Carrie Managed to Surprise Me

My sneaky wife managed to sneak a surprise by me today. She didn't mention anything in the morning about my birthday. Then she snuck a cake and cookies to school!

I felt loved! There was already a work cake, so I had my pick (and clearly, I chose Carrie's!).

It was a rough day at work, so the cake was appreciated. Then I left an hour early to go to the dentist. At the dentist, I was treated to a new hygenist, 18 x-rays, and intensive flossing. There's been a lot of change at the dentist office and I haven't I liked it. I got a bill months later from December, extra x-rays, and they charged me $50 for a cleaning which has always been covered before. Apparently, they were bought out. I'm alleged to have gingivitis, but the only thing that felt different was my mouth was more sore from the new hygenist. It could be my gums were irritated. It could be she put a lot more elbow grease into flossing than before. Or it could be a combination of both. I've never gone home with the ability to suck and then spit little bits of blood before.

I got home in time to be recruited for a chicken errand.

Carrie kept apologizing, but I like to be around her and help out. We had to "rescue" a few hens.

One of the hens did not want to be rescued.

We had to herd her back into the coop to catch her. The owner has decided to not raise chickens anymore and has let them be free range. She ran out of feed over the weekend, but chickens are good scroungers (When her dogs don't chase them or they don't disappear and never come back). We left the rooster to enjoy his freedom.

I managed to drop an egg on the way out. I'm sure it cooked before we got home.

Here are the new hens. They rode in the back of the truck with the cover on.

I picked up Shane while Carrie got the hens settled. He was happy to sample my cake.

We drove Carrie out to help Jenny around 7 PM. I handed Shane the portable SNES.

Jenny was out of town and Carrie agreed to watch things for a couple of days for her. It was a muggy and rainy evening.

Shane and I have been to Jenny's many times. There's a trio of new barn cats claiming stake to it.

I refrained from introducing myself. 

Armour is on the left. Most of the horses were out in the field. Carrie took them their dinner.

We got home without disrupting the usual bed time. Shane and I are reading The Boxcar Children. He surprised me by starting to read a chapter by himself when I finished the one for the night!

I let him stay up later as long as he was reading. Have to reward that behavior! I can't wait until Shane's reading more advanced stories. I hope he'll be a reader like my siblings and I were.

And that was my birthday this year. There were low points, but there were high points. I'm twice as old as I ever expected to be when I was 18.

I know my 18 year old self would never have dreamed I'd be owning chickens, but that's the way it turned out.

Real Estate Watching

I pay attention whenever a house goes on sale nearby. A contract is pending on one of my neighbor's house since last Friday.

Real estate watching feels like rooting for a team in a game where the scoring takes place over years.

And as always, I hope the new owners will have kids and/or be nerds. I could use a board game buddy a few houses down.

Last Weekday Game

Shane asked Carrie if she was coming to his game tonight. She was working and said something like, "No, but I love you! Do your best!" 

Which was wasn't that bad of a call. I'd love to sit and talk with Carrie at a game, but it was super hot, super humid, and she'd be super aggravated if Shane started to play in the dirt when he was supposed to be paying attention. And if he didn't respond when a coach redirected him? It wouldn't have been pretty. I thought Shane would have trouble focusing in the heat and humidity himself (He's got a track record of it when the weather is nice!).

Shane had a phenomenal game. He hit. He made good fielding attempts. He listened. He focused on the game far more this time than others.

Not that there wasn't time to have fun.

And I'm okay with that. He was on base and ran when he was supposed to run. Nothing wrong with a little personality!

It helped Shane got to be the catcher for the second inning.

That gave him a job every pitch.

And he got to armor up.

There wasn't a lot of catching, but there was a lot of trying. Awesome job, Shane!

I take it all back: Carrie should have come to this game. She would have been proud. I made sure to tell her about it when we got home.

But is this the last game? There's rain on the forecast the rest of the week. We're supposed to wrap up Saturday......at 1:30 PM. That leaves plenty of time for the rain and cuts into the chance of other weekend plans. We're supposed to visit Carrie's parents. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens! It's been a good season.

Memorial Day 2018

It was going to rain all day,

We invited Sam to play.

Yes, electronics,

no loud tectonics,

And we had a happy day!

Limerick aside, it was a good day. The boys started looking at Pokemon cards...

...and then ran up to check out Shane's room.

Shane had been helping clean up the house. His definition of a clean room and mine are different.

The boys were stomping around too much for Carrie's liking with Nova (possibly) asleep.

I set the boys up with the SNES emulator and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The promised rain was long in coming. I easily could have taken them outside in retrospect.

I let them play the Pokemon TCG on the computer at Sam's request instead.

Sam hung around for three and a half hours. The boys gorged themselves on electronics and it was okay.

I did talk to Shane about what the day was for after Sam left. I kept it simple since he's young, but I like to keep it real.

A Meal to Remember

Mommy fell back asleep Sunday morning, so Shane and I went downtown. I had a gift certificate for a breakfast dive. The wait was 45 minutes, so we wandered town instead.

We climbed grates and found a random sitting area down an alley.

Not what I would have expected to find walking down this road.

We stopped at a crepe place to bring home Mommy some breakfast for when she woke up.

Shane did as I would have done at his age: He climbed.

Mommy woke up eventually and we all went to Costco together. I had made a request: I wanted her to use her 'hasperat' seasoning on something.

Carrie beat all my expectations and made a Jamaican Jerk Chicken style bowl with beer biscuits.

The meal was good enough it got a blog post. Carrie's that good.

Board Game Day at the Library - Take Two

John hosted another board game event. Shane and I drove up to support. 

Shane had a cough, so I hoped he'd stay on the switch. He sounded bad, but it wasn't slowing him down at all.

We had four guys: John, Cooley, me, and Ken (he came to the first event).  I pulled out 5-Minute Dungeon for a warm-up game. Then, Ken taught us how to play Century: Golem Edition.

Shane was mostly contained until John brought out Black Feet, a pirate game. Suddenly, I had a partner.

I liked all three games. John, Cooley, and Ken won the first couple of rounds of Dungeon. John and Ken tied in Century with Ken winning the tie-breaker. Somehow, I managed to win at Black Fleet even with Shane's help!

Matt and Aiden showed up for a meet and greet.

Shane really wanted to hang out with Aiden more, but his non-stop coughing disallowed it.

Aiden was happy to watch all of his cousin's crazy antics, though.

I spent the last part of the day chasing my spawn all over the meeting area.

He found the boxes climbing around in the back storage areas. There probably would have been "No Climbing" signs if they'd realized anyone would be climbing and jumping into all their boxes. They made for great toys!

We had to pack up after Black Fleets. I'd love it if this game group kept growing. I want to help John start it off, but at some point I'm not going to be able to drive up as much.

Really, it'd be easier if they all moved down to Charlottesville and we started something here.....

Renee came to pick up her boys when we shut it down. I would have liked to have talked more,...

...but unbridled energy elsewhere kept me occupied.

Shane was 15 feet up a tree when his mother called. Otherwise, I might have had a picture. Carrie did not want any details when I told her about it.

John and I took Shane to CFA for dinner and to run off some of the stink before we said goodbye.

This included a couple of rounds of Magic. John destroyed my Mind deck with his Kiora deck multiple times.

Shane was sweaty by the time we left. You can trust CFA's to have other kids to play with.

It was only a day trip, but it was a ton of fun. I wish the hours in the car weren't before or after, but Shane travels real well. Carrie had spent the day working at her parents and was waiting for us when we got home.