that I’ve not only had ~4-5 hours of sleep a night, but I haven’t really been able to spend any time with Kimberly or the kids. Quality Time has been lacking, as of late. Luckily Fathers Day is this coming Sunday, so I’ll be able to have a much needed rest.