Pax Is 1

Pax has turned one year old. We did it! We were able to take such good care of him that he is still alive one year later! We are super proud! I don't think I've ever been happier. Every time he looks at me I have to smile and be happy because I want him to smile and be happy too. It's a nice positive feedback situation to be in for sure. I think I have done a half decent job recording his life progress so far in my database. He will know things like; the first time he rolled over, sat up, stood, hold his own bottle, climbed the stairs, took steps, took a sip of beer, etc, etc. We also probably have 5 billion pictures and videos of him. It's ridiculous really. Everyone loves him because he is so cute. I can't wait to see how this next year pans out. What else will he do / learn? All I know is that I will do all that I can do be the best parent possible for him.

40TH ANNIVERSARY BIRTHDAY SPECTACULAR!!!

I turned 40 this past weekend so I planned a nice weekend out for the occasion.

Day 1 Friday July 31st

• We first waited out for the Dark Pit amiibo
• Went to the David L Lawrence Convention Center for ReplayFX
• Went to Pappy's

Day 2 Saturday August 1st

• Left to go to the beach
• Arrived at the beach after much driving and traffic
• Swam and beached for a few hours
• Came back via the shuttle to get our Neptune photo
• Had pizza

Day 3 Sunday August 2nd

• Went to Sandbridge
• Saw the USS Wisconsin
• Drove back to Pappy's
• Grilled out
• Had cake

Day 4 Monday August 3rd

• Played frisbee
• Drove home
• Stopped to hang out with the boy and eat food

Yay! Fun! I'm 40! :O

Trilogy - Part X of 3 - Boy turns 11

The boy's birthday was approaching so I had to think of something special to do for him. He wanted to invite his friends over so even though I suck at talking to people I did my best to try and help him get the word out so this can happen. We did this last year with some success. He wanted to make out his own invitations and pass them out so that was good for me. We made 5 and 3 kids actually showed up and only 1 of them couldn't stay for the sleepover, Ayden and Dylan stayed and Gavin had to leave.

Those kids were cool and nice and I didn't have a problem with them. They only broke 2 things, Isaac's bedroom door and someone stepped on a Disney Infinity character. They played games and Legos and hung out in his room and watched videos on the computer. Due to Ale's pregnancy and relaxed dieting rules we even were allowed to order pizza and make a 'real' cake from a box of Betty Crocker. I haven't tasted anything like that in a while. We ordered way more food than we thought we'd need but they ate it all and drank 2 cases of pop anyway.

It was all very nice and I was very happy that Isaac had a good time. He got some Legos and Minecraft stuff and some gift cards so his friends were very nice.

I even got to eavesdrop on some of their conversations where they tried to outdo each other on how late they stay up at night hiding the fact they play games on their phones all night secretly after their parents put them to sleep. That sounds like a boastful claim I would have made back when I was their age.

History Was Made

This past weekend seemed to fly by. I can't believe it's Monday morning already. Now that I think back I guess we did do a lot but it seems like I should have at least one more day to rest and recover here. That is disappointing. What isn't though is the fact that Isaac came with me to the Pens game on Friday night to kick off our weekend and the Pens made history. They got the first ever win in the new arena and we were there for it. Now Isaac can tell people when he gets older and all the kids grow up and forget there even ever was a Civic Arena that he was there for this historic victory. I'm super happy about that. (you can read more about the game here)

He was very good during the game although he did get a bit delirious towards the end. We went right to bed when we got home because I thought I had way too many things we needed to get done on Saturday. It turns out I was wrong. My mom was supposed to go with us to the toy store to see what kinds of toys Isaac wanted for Xmas and to get him something for his birthday but she was too busy. I think she's taking him Monday while I'm at the game with Joel. We also skipped grocery shopping because I couldn't figure out how to fit it in without having to leave the stuff in the car while we did other stuff.

So Saturday morning he ended up playing video games all morning for the most part. He did take a birthday call from Pappy and open Aunt Autumn's card to him. I talked to Chuck about various things including some interesting information about his house and he helped me look at my car again. There was an issue with the battery light and so far I got a new alternator and battery but it still flickers on every once in a while. Hopefully that doesn't turn out to get more serious. Once that was fixed, we took off. We needed to work on his Halloween costume so we were headed out to Greensburg to find the Halloween store. On the way however we made a bunch of stops because I discovered a new pastime that I wanted to share with Isaac, Geocaching! We ended up stopping a bunch of places that day and while we did experience some frustration finding the one we did find all we attempted. It sucks that it's almost winter or we'd be out more often looking for them. No hurries I guess. They ain't going anywhere.

