the boy is 9

wow, 9 years old.....

on sunday, yup, just a week before, we made plans & bought tickets to fly out to chicago to visit B's family for Z's 9th birthday. told you we're procrastinators extraordinaire!

before we left for our trip, grandma C's present (a remote control truck) & UC&AK's presents (2 games) arrived & were opened. we also decided to let him open our gifts; a baseball bat, glove & balls, then a mix of hodge podge (modeling clay that you shape, bake, then use as erasers; bags of marbles, shrinky-dink paper [B's never used it, crazy huh?]).

we flew out friday evening, arriving at midnight. the first few days there were dark, heavy clouds & raining. we visited B's grandma, she corrected us that we hadn't been back to visit in 3 1/2 years, we thought it was 4. amazing that a 93yo woman can remember such details!

for the birthday we took Z to the movies to see the new kung fu panda movie (it wasn't so great). B's mom invited a co-worker's 9yo son along, so Z had a friend. we got some filled twizzlers & the boys had a contest who could eat the most while watching the movie. i sneaked 1 while they were entranced; the candy was gross, plastic tasting. i was sure at least one of the boys would get sick after eating so much of that awful candy.

after the movie we went to a arcade type place; they had outdoor activities but bc of the rain all that was closed. the boys had a good time with the games & pizza though. Z actually requested indian food for his birthday but we told him we would do that back at home, sure grandma C would not care to participate in that meal.

back at grandma's house we had cake. it was a little different to celebrate the birthday this way, but i hope he enjoyed it.

9 years old, i can't believe how time has flown.