If she had the proper words to say,

Philip had planned to take the boys to the 2007 Auto Show at the Qwest Center for some time, and that's exactly what they did this afternoon. Even though he worked last night, he woke up early and set out with just the boys for some special "dad & boys" time, sharing with them his love of cool cars.

And the boys were super-excited too, as a few really cool cars were to be at the Show: life-size versions of Lightning McQueen, Sally and Mater from the movie Cars! Even neater, a life-size version of Mack was there as well, and that was a surprise to all of them!

And they took pictures while they were gone, of course. :-)


Both boys sit on the steps of Mack.

( Vrrrooooooooom! )

And I'd like to share these two humorous "car" clips. To get the maximum amusement out of the clips (videos on YouTube), it's essential that you watch the European link first:

European vs. Iraqi Burnouts

- European burnout
- Iraqi burnout

*grins*

It's been so nice.

Heather wanted to see Cars, and she took the boys with her for them to see it again. I've had two hours of blissful quiet, and it's been lovely. I returned some fence to Menard's and walked around Wal*Mart slowly. I bought some strawberries and a new Cars coloring book for the boys (remember that the last one was fully colored in under two days!). I bought a Diet Pepsi and waited for to pick Philip up from Runza, and I listened to what *I* wanted to in the car (even if it *was* the same thing the boys would have picked - the Cars soundtrack - heehee).

We came home, and I've put away their laundry and straightened their rooms a bit. I cleaned out some toys from Jack's room to let Heather borrow for her nephew in a few weeks (and then she's going to keep them!). I cleaned out Jack's preschool drawer, finally making room for more summer arts 'n crafts, and I mounted a bunch of his work on the wall. I sorted out too-small socks and put them in a bag to give away, and I reorganized his books by height on his bookshelf (it's a me thing - I can't stand for books to not be straightened by height).

And the boys should be home now any minute. I'll bet they had fun, and I got a nice little break. :-)

We had a very late dinner tonight. While the hotdogs were grilling, the boys and I chased fireflies around the yard. I didn't have any empty glass jars, so I used an empty PartyLite® Barrel Jar™ and a disc-shaped can gripper as a make-shift lid. It worked, but it didn't allow me to poke air holes in, so we didn't keep each firefly for very long. The next time I opened a jar of my mom's canned green beans, I'll be sure to save the jar and lid (we usually just recycle them) for nights like these.

I'd never tried to capture fireflies before, and I was surprised at how easy it was to do. The little buggers don't move very fast, do they? Jack took to naming all of the fireflies, and of course, he named on 'Lightning.'

Speaking of 'Lightning,' man - do these boys ever have Cars on the brain! Mass-marketing works for these little fellas, and it is already evidenced in our home. Both of the boys were sporting Cars t-shirts today, and they bought four figurine playsets of the vehicles/characters (a total of of seven cars). They played with them all afternoon and evening, using our old fire engine as the big 'Mack' truck. We bought A.J. a Cars coloring book yesterday; by lunchtime today, he had already completed every single page in it! His motivation was a cut-out 'Sally' car on the back cover of the book, but I'd told him to wait a little while before cutting it out, maybe until more of the pages were colored first. I had no idea he'd actually color every page and then come bopping to me, "Mom! I'm done! Can I cut out 'Sally' now?!" I helped him build the cut-out car this afternoon, and Jack dug through our old cars to find a couple that looked like the racecars 'Chick' and 'King.'

Just... wow. Boys and their cars. Of course it should go without saying, but Jack has decided on Cars as the theme for his birthday party in August. (A.J. is hoping for a Larry-Boy™ theme.) I'm not surprised in the least.

I've about decided that I'm going to start opening strawberries before I buy them at the commissary. I bought a package this afternoon only to find that two of the berries were rotted, white and moldy deep in the center of the package. They were facing inward, and there's really no way I could've seen them until I opened the package. However, this is happening more and more often now, and I'm really beginning to get frustrated. I figure, most people check eggs before buying them - what's the difference in checking strawberries? I've never seen anyone opening strawberries in the produce section, but who's to say it can't be done?

(Honestly, I'd probably chicken out before really doing it.)

Jack helped me pick five Roma tomatoes yesterday evening out of the garden. I took more progress pictures early in the morning, but I've just not gotten around to putting them up yet. Of the five tomatoes, one was scratched and banged up pretty badly, to the point where there wasn't much edible on it. Another one had just been eaten by some little animal - the top third of it was gone, but they were very fresh bites. Jack was giddy with the remaining three tomatoes, though. Tonight I picked one more ripe one, but there were two half-and-half (partly green, partly turning red) tomatoes that I pulled off as well, and each of them had about a third eaten out as well. I don't know little animal is eating them, but I'm going to get angry soon. They're my tomatoes - all mine! Still, even with the loss of three tomatoes, we've now picked five beautiful, red, ripe tomatoes this year, and that's impressive in and of itself. :-)

For dessert tonight, we all chose some fruit. A.J. picked blueberries over grapes (which surprised the heck out of me), but I think he's growing out of them (if that's possible?). He used to like them pretty well, but he really made faces at each one tonight, even gagging on a few of them. I had some in a fruit salad with cantaloupe and strawberries tonight myself, plus I just bought them this afternoon, so I know they were fine. Jack chose strawberries, so I can't guage his reaction. Since kids sometimes "grow" into liking certain fruits and vegetables, I wonder if they can also grow OUT of liking them?

I'm thinking that a fairly early night sounds pretty nice. *yawn*

I just sat down to purchase movie tickets online. I'm taking the boys to see Cars, and it opens tomorrow. (Philip will be playing paintball with a bunch of guys at that time.) I figure the theater will probably be pretty full for the matinee showings of this film, especially since kids have been out of school for three weeks now. I thought I'd beat the rush and buy our tickets online.

Screw that. I'm not paying a fee for each ticket! We'll just go a bit earlier tomorrow and wait like everyone else. The fee is practically the same price as a kid's combo - no way!

Though I must admit I chuckled when I saw the run time of 116 minutes. "Run time" and "cars" - get it? Heehee. I'm such a dork.