We found one cache and then made it to the mall. I could have sworn there was a Halloween store here behind the mall but I was wrong. I decided to try our luck and actually go in the mall. Maybe it was in there so we went inside and did find it. Whew! Why is it half toy store though is my question. The whole front end of the store was toys, not just Halloween toys but regular toys. That was confusing. No good costumes here either for kids here unless you want to be Spiderman or a fireman. Looks of sexy adult costumes though. Isaac wants to be a zombie so we did find fake blood capsules. That was all the good this place was doing us so we left. On the way out of the parking lot we found one more cache and then another down the street further. We stopped Arby's to get some food as we headed out to Nate's to watch the Pens game. I got us there a bit early so we could walk out to the lake to find the one cache we couldn't find last time I was here. That's 4 total for the day. Good job us!! The Pens destroyed the Flyers and we had a blast hanging out with Nate and the family and then we went home.

The next morning we went over to Brandon's again to watch the Steelers game and played a little frisbee after. For dinner he had his favorite meal of tacos and afterward we all sang 'Happy Birthday' to him and ate chocolate cake. Yes, these will be the time I will love to remember when I'm older.

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY ISAAC!!!! :D

Birthday party at Seabase

This past weekend I got to pick Isaac up a day early because he was invited to his friend from school, Nicholas McCracken's birthday party, which was at Seabase in Greensburg on 2010/03/18. I feared that Lisa would not take him (as she has failed to take him to similar events in the past) so I had to take charge and make sure he was going to go. Luckily she said she had to work or something so she couldn't take him and it was alright for me to get him a day early to make sure he got to go. Common sense prevails, YAY!! In return I traded her a day next week to make her feel like she wasn't getting slighted. A day that I needed her to watch him anyway since I wouldn't be back from my vacation yet so see how awesomely that worked out! ;)

So we went. Neither of us have ever been there before and it was really nice. Tons of climbing stuff for kids, a small arcade, a mini golf course, even a laser tag course and a big cafeteria area by the party rooms in the back. We were in the Whale room. All the kids had a blast and I got to meet a few more parents of Isaac's peers. I'm not good at the social thing but I thought I did an okay job of mixing in and talking to a few people. Although I have ran into Chris, Nicholas' dad, before (PT Fall Festival last year) I think this was the first time I met his mom, Amy. She was very nice and commented that Nicholas was always talking about having Isaac come over to play. I said we should make sure this happens then. Garret's mom, Tina, was there who I see often when picking Isaac up at Penn Pals but I don't really talk to her. They were at Isaac's party last year when he turned 6. I also met some other guy who I forgot his name or who his kid was. I noticed he really was going around chatting it up with everyone so I felt more comfortable talking to him. I think we talked about how we got here what roads we took and how crappy traffic was everywhere.

Anyway while we mixed it up the kids got to run around like nutballs and climb and run and jump all over the place. For as big as it was it seemed kind of empty. Amy told me that it's on weekends you don't want to be here because then it is packed to excess. We did that for about an hour and then it was time to go back to the room. They had pizza first and then cake. What really impressed me was the young girl that worked there. She seemed to be trained very well. She handled giving all the kids food expertly and afterwards when it was time for presents, she was handing them off, disposing of the wrapping paper and then storing them in a bag so they could take them home later. She must have done this many times because she had it down to a science I thought. I got this big Crayola pad thing for Isaac to give to Nicholas for a present. I figured it was better than a toy gun and I didn't want to randomly grab something that someone else may have also randomly grabbed (which happened, he got two of the same Star Wars Playdoh thingies). Plus I figured it was educational to help him with writing and stuff. It was something I would have bought for Isaac. I hope the kid liked it. After presents they all lined up at the door and the girl gave them all a couple tokens to play games with. Before I could get out and find where Isaac went he had already blown all his tokens at the arcade in some train game machine. A ball rolls out onto the back of this train car and you can control how fast or slow the train goes. The point is to get it past a few spinning obstacles that are trying to knock it off the car and get it the whole way around the track. I guess if you make it you win. He still got a bunch of tickets for trying though. He cashed them in for candy. That was about it. I let him run around for another half hour or so and I noticed people were already pulling out. My plan was the whole time to walk over to Primani's while this was going on to get some food and watch the start of the Pens game. I just wanted to scope the place out and make sure he'd be okay but I ended up staying the whole time. It worked out better that way in the end. The whole thing only went on for less than two hours but I guess it seemed longer to him. All in all a very good time. Glad we went. Glad we were invited. I made sure that Isaac thanked Nicholas and his parents. I also thanked them as we left and we went home from there. I did miss the Matt Cooke fight live (retribution for taking Savard out a week earlier with what some consider a dirty hit) but that was okay. Fluery got his first shutout of the season and we beat Boston 3-0. The day was full of win!