Brenda, Danielle, and Alli met me for lunch today.  We went to China Star on Manchester – not my favorite Chinese food, but it met the critera (kid friendly, buffet, close to work, doesn’t suck).

As we were driving away from the restaurant, we saw a women riding a bike on Manchester with one of those child carriers in back (essentially a trailer for your bike).  To our surprise, she had a small dog strapped in the carrier instead of a child.  It was a pretty funny sight, but…

No wonder the dogs in this country are overwieght.  They don’t get enough exercise.  When I was a kid, the dog ran along side the bike, not strapped to the back of it.

Last night was Danielle’s preschool graduation.  The graduation ceremony began with all of the children marching down the aisle and onto the stage.  The sang a number of cute/funny songs.  Before each child was given their diploma, they announced their name, said where they were from (St. Peters, Ofallon, or Lake St. Louis), and what they wanted to be when they grew up.

• There were 3 to 5 girls that wanted to be moms when they grow up, but only 1 boy that wanted to be a dad.  I guess he had better become Mormon.
• The most popular career choices were policeman, fireman, or nurse.
• One boy wanted to be Batman, one a motorcycle rider, and a couple wanted to be farmers.
• Two girls wanted to be princesses
• No one mentioned wanting to be a computer geek, engineer, or pharmacist.
• No one mentioned that they wanted to run a Meth Lab, but this may have been veiled by the Motorcycle rider or one of the Farmers.
• Of course Danielle wants to be a “horsey rider”.  How much did the Jockey on Funny Cide make for his last two races?

It was Brenda’s weekend to work, so it was just the kids and me.

Saturday morning I took them Ice Skating at US Ice in Chesterfield.  $24 for one adult and 3 kids plus two pairs of unsharpened rental skates is too much.  I think I need to check out the RecPlex.

Saturday afternoon, we shot some baskets.  Brother Joe gave me some good advice.  When teaching a young child to shoot a basketball, tell them to throw the ball over the backboard.  Justin had been struggling to get his shots high enough, but with Joe’s advice, he is now hitting very consistently on a 7.5 ft rim.

Saturday evening, Justin practiced golf in the field behind the house, while the girls found a nice mud puddle to play in.  Justin’s 3 wood can hit a ball VERY far when I am the one swinging the club.  Luckily I didn’t break anything, but I won’t be doing that again.  Before we went inside to get cleaned up, all three kids collected flowers from clovers for Brenda.  I’m not sure how many they got, but the stems, when held together, were about 2 and half inches in diameter.

Sunday morning I took the kids to IHOP for breakfast.  Some woman came up to me and said – “You’ve got your hands full.  They’re cute, but you definately have your hands full.”  I responded that they weren’t too much trouble.  This seemed to arouse their competitive spirit, because the immediately turned up the volume and started bouncing off the walls.

Sunday afternoon I decided to work on the bathroom in the basement.  The kids were being good, so I figured it was safe.  We have finished putting up the drywall, so we are now mudding and tapping.  Each kid wanted to help, so I let them fill in screw holes.

Sunday evening was dinner with the ‘Rents.  Mom and Dad are back from their west coast tour, so everyone was at their house to celebrate mother’s day.  Fighting was at a minimum, which was a nice surprise.  Dinner was pork steaks, au’gratten potatoes, broccoli, something similar to pork-n-beans, and cheesebread.  Dessert was strawberry shortcake.  After dinner, Jeremy wanted to play kickball with Justin, so to compensate for the size/age difference, the adults adjusted the rules.  Justin got to kick first, and he got 153 outs.  Mike also ran defense to prevent Jeremy from getting to the ball…