Saturday

Saturday I had my annual sleepover with my nieces and nephews. I had 9 kids to watch over. I took them rollerskating Saturday afternoon. The reason we went rollerskating was more because I wanted to go than the kids. You would think with 10 nieces and nephews they would have more rollerskating birthday parties, but to my recollection there has only been one. The two highlights of rollerskating were: #1. I won the races. MLK wasn’t there so my only other competition came from Zack. And #2. As I was taking off my rollerblades and getting ready to leave, this little kid came skating by me and said “Hey, you are a really good skater.” That made my day. Even though Lindsey and Abby said I was a show off.

I had switched vehicles with my mom, so I had her minivan. I piled all of the kids illegally into the minivan and headed for my house. Upon our arrival, I made the kids each pick up 10 sticks in my front yard and back yard and put them in my fire pit. They unloaded all of their stuff and then said they wanted to play outside. I mentioned that we could go to a park and they were all excited for that. I decided to head down to Miller Park and go to the park they have behind the fence of the little league field. When the kids said that they were going to play tag, I said that I was going to play. Although I wasn’t the most active participant in the game. I don’t have the energy to run around the whole time. I just sat on a step until I was tagged, then with each time I was “it” I systematically chased down each kid starting with the oldest and working my way down. Miller Park had the “Rising Star” game going on at the same time, and as the game go closer to the end, more kids came to the playground so we decided to head to a different park. I took them to Jacobus Park just off the Honeycreek Parkway. We stayed at that park for about 20minutes. As we were leaving I walked by one parent who was pushing his kid on a swing and I said to him “Do you want to trade?” He said “No way.”As we were headed along the parkway, I stopped by the fish hatchery. I thought that would be a nice spot for a photo-op. Then we stopped again near Hart Park and I grabbed a couple photos on the foot bridges. Normally when I get the kids together for a picture, I make them take a nice one where they are all smiling and then they can do a goofy one. When I had them on the foot bridge over the Menomonee River, after the nice picture, I had them all spit into the river. I think this is one of my favorite group pictures that I have taken with the kids. I then took them to the park at Dyer Field. After three parks it was time to head back home and feed these kids. I laid out a spread of Doritos, cookies and candy along with pizza and soda, everything that a growing kid needs. The boys were pretty content with playing video games, so I played cribbage with the girls. That soon changed into teaching the kids how to play Blackjack. I broke out the poker chips and gave each kid $1000, and I was the dealer taking all of their money. I think they learned that in the end, gambling doesn’t pay. At around 11:00 p.m., I set the kids up with a movie. Then Erin and I played a game of war. It was real close to midnight when I left them to watch the movie and I went to bed.