Bastians birthday!!!!! (& laugh at the dorkiness that is me)

Alright, I know I'm a bit late on this one. Bastian's birthday was on Saturday the 12th. He had a pirate party. We had invited 10 of his school friends. 1 had RSVP'ed to say he couldn't come. 2 RSVP'ed to say they would be there. The other 7 never RSVP'ed at all. And didn't come :( Good thing Bastian has 3 brothers and a sister to fill out the party guests. It was a great party anyway. Dennis's Aunt Sophie and cousin Renee came. I feel like I haven't seen them much lately so that was nice.

Dennis put together a Treasure Hunt. He had a great story about 'Chips A'hoy' who got caught stealing the captains candy so he was kicked off the ship and then was chased all over to try to get the candy back. Each clue had a letter on it, which then spelled out Pinata...and led to a pinata Chips A'Hoy which the kids then beat the...er, candy out of. Here is a slide show of the party:

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/luvmy5monkeys/July/?action=view&current=4b877e4b.pbw

So, now my big boy is an even bigger boy. Why do these children insist on getting bigger??

**Now, Laugh At The Dorkiness...trust me, you'll laugh**

Ok, the last time I said something so dumb that Dennis just kind of looked at me like "Is she serious or joking?" was about 5 years ago when we were down in Florida. Dennis had won a 3 day trip for the two of us. The best parents in the whole world (also know as MY parents) stayed with the kids (only 3 of them at that time) so Dennis and I got a little get-away. So, during that lovely romantic weekend my facade of brilliance was shattered. When we were driving across one of the very long bridges in Florida I say to Dennis "Look at those pretty pink birds flying over us! I wonder what kind of birds those are?"...and Dennis gave me the 'are you for real?' look and said "They are flamingos". Well how was I to know? I didn't know they could fly. I'd only seen them hanging around little ponds at zoo's. I've never seen a zoo flamingo fly. For that matter I've never even seen a plastic lawn flamingo fly.

So, I've gotten away with rebuilding my image of smartness since then. And I didn't even have to tell Dennis my latest stupid thought...because it remained a stupid thought. But it was just so funny that I had to share it with Dennis so he could laugh at me...and also share with all of you, so you could also laugh at me.

This little brain fart happened when we were on our way to visit the National Zoo. As we were walking from the metro stop down the hill to the zoo entrance I was checking out all the restaurants along the street (kind of a hip urban street, with cafes and other froo-froo eateries). I was seeing if there was anything I was interested in trying for dinner after the zoo. So, across the street a bit ahead of us I see this sign:

And I'm thinking to myself "ZEEE-Levin...ZEEE-LevIN...I wonder what kind of place that is?" to me it sounded like another froo-froo ethnic restaurant, right? Until I look at the signs in the window and realize that it's not ZEEE-Levin...it's actually 7-Eleven. As in 7-11. As in Slurpees and Big Gulps. So, not a froo-froo ethnic restaurant.

Yep. I'm a dork...