8 Is Great!

Cole celebrated his 8th birthday and 8 truly is great! He thinks that being baptized will be fine but he is REALLY excited for cub scouts!

His birthday was on a weekday so we just celebrated as a family. Somehow we have started the tradition of waking up to a few birthday presents so that's what we did again. He got to open them before breakfast and school. I think it's a great way to start the day myself!

The next day he celebrated with his friends. We invited three friends to come miniture golfing. The idea was to go to Boon Docks which has a fun course that we have played before but because of the blizzard the day before we opted for an indoor course at Trafalga. I supremely underestimated the amount of time it would take to get there!! And it didn't help that the traffic was horrible. Lehi Main street is always slow but that day it was backed up march farther than usual. I was anxious to get to the freeway but to my chagrin the freeway was equally slow. I had 5 boys and a girl wondering "are we there yet? and "how long does it take to get there?"

To make matters worse, the preferred entertainment was bodily fuctions (ie burping and farting). This was a real eye opener for me. I was the oldest of sisters until my baby brother came along at the end and we either trained him well or he just wasn't as gross as all other boys! So you can imagine how long the car ride felt with all that!

We eventually arrived and it was great because it was a blue light course and it doesn't get more fun than glowing socks and shoelaces! The boys (and girl who is sister and buddy to the birthday boy) had a blast and everyone was very cute and totally happy to just be there.

You may have thought that our adventure had come to a close, but it hadn't. We finished golfing much later than anticipated (due to our lengthy time in the car and to having to wait for a group of college kids in front of us) and everyone was STARVING! It was almost 6pm after all so it's understandable. So we piled into the car and headed toward the freeway, only to see that it was still SOOOO slow even going the opposite direction. There was no way I was taking my gassy guests on that slow freeway. Justin fortunately knew a back way. We started heading beyond the freeway into industrial areas and eventually farm land, on windy roads. Macie lasted only 7 minutes before she was complaining about being car-sick. I knew she had a tummy ache but it was mostly because she was starving, but she really felt like she would throw up. That put me in a panic because throwing up kind of has a chain reaction effect, and I was not capable of dealing with multiple pukers. No Way! I gave Macie a baggy and then tried to steer the conversation away from that. What made it hard was that one little buddy in particular could burp and fart on command and it was such a hit that it was hard for him to resist doing it, all the time. The other challenge for us was that we were driving through a lot of farm country and you can imagine the odor that drifted, or bombarded its way, into the car. That was not helping. Meanwhile, Justin is giving me directions (I'm driving because he still can't really bend his knee), I'm trying to help Macie to think about something else and stop crying because it wasn't helping matters, and I felt like we are in the middle of nowhere. We managed finally to get to Little Caesar's which is where we planned to pick up pizza for dinner on the way home. Macie and I got out of the car rather than going through the drive-thru (for obvious reasons) and grabbed some pizza so we could get home and out of the car for good!

Just as we pulled into our driveway (which is about 4 minutes from Little Caesar's) Macie threw up. It was barely anything but you should have seen how fast we all got out of that car! And no one was more relieved than I to be home. It was 7pm and we started this whole ordeal, I mean party, at 4pm. Everyone recovered within seconds and they all inhaled the pizza, and I mean that literally! Cole had a blast and I have to admit, since it's been almost a week now, that it was fun, memorable and makes a great story :)