A stuffed weekend

Liz and I celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary on Friday, April 25th. We went out for sushi at Maki & Sushi in Arcadia, the in-laws treated us. Why does the second cup of Sake taste soooo much better than the first? And the third tastes even better still?

The kids went home with the in-laws and Liz and I hit the Starbucks next door where Liz discovered that good things really can come in small packages when she ordered a Short White Chocolate Mocha. We then stopped at Target and picked up a few snacks and goodies, for Amber's school and in preparation for Saturday night.

At home we watched Night Watch. Don't take it too seriously and it's quite an enjoyable movie. Some very clever special effects, interesting storyline. The Night Watch are the alleged 'good guys', the Day Watch are the alleged 'bad guys', but we get the feeling that things are not that cut & dried when we see a Night Watch patrol first mock a Day Watch patrol, then threaten to drive over the DW patrol's car with their truck. Day Watch (the movie) should be arriving within a day or so, and with the way Night Watch ended Liz and I are both looking forward to seeing what happens in Day Watch.

Saturday arvo we picked up JE and took him to Baseball. The kids were pitching for the first time this game (instead of using the pitching machine) and they didn't do too bad. There were a few wild pitches but nobody got hit; the kids were pretty good at dodging :D They were also allowed to steal Second Base, but only Second; no stealing Third or Home. It was a bloody hot day and by the time the last kid was struck out it was 3pm and my shirt was almost wet through. I left Liz at the Snack Shack where she was working and dropped JE with the in-laws; Liz called me shortly after, she was done with Snack Shack duties and was already on her way home where Xinh was waiting for us.

I made it home by 3:30 or so, had a quick shower and off we went to the Sports Arena (near USC) for the filming of Gladiator. Our tickets said to arrive no later than 5pm, we were there a little after 4pm and were admitted shortly after 4:30, after signing the NDA. The funny thing with NDAs is while they restrict your right to talk about what you see, they don't say anything about not talking about what you didn't see, so let's talk about what we didn't see :D

We were at a taping of American Gladiator but we didn't see any Gladiators, because we didn't watch any of the events where the challengers go up against the Gladiators. Notice I have not told you what we did see, only what we didn't see, and that's not a breach of the NDA ;) Now in knowing what we didn't see, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what we did see, but I can't tell you what we did see because that would be a violation of the NDA :D

After leaving the Sports Arena and heading home we decided to dine at the Denny's close by our house; it being one of the few dining establishments still open at 10pm where they don't ask you "Would you like Fries with that?"

We ordered a plate of Nachos to share (very, very good Nachos) I also ordered a Boca Burger and a Chocolate Shake. I finished the Shake, the Boca Burger, some of my fries, and between us we ate almost the entire plate of Nachos. I was stuffed! We sat there chatting and picking at the Nachos until Xinh wisely covered them with her napkin. We were stuffed full but with Nachos still on the plate we felt compelled to eat them, until Xinh covered them and declared them 'dead'. It was almost 11:30 by the time we got home. Liz stayed up, claiming she couldn't go to sleep on a full stomach. I don't have that problem and was asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

Sunday was my office's 'March of Dimes' Fund Raiser, in the form of a Bowling Tournament. We picked up JE from the in-laws and a-bowling we did go. JE came second among the kids. Among the adults we had a couple of guys who brought their own balls...and shoes. They were able to do clever things with the ball, like throw it towards the gutter but get it to spin back into the center of the lane and knock down all the pins, and they could do this almost all the time. Pretty clever. For being a kid JE got to pick a couple of books from the assortment brought by the organizers. It cost us $62.50 which was two games each and all the pizza & soda we could eat & drink, plus JE got himself two new books. Not bad for an afternoon of fun and fellowship with family and coworkers, and all for a good cause, too.

When we got home I showed JE Ninja Gaiden:Dragon Sword for the DS. He thought it was pretty cool. It's a video game with Ninjas, what more could a 7-year old ask for? I left him playing Ninja Gaiden and went upstairs, where I fired up the Wii and began playing the latest incarnation of Mario Kart. I got busted when JE came up for help with Ninja Gaiden. We played some two player and I was disappointed to see that the two-player Grand Prix option is not in the Wii version. In almost every other version of Mark Kart that I've played two people can play together and race in the cups and unlock extra content. In the Wii version you can still do a Grand Prix of sorts, but it's not the official Grand Prix so winning won't unlock any extra content.

For a two-day weekend we sure packed in a lot of fun.