We had a blast. This place is so much fun; kind of expensive, but fun.  We ended up spending about $20 per person. That included our meal, $10 worth of games, taxes and tip. I loved our waiter. He was so funny. He could’ve been a comedian. Well, I should say, ‘I’ thought he was funny. My brother-in-law thought he was working too hard for his tip. But he’s cynical, so we don’t count his opinion. I liked the guy.

This was my yummy meal. It’s a Mac & Cheese dish with chicken and bacon. I don’t even want to think about how many calories there are in it, but it was so good. I only ate half, so that’s not too many calories, right?

Cade’s special order pizza was the last item to arrive, so he bummed fries from everybody else.

This was our weekend to have Erik. Actually, that fact went into our decision of when to celebrate Cade’s birthday. We also went at lunch time because it saves an amazing amount of money and there are no drunk people….lol!

Me!

This was Cade’s favorite game.

Tiffany and Erik played Guitar Hero, trying to convince me to give it a go. But I didn’t want to look ridiculous in front of the masses. My forte is the trivia games. I got 72 tickets from those games.

Every game that Cade played had a machine gun attachment. Scares me.

He does have good form, though. Don’t ya think?

Tiffany had just whomped on Erik in this driving game. She’s pretty good at driving games. I like them a lot too, especially the ones that actually vibrate the car. Fun!

We brought Cade’s best friend, his Uncle David. David is very tolerant of Cade and will talk with him about any topic, even if it goes on and on and on.

I think we’ll definitely go back, but not any time too soon because it took us 45 minutes to get there.

Cade liked it better than Chuck E Cheese, though, so I think the mouse’s days are numbered in this household.

© Robin for martinzoo, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments

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© Robin for martinzoo, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments

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We went for testing this past weekend. And what a weekend it was. Busy, busy, busy! The testing was very long and I worried that Cade’s blood sugar was going to plummet while we were there. We got there just after nine in the morning, and it lasted until 1:00. We were starving and my back and legs were in excruciating pain from standing up for so long.

There were over 250 kids and adults testing. And each applicant was supposed to bring three witnesses. Thank goodness they didn’t all follow that dictate or we would have all smothered. I’m sure it was a fire marshall’s nightmare in there.

These were the lucky folks who got to sit during the testing process.

This little guy was desperate to go home. My personal opinion is that these guys are just too young for this kind of program. They really don’t understand it. And I feel like if you start this program as a three year old, you could possibly be at black belt level by ten years old, maybe earlier. And that’s just ridiculous. If a ten year old starts spouting off that he’s a black belt to an older kid, he’s gonna get his behind whooped. Maybe I’m wrong.

THREE times during the testing process, I had to go into my purse, which I had laid on the floor. And three times I bonked my head pretty good on this hand rail. I had a swollen head when we left. And did I mention back pain and leg pain? Oh, yes, I did. Excuse me while I whine.

This is Cade’s karate instructor. He will be testing for his seventh degree black belt this year. He is an adorable man with a real gift for motivational speaking. This demonstration was done mid-testing to rev up the masses. Wouldn’t you hate to be the guy holding the wooden board? Unbelievably, after this demonstration, he broke another board, from across the gym, blindfolded!

At the end of testing everybody participated in a break-a-thon for charity. They had ten boards to break, if they could, and they got paid for each board. I believe the proceeds were going to an organization to help out in Haiti.

Cade blew through all his boards with ease. He used a variety of different techniques and really enjoyed this part of the day.

I was super proud of him.

© Robin for martinzoo, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments

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The kids around here have missed a ton of school. I’m not even sure how many days it is now. I’m sure that they’ll either miss their Spring break or maybe tack on some days to the end of the school year. But Cade has been lucky. I’ve been giving him *some* snow time. But I’m still schooling and we’re still right on schedule.

But yesterday would have been a day off for Cade regardless of the snow. It was his 12th birthday. And we always take our birthdays off. It’s a tradition in our school. Cade thought it was so cool that all the other kids had the day off too, and could celebrate National Cade Martin Day with him….LOL!

Food is important on birthdays. Right? So we had all of Cade’s favorites; homemade pizza for lunch, and Chinese for dinner. Yum!

The snowstorm caught the local school district by surprise, so before they could call school off the high schoolers were already on their way. They closed for middle schoolers and elementary kids, but decided that it was safer to keep the high school kids in school long enough for the sun and plows to do their magic. So we waited all day for Tiffany to come home. She is student teaching at the local high school.

Because she wasn’t here yet, Cade couldn’t open any of his presents. To make up for it, his Dad (these are the times I love him the most) decided to play a video game with him. Now you’ve got to understand, Bruce does NOT play these games. He is controller handicapped. So for him to do this with Cade was the ultimate in sweetness.

Cade was extremely patient with him and helped him out here and there.

He was SO happy to have a playmate.

