real man fun

When we left the house this morning, we didn't get farther than the foot of our own driveway. We saw in our neighbors' yard about six or seven fire trucks and fire personnel and medics everywhere as their home smoldered after what was apparently a major fire. Since Mom and Dad own this particular place, we had to break some bad news to Dad, and it so happened that we were actually on our way to pick him up and take him to the airport. He came out to talk to the firemen and then talked to the insurance adjuster--no one was home, thank goodness, but we had to locate the renters and notify them about what had happened. We hope to help them get into a new place on Monday, and we have decided to leave the country when Mom and Dad go on their next vacation without us. Lately, a trip out west for them has meant calamity and catastrophe back home!

Dennis did get to meet all the firemen and ask them questions, and they were so patient and informative! He got to sit in the engine of his choosing and walk around the scene checking out the hoses and tanks and helmets and boots.

We did get Pop to the airport in plenty of time, and after we dropped him off, we went to the Southern Museum of Flight. We were amazed to see the changes since the last time we were there, and we were also a little shocked that it was $7 each to get in (free for Dennis). About halfway through our tour of the place, a museum official came to ask Dennis if he was having fun. When he said he was, we were told that we could get a family membership to the museum for just $20, $6 on top of the admission we had just paid, and the membership is reciprocated at so many places which include the Anniston Museum of Natural History, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, the Gulf Coast Exploreum, an Emerald Coast children's museum, and another science type museum in Orlando, ALL places we plan to visit this year (where we will now get in FREE!). There's even a nice children's museum in Austin, TX, on the list if we get there by the end of the year! We were impressed with the flight museum--looked at many nice aircraft displays, enjoyed climbing into the flight simulators and pretending to fly the jets, and played for a long time in the children's room full of tables of Lego airports and other various airport type toys.

You'd think that would be enough, but we called Jason to see if he wanted to join us for dinner or something. He suggested Toy Story 3 starting in 15 minutes, and that's just what we did. He treated us all to the movie, excited to be at Dennis' first theater experience. Dennis did GREAT, quietly watching the movie (totally absorbed--he loved the first 2 Toy Story movies), happily munching his popcorn.

After that? Well, something pretty special, actually. This morning (way back before the fire incident), he told us "I want to use the money in my bear bank to buy my very own big boy bicycle today." So tonight we got to Toys R Us minutes before they closed, and he test drove some bikes before choosing a very nice Huffy bike, dark blue with lime green accents and an Ocean Reef motif. He paid for well over half of it with the spare change he's found and put in his bear bank over the past year.

The fun didn't stop there! He wanted a hamburger and we were starving, so we went to Whataburger and then Dunkin Donuts in Pelham before spending a half hour playing at the train table at Books-A-Million. I'm not sure he could have had a more boy-activity-filled day than he had today. It was 11:30 when we got home!