The Summer of George

In this case it is "The Week of David". For those that don't get it, well you are clearly not Seinfeld fans.

Today is my son's 7th birthday. I can't believe it even as I type. Where does time go and what did we ever do to entertain ourselves before we had the children to play with? David, being a first child, has had big birthday parties just about every year. These parties make about as much sense to me as buying flowers; they don't last very long, they are expensive, and well....I can't really come up with a third example to fit the analogy, but you know what I am saying. This year we slowly convinced David to try a different birthday celebration. The final draft of this plan was put into action one week ago.

Monday June 21st
David and I decided to go to the Coppell Aquatic Center for the day. We wanted to ride our bicycles there, but Daddy still needed to buy a helmet and we had no way to lock up our bicycles when we got there. The solution? We took a 4.8 mile bike ride to the bicycle shop, got our supplies, then rode 3.6 miles to the aquatic center, stayed there for around 7 hours, then rode the remaining 1.8 miles home. In total we spent the entire 100 degree day outside riding or swimming.











David did his best imitation of his favorite show "Wipeout" and took the lily pad net off of his face as he slipped and I had a not so pleasant , shin meets diving board edge moment. Overall we survived day one.

One of the coolest things that happened is one of those "small world" moments. David has been telling us for three weeks that he wants to take his friend Sydney to Hurricane Harbor water park for his birthday. This was one of the options before the week of David was fully planned. Sydney is a little girl that David knows from after school at Creme. She also happens to be attending Texas Instruments summer camp with David. Cindy and I did not know Sydney prior to the start of summer, but David was sure she was the one friend he wanted to take. We were never able to get in touch with Sydney's parents and at this point the plan was not to include any other friends this week. So guess who shows up at the water park right before we are getting ready to leave? Sydney and her mom were there which allowed the perfect opportunity to invite Sydney to the Tuesday festivities. The original plan was to go to Hawaiian Falls, as we tour the Dallas area water parks. We soon learned that Sydney is not the dare devil that David is and would not be taking part in large or even small water slides. David decided he would rather spend the day with Sydney and gave up Hawaiian Falls for other fun activities.

Tuesday June 22nd
Today we picked up Sydney at Creme at 8:00 am. We made our way to Strikz where the kids could enjoy unlimited bowling and laser tag. David was all about the bowling and in the car ride over he was trying to convince Sydney to play laser tag. By the time we got to the laser tag arena Sydney was ready to go and David REFUSED to play. It took ten minutes and a lot of convincing by Sydney and Daddy but David finally put on the vest. He only demands were that nobody could shoot him and he got to chase Sydney and the little guy that was working there. This was the first time that David looked at me and said, "but it is the week of David" when I gave him a hard time about his demands. Sydney played along and they had fun. As soon as the first battle was done, guess who wanted to play again....... After the first round David was playing by the real rules and was okay with being shot at. By the time we left the place bowling was an after thought and laser tag ruled the morning.



The kids also had a video game card at Strikz and Sydney decided to use part of hers on the crane drop machine where you try to get it to pick up a stuffed animal and drop it into the prize bin. Well, sure enough she won a huge turtle. I tried to convince David that those machines never pay off and that she must have been lucky, after two tries David got the same orange turtle.




After Strikz we headed up to Stonebriar Mall for two reasons. David had picked out a "bean bag" chair for one of his birthday presents and they were out of stock over the weekend, so we had to go back to get it. The other reason was Dave and Busters Restaurant where we had been also over the weekend. David had saved over 600 tickets and was planning on winning more for a big prize. So we loaded up the game cards with credits and went to town on some video games. Deal or no deal was a favorite. Sydney past up the bank offer of 320 tickets when she had only a 500 and 8 case left. She won the 500. David hit a 500 ticket jackpot on a spin game and they both won the crane game AGAIN. What is with these machines? Am I the only one that never won on those things? After the game cards ran dry the kids had a total of over 2700 tickets. To my surprise they were very agreeable to split the tickets 50-50. They cleaned up at the prize store.



