Celebrating x2

Well, that was a pretty full weekend.  To Buffalo and back with lots to celebrate...

Saturday I was up bright and early to get on the road to Craig's cousin's bridal shower in Buffalo.  I left the boys behind for a boys' day, but they kept themselves quite busy as well!  First they had Carter's soccer photo day...

Later they went to the giant new Dick's Sporting Goods out in Victor, and Carter climbed the rock wall!  I guess he didn't quite make it to the top, but look how high he is!

The shower was lovely and it was nice to see relatives on Craig's side--and even better knowing we'll see them again in a month!  After the shower, I drove to my parents' so I could change my clothes, stop at the outlets, and get in a little time with my dad pre-Father's Day.  We weren't planning to do Father's Day in Buffalo this year because Craig's parents were on a little weekend trip to see baseball games (as part of their Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts), and since it was Jacob's birthday, it just seemed to make sense to get some time in on Saturday and spend Sunday at home.  There was hope my parents would come up for Carter's soccer game tonight and we could have had more time, but the weather definitely didn't look cooperative.  It actually turned out okay despite crazy thunderstorms, but we're hoping for a picture perfect evening one of these next few weeks.  My mom went with me to the outlets--I mostly wanted to go to Adidas and Nike, though Nike ended up being closed for our newest federal holiday, Juneteenth.  My motivation to go was that Jacob didn't give us a birthday list until early this week, which didn't leave a lot of time for getting things shipped.  Normally he gives us a list months in advance and revises it five times, but it was a struggle this time--I guess he has all he needs!  But in order for him to have things to open, we needed to scramble a bit.  Adidas was having a 50% off sale, so I ended up calling Jacob and describing all the shoes they had, which led to getting one pair for $55, which was a great price.  I spent a little more time at my parents' house after shopping and had dinner with them before getting on the road.  I also stopped at Kohl's and Trader Joe's on my way out of town.  Kohl's had a shirt Jacob wanted and of course I scoured the clearance racks (one small find!), and Trader Joe's has my favorite frozen mac and cheese and cheap wine!

I ended up having a busy evening once I was home, because Jacob expressed a last-minute desire for cinnamon rolls for his birthday breakfast, and I was also working on a homemade ice cream cake for Sunday evening dessert.  Then I had to wrap gifts for both Jacob and Craig before bed.  I probably should have done Craig's sooner, but Jacob's were almost all last-minute anyway!  It was a rather late night!

We all managed to get to church on time Sunday morning, which was a nice change of pace.  We're now relegated to the gym because our church, which had been really cautious about reopening and precautions, suddenly dropped all rules and modifications in both the main worship center and Sunday School--no mandated masks or distancing, even for those who aren't vaccinated.  I found this exceptionally disappointing, in part because our good friend has a compromised immune system due to MS and treatments, and masking was the only way she could be involved, which she had just started to do again.  Now that's out the window.  The gym is still having fully masked and distanced worship, so we're opting to go there and hope that Carter's mask does its job at Sunday School.  It's set up with groups of chairs, some high top tables, and a couple couches (I think it's a bit of a "cafe" setup because the 20-somethings do their weekly gathering there), and Jacob always wants to sit somewhere other than the chairs.  I always say no (and usually we're not there early enough to snag one anyway), but this time--since we were early enough and it was his birthday--I said OK.  Admittedly it was a little too comfortable at times, but it was an interesting change of pace!

After church there was a setup outside to celebrate dads.  There was cotton candy on the way out of Sunday school and bacon and (root) beer in the parking lot.  The bacon was fancy, with three flavors--one was honey sesame, one was honey chipotle, and the other was maple chili.  I had the latter two, and there was something about them that even I could enjoy...yum!  

Carter enjoyed his with a mini muffin, and the sun was so blinding (seriously, it was crazy), he borrowed my sunglasses!

Back at home, we settled in for some gift opening!  I didn't wrap the new sneakers (Jacob actually sneaked them out of the bag the previous night in the 30 seconds it took me to bring in another load from the car, so why waste the paper?), but I wanted to commemorate the gift anyway.

He opened up a few birthday cards and then got started on his pile of gifts.

He ended up getting three shirts and two pairs of shorts, along with some fancy gluten-free candy (Kit Kat and Twix equivalents).  Not exactly the most exciting haul, but he liked them all and it leaves us a little leeway to get him something else if the opportunity crops up before his party.  We have no idea when that's going to be, but with his cousins' sports schedules it'll probably just end up being grandparents and maybe godmother Lori and her fiancé some weekend.  