When Tiffany came home he rushed over to his small pile of presents and made quick work of the process of opening them. We gave him one new video game, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, and a wireless adapter so he could play with other kids online.

We also got him a rack so that he could display his karate belts as he gets them. He will test for his green belt on Saturday.

After our Chinese dinner at his favorite restaurant, we had cake. It was delish!!

Happy birthday, baby!!

© Robin for martinzoo, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments

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Round three snowstorm started hitting us yesterday. We got about two more inches before it turned into yucky freezing rain. This morning the snow has begun again and it’s supposed to continue all day.

Luckily, my timing for grocery shopping has been perfect for all these snowstorms and I have a nice full fridge. And Thursday I began making a white chicken chili, but had to put it on hold because Bruce and Cade decided to try and make a karate night. So that means I have a full pot of chili ready whenever we are. Nice!

Tiffany and Cade decided to make some snow ice cream. I had bought some cream at the store in anticipation of making it, but had thought it would be ME suggesting it, instead of Tiffany.

Bruce was pretty skeptical that it would taste good, and in fact never tried it.

It takes 4 cups of fresh snow and 1/2 cup of cream.

Add 1/4 cup of sugar and a tsp. of vanilla to the cream.

Pour it over the snow and mix with a spoon. Tiffany and Cade decided that they would double the recipe, so they’ve got lots of snow in that bowl.

Cade used every opportunity to snatch a chunk of snow that he could. He said it was like ‘an addiction’!

Mix, mix, mix, we all got in on the mixing. It seems as if there isn’t enough cream in the recipe, but as you keep mixing and incorporating, it gets better and creamier.

And then, the ultimate test; the taste. Verdict; pretty good, but needs some chocolate sauce to make it complete. I took mine straight. I’m a purist.

Peatsy was THRILLED to get in on the action.

But he is totally over this white stuff.

“Quit taking my picture and open the door.”

“Hey! Don’t you know it’s freezing for us pups out here?”

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It was all Mr. Al’s brainstorm. He sent out an email to gauge interest and Holly and I jumped on the bandwagon. He went and got ingredients, made up SIX batches of pizza dough and had everything ready for the arriving kiddos.

I brought tons of games from my closet, including the Texas Hold-em paraphernalia. And we brought out the ping pong table.

Mr. Al got the kids started with making homemade chocolate chip cookies. They had a blast! All the measuring and flying flour and secret snatches of chocolate chips. Delightful.

Mr. Al’s cookie baking venture was a huge success and with all those kids in the house they were snatched up like a bunch of feeding vultures. I’ll tell ya, teenagers get hungry! So Al got the pizza making started.

We had a group of about five or six girls who were really into the baking process and it was as if they were running their own little restaurant. Ingeniously, since it takes a while to spread dough, sauce and cheese, and then bake a real pizza, they came up with a quickie pizza idea to hold over the masses.

They took flour tortillas and spread them with sauce, and covered them lightly with cheese, then microwaved them for one minute. They cut them, set them out and they were GONE in a flash. They looked disgusting to me, kind of like wimpy little pizzas, but those kids loved them. The teenagers at my table dubbed them ‘tortizzas’.

Cade was so happy because his old friend, Jack, agreed to play his Axis and Allies game. And he also played Stratego with a new friend. We were hoping somebody would be into these kind of games.

I was quickly grabbed to deal for the multitudes of teenagers who wanted to play poker. It is becoming my station in life to deal in the poker games. It’s great because I’ve come to learn so much about the kids that are older than Cade. And you know what? I like them. They’re good kids. I had so much fun with them.  At one point I had eleven teenagers ringed around my table. And we all got to practice our math skills, but don’t tell them that…LOL!

Cade came over for the poker playing when he finished his games. He is fast becoming an accomplished little player. Twice, when threatened by an older teenager with an “all in” bet, Cade called and won the hand. There was lots of cheering and fist bumping going on and he gained a lot of respect. One of the girls was even asking Cade to guide her during the game because she had never played and didn’t trust the other teenagers.

We set the back room up with a movie, Tinkerbell, for the little kids. Surprisingly, some of the teenagers came in and watched it too. I think teenagers enjoy the chance to remember the things from their past that were so much fun.

After a long bout with the poker players, I decided to go over and play Bananagrams with some of the moms and kids. We had six players at one point. It was so much fun and everyone was learning spelling and vocabulary from each other. Great fun.

It took hours of baking to get all the pizza dough used up and only a few slices remained at the end of the day; along with a tremendous mess. After five hours at the club house, the kids started to trickle on home. It took those of us left about half an hour to clean up from all that baking. But when 50 something kids show up, and everyone has a good time, I’d say your spontaneous event could be considered a success.

I’m just a little worried that the moms in the neighborhood are going to want this to be an ongoing tradition whenever it snows……hmmmm.

© Robin for martinzoo, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments

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