After that we headed to the indoor mini golf place at the mall. Sydney was tired and done after the first round but David quickly completed all three rounds. We took Sydney home with all of the loot and made it home in time for dinner. I think this was a very fun day for David. Sydney is a very sweet girl and a perfect companion for David on this trip. I am so glad that we ran into her and her mom the day before.



Wednesday June 23rd
Today David made an unplanned trip to the Doctor's office with me that lasted two hours. He was okay with it because Hurricane Harbor did not open until 11am. We made it to the water park as they opened and rode all of the rides all day long. David was ready to ride any and everything they had to offer. No pictures for today, we were way too busy and my new Evo phone would not do well in water. We left Hurricane Harbor and met up with the fam and my sister's family at La Hacienda Ranch, wet swim suits and all. David and I ate Chickfila on the way to the water park and had nothing until that night, we were hungry. The Henry family drove in from Lubbock today to spend a few days in Dallas with the Ferguson Four.

Thursday June 24th
The Henry Five along with David and Daddy headed out to Six Flags. Mommy and Katherine did some running around and stayed out of the heat. Cindy is not one for roller coasters and it is looking like Katherine is taking after her in that regard. The rest of us took our Flash Pass (a legal way to jump to the front of the line on the most popular rides) and rode hard and long all day. David was a little hesitant on some of the rides, I literally picked him up and put him in the Flashback. This was another occasion that I heard, "but this is the week of David". It is a triple loop roller coaster that goes forwards, then backwards. He was not happy with me at the time, but later in the day he rode it five more times. I promised him that I would not make him ride anything else for the rest of the day. I really felt bad as it was happening, but was glad I did it after he liked it so much. At some point during the day David was giving some attitude to his Aunt Amie and Uncle Gary. I am not sure exactly what was said but I did hear that David put up the ultimate force field once again. Can you guess what he told Aunt Amie about this week? Then came the Titan. This is the one that put Cindy down for the count a few years ago. I carried her through Six Flags to get her home after she blacked out and got really sick. This thing is 255' tall and goes over 85mph. It has two 540 degree helix sections that are close to the forces that astronauts feel at take off. The first time David got to the front of the line and decided not to ride it. Later in the evening his counsins Lauren and Josh convinced him to try it. He still said no but we got in line. He still had the option of not riding but he was not going to prevent everyone else from riding. When we were in line I looked over at him and he had this little smile on his face. I said "you are going to ride it aren't you?" He just smiled and shook his head yes. As soon as the ride finished he wanted to get in line and do it again. We rode until they would not let us in line any longer and the park was closing. On our way out we came across the glow in the dark parade. It was another great day.






Friday June 25th
Daddy played golf with my BIL Gary early Friday morning. We let the kids stay home and rest and made it back before lunch. I think everyone was worn out after Six Flags. Friday night was the Ranger game. The Rangers had won 11 straight before this game and they have won two more since this game. They did not win the one that we went to......hhhmmm. David was more interested in the games out behind center field than the game for some reason. We did not get to watch much of the game but there were fireworks afterwards.





The Henry family headed home on Saturday morning and we took the rest of the weekend to recover, at least Daddy did. That kid flat wore me out. I think he had a great week and I am so proud of him. He has really started to grow up a lot very quickly and I am not taking it as well as I thought that I would. Every since we found out we were having a boy I have been excited about the father son activities that were sure to happen. I was in such a hurry for him to get big so we could play. Yes, I realize he is only 7, but the time is really flying. This week might be referred to as the week of David, but it was really fun for Daddy too.

By the way, I got to thinking about my Seinfeld reference and how it might be a little tiny bit outdated. Seinfeld ran from 1989-1998. The original Archie Bunker ran until 1978, four years after I was born. So for me, using Seinfeld as a reference, a show that ended five years before David was born is worse than my Dad watching Archie Bunker reruns in the 80's. So between trying to race David on the lily pads and failing miserably, wanting to act like a father figure to the teeny boppers walking around with no clothes at Hurricane Harbor, and realizing that my pop culture references are equal to Archie Bunker episodes when I was a kid, I am feeling really old. Just an observation so you all can share in the pain.