Celebrating their 18th!
We have gone from this...
to this...
in the past 18 years.
The days were often long and the years short as time slipped by
while we are busy with the small things of life.
We decided to celebrate by taking the boys somewhere they have always wanted to go.
Of course this place is nowhere close to where we live but takes some travel time to get there. We decided to make it a quick weekend get-away that was fun and relaxing.
It started out with relaxed packing because, very opposite my nature, I did not even use a list. On Friday night I told people to throw some clothes, toothpaste, toothbrush and deodorant in a duffle bag and call it good. It was certainly no-frills packing.
We headed out on Saturday morning and zipped down the freeway, making amazing time.
High up in the mountains between central and southern California we stopped for the first
time at the visitor center at Pyramid Lake.
Besides wonderfully clean and modern bathrooms, there were rooms of educational hands-on displays about the water systems, transportation, and allocation in California.
From there we descended into the Los Angeles basin and decided that even though this might be considered a good traffic day we would prefer fewer cars around us.
We extricated ourselves from the freeway and made our way down to the ocean.
Unfortunately, we didn't extricate ourselves from any crowds because there were
plenty of people enjoying a beautiful day at the beach.
Southern California beach culture was a bit of a shock to my children who are
used to the colder beaches of central CA.
After squeezing into the tiny parking lot, we headed out the Manhattan Beach pier
to the little aquarium in the very old building at the end of the pier.
{How does that finger keep getting in the way?}
Putting her hand in the tank was not her idea of fun.
I had to convince her that nothing would bite off her fingers or be
squishy when she touched it.
Looking at the eels and sand sharks in another tank was more than she could bear.
We enjoyed sitting on the pier watching the beach volleyball, surfers, boogie boarders,
and the non-ending stream of people enjoying the warm day.
Later, while sitting in the sand enjoying our ice cream,
we also were treated to the scents of marijuana and sunscreen.
Leaving the beach, we headed toward the freeway on a relatively uncrowded street
and got rear-ended which pushed us into the vehicle stopped in front of us.
Thankfully no one was injured too bad and we could drive away in our vehicle.
To our benefit, I had put a brand new bottle of ibuprofen in my bag so I passed
those around to all the passengers in our vehicle.
(The amount of time and energy we have spent on the accident since then
makes we wonder how people have time to deal with a major accident.)
Thankful we had left the beach in plenty of time, we arrived at Medieval Times where a few family members were waiting to join us.
Because we were a birthday party group, we entered through a special entrance,
received our crowns and had our group photo taken with the king.
{Photographer: Medieval Times}
After roaming the Hall of Arms for awhile, we were seated by sections
according to the color of our knight.
You can see by our crowns that we were cheering for the black and white knight.
These were the eating utensils of the evening; no flatware allowed.
We were served: Dragon Soup (tomato bisque), garlic bread, roasted chicken,
spare ribs, herb basted potatoes, and pasty of the castle.
It was served by our capable and jolly serf.
The pageantry before the meal.
Show of horse skills.
A story was woven through the knights' competitions of the evening.
There were games of skill, jousting, horseback tricks,
vanquishing the "bad" interloper, and saving the Princess.
The winning knight had the fervent applause of his cheering section.
The excitement of the evening finished, we drove our battered vehicle the hour
to my Mom and Dad's house to spend the night.
The next day was a family dinner followed by some brownies to celebrate
the newly minted adults.
After enjoying our visit with the family,
it was time to throw the duffle bags back into the vehicle and head for home.
It was a little hard to believe we had covered so much ground and had so much excitement
in a little more than 36 hours.
A bonus to becoming an adult:
Since our car accident happened on the boys' 18th birthday, they entered the adult
world of filling out forms, talking to insurance adjustors, and taking themselves
to the chiropractor.
To say the least, they have not enjoyed this type of entry into the adult world.
Even so, it was still a happy 18th birthday.