After that it was on to Craig's gifts.  Carter did a very nice gift at school for him--a cute card and a tiny little plaque.

I was probably more excited about Craig's gifts than I was for Jacob's!  Months ago I found a cute little gift on Amazon that I was able to pre-order.  It was a little version of the stapler in jello from The Office that plays quotes from the show.  It came with a tiny trivia book, too.

I figured that might be good for my Office-obsessed spouse, but then last week I ran to Aldi for some groceries, and they happened to have these little video arcade games that look like tiny versions of the old stand-up arcade consoles.  One of them was BurgerTime, one of Craig's favorite games.  When the boys got me the ill-fated Nintendo knock-off for Christmas, one of the games on it was BurgerTime.  It wasn't super responsive to the controller, unfortunately, and was therefore really hard to play, but Craig enjoyed the throwback.  I felt a little bad when we sent it back.  But then I saw this game and figured the odds of specifically finding BurgerTime elsewhere were slim, and when I checked Amazon and saw what a great deal this one was, I had to get it!

While I would have liked to be more productive with the day, we had to do a relatively quick lunch and then I had to run to Wegmans to get the lactose-free ice cream they were out of the other day when I shopped.  I had to finish off the cake when I got home, and then eventually we dragged ourselves out to our activity for the day, mini golf.  We were just at our local one over Memorial Day weekend, so we decided to try the other location since we haven't been there in years.  There was a long wait to buy tickets, but there were lots of other activities at that location so it turned out golf wasn't that busy.  The boys were actually both a little cranky--Carter was annoyed that his putter was purple, and then he was just off on his putting all day.  Some of it was just rushing, but it seemed like no matter what he did, he missed the cup by just a little, over and over again.  Jacob was also annoyed with his play, but I guess that happens on new courses.  None of us played as well as usual, but the change of scenery was nice.

The kids love the arcade maybe more than the golf, and obviously on Jacob's birthday he wanted to try to beat the basketball record.  Alas, the record was already sky-high so we had to turn our attention to other things.  We racked up a decent number of tickets, and then the kids raced in Mario Kart.

After a while, we headed back toward home and dinner!  Jacob decided on Outback for dinner, which was fine since we hadn't been there in a while.  He really wanted lobster but there weren't any good deals on it so I promised him that next time they do their seafood feast (I think it's usually a lobster tail, shrimp, and crab cakes), we could go back and get that again.  Lacking that I may have to splurge on tails to make in the Instant Pot at home and maybe we can do surf and turf since we're the only ones that eat the surf part.  We all enjoyed our dinner but eagerly looked forward to dessert at home--a gluten-free, mostly lactose-free ice cream cake!  The hot fudge layer had some dairy, but getting around that is hard.  It wasn't the prettiest cake, mostly because I tried using parchment paper to block leaks from my hand-me-down springform pan and it wouldn't lay flat (next time maybe plastic wrap?).  But I can assure you it was delicious!

We are all eagerly awaiting seconds tonight after Carter's soccer game!  

We finished off the night watching Jacob's movie of choice, Space Jam.  We can't wait for the second one to come out soon!  It may not have been the most exciting birthday ever, though Jacob did say this one was better than last year.  We did our best with limits last year during COVID and I thought we did okay--we even had a second day of celebrating on Father's Day--but as long as he's happy, that's all that matters.  And we still have more celebrating to look forward to!

It's still a little crazy to think about having a teenager.  I vividly remember 13 myself, in all my awkward glory--although the worst of my awkward phase was on its way out by that point.  It's definitely a coming of age year, though.  By the way, have I mentioned the scary fact that in the same amount of time that we went from Jacob finishing second grade (like Carter is now) to today, Jacob will be graduating from high school.  That is completely terrifying!  As I drove on Saturday, I was vividly recalling to myself the events of the day prior and the week following his birth, and so many details are still so clear.  It was such a transformative time for me as an adult, baptism by fire for sure, and there are times I still regret that was our experience, especially knowing the bliss I felt after Carter was born.  That first week was hard and sometimes I think it set the stage for things feeling "off" for a long time.  But 13 years later we've made it this far, not easily, but we're here.  And that is definitely something to celebrate!