Such as seeing the inside of a corn field for the first time. Fun - walking through the corn maze with the grandkids, but it isn't one of my Top 10 moments...In case you've ever wondered what the inside of a corn field looks like...it's a little wider than I thought....
Such as learning about a fridge toy that O-man really enjoys that I need to get for J-man...it's a leap frog toy, but I can't find it on their website. But you put the front of the fire truck in and the back of the fire truck and it starts to play a bubble song. But if you put the front of the train with the back of the fire truck, it starts to tell you how silly that is. Pretty fun, and O-man likes it. However, a bit of a warning to MommyS & DaddyK - the pieces seem to end up under other pieces of furniture. I have no idea how that happens though....ah, the great mysteries of life...
But enough about what didn't make the cut. Here are the Top 10 Best Moments of My Birthday Week.
# 10 - Seeing "Gravity." In 3D. And don't bother seeing it any other way. Now I grant you that it wasn't that much "extra" for us to see it in 3D, because the young whipper-snapper who sold us the tickets just assumed we were senior citizens and applied that discount. It was the first time I ever was given a senior citizen discount, and I'm not even an official card-carrying member of the AARP or the AMAC. I'm not entirely sure whether I feel insulted or honored by the application - or simply just downright cheap cause I was charged less and didn't put up a fuss about it.
But back to the movie. Intense. Understatement, but intense. A few interesting notes on the movie - and I don't think any of these notes constitute spoilers - you really only see faces of two live people. You hear voices of others and see faces of dead people, but only live faces of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Which I think sort of intensifies the vastness of space - that for any of the very small handful of people who have ever made it to outer space, seeing faces is a rare occurrence while you are there. Audio communication is your primary (only?) link to Earth, so sight connection to other people is largely unavailable. This is the first movie in a long time that really took me outside of this world. (Pun intended.) For the time we were there, I lost almost all sense of being in a movie theater, watching a story and events unfold. I was drawn into the story like I was part of the drama and not just an observer. To the point that when the movie was over, and we'd taken off the 3D glasses and were starting to walk out (one of the last to walk out, mind you, because we typically don't hop up and leave immediately), I found myself tripping back up the stairs - in an almost coming back to Earth, feeling gravity again sort of way. In many ways, similarities could be drawn between "Gravity" and "Castaway" where Tom Hanks plays out much of the movie as a single character, but I don't recall feeling like "Castaway" took me outside of myself the way "Gravity" did. I doubt the movie wins any awards, but I think it should be nominated for at least a few things, even just the 3D sort of things, because it wasn't cheesy 3D.
# 9 - Cards wins! Now maybe it's not fair to include wins by the Cardinals in the Top 10 Best Moments of My Birthday Week, because it may sound like I think they were winning for me. I don't mean that at all. I may blog, but I don't think I'm quite that self-centered! But come on! They made it to the World Series! Woo-hoo!!! And ya know what else? This was the first time in about 7 years that Father and Son got to watch some post-season Cards action together in the same room. Pretty cool for G & R, in my opinion - something that warmed my heart. Go Cards!!
# 8 - The Sorghum Couple. What? Sorghum? Yep, this adorable couple at Silver Dollar City (SDC from now on), who are in their late 70's or early 80's, spend a few weeks each Fall at SDC during their annual craftsman festival, squeezing sorghum cane and boiling down the syrup. And get this. They are the 3rd generation in the family to have a sorghum farm. And get this, too. It was the best tasting sorghum I'd ever had, because they take the time to skim off all the impurities, not just the first ones that bubble to the surface. We actually bought a jar, and sorghum ginger cookies are in my near future. Yum!
# 7 - The Knife Guy. Right before we met The Sorghum Couple, we met The Knife Guy. He hand forms each knife from stainless steel, so each one is a work of art. But it wasn't his knives that put him at # 7 on this list. It was his story - how he was almost dead about 7 years ago, but as he puts it, "The Lord wasn't done with [him] down here yet." We love to ask these craftsman how they got into their business, and The Knife Guy began to tell his story. Within 1 - 2 minutes of him telling his story to G & I, a group had gathered around to listen. And it is quite a story - one of those stories of redeeming love that I love so much - how just the right people were placed in his path to teach him his craft and then how he came to be The Knife Guy at SDC, including how he'd met the former, now deceased, Knife Guy's family just a few weeks before becoming SDC's new Knife Guy. Good story. Good moment. Good memory. Hopeful memory - that God is still writing good stories in people's lives.
# 6 - SIX. Appropriately, right? I've been wanting to see these guys for about a year now, and we did on my birthday! They are six out of 10 brothers, and everything they do is acappella. I could only find a couple of you tube videos for them in a quick search, but here is one that features their "percussion guy" as a soloist. I noticed that for this song, it took more than half of them to replicate what he does by himself for almost all of their other songs. Fun group, taught by their dad growing up, and they include a tribute to their mother, who is now gone, but it's a very touching tribute. Good show. Branson needs more shows like this, but that's another story...
# 5 - Bass Pro. With the A-man and the O-man. By ourselves - just Grandpa G and Grandma Deb. I hadn't been to the Springfield Bass Pro in probably 25 years or so. Great store. We saw alligators and snakes and fish and, of course, tur-tas! I tried to get some good shots of O-man's joy at seeing the turtles, but none of those came out so good. They even had a couple soft-shelled turtles in the pond, which I found pretty interesting. We did get a couple of good shots outside of Bass Pro where they were featuring dairy cows. If you look at this one from a distance, it sorta looks like A-man is sporting a spikey do while "milking" this cow...
And this one wins cute points where O is petting the calf...
# 4 - The Pumpkin Patch. Which is where I took the shot from the inside of the corn field. Probably one of the best moments at the pumpkin patch is when A took a ride on this train - which was a first for him. He didn't want to do it in previous years, but he took MANY rides on it this year! Does this train not scream Small-Town America Ingenuity or what? A John Deere tractor pulling a collection of "cars" made out of 50-gallon trash barrels. How cool is that?
A-man thinks so! In fact after his first ride, A said, and I quote, "I'm gonna still come in here again!" (Note the "Trash Can Choo-Choo" name. Too cute!)
# 3 - Walking A-man to school. He's in kindergarten this year, and we got the rare privelege of walking him to school - and on my birthday no less! Simple, day-in-the-life pleasure, but joyful. Topped off with a hug and a kiss good-bye! Doesn't get much better, folks!
# 2 - Having lunch with my oldest, S. That hasn't happened in a month of Sundays, but we work in just close-enough proximity these days, that I'm hopeful it will be repeated with some regularity. It was great to get caught up on his life and hear what is on his heart. Good stuff.
And the # 1 Best Moment of My Birthday Week....drum roll please...although when many of you hear this, you're going to think, what??? But hang with me...I'll explain why...
# 1 - Blueberry Amaretto Syrup. From G. He got me "bigger" things, too, but this one touched my heart because we'd seen this in a little store in St. Chuck months ago, and he remembered. Now...I am about to tell a tale on G that shows you he's not perfect...that he's still a "normal" husband like the rest of us are married to, but this story doesn't discount the Blueberry Amaretto Syrup moment. While we were at R&E's house last weekend, we played 3 games - Forbidden Island, that I think J&G would enjoy, Ticket to Ride, that takes a bit of strategy, and Say Anything, that makes ya laugh. I think I want to buy all 3 games soon, but during Say Anything, among the questions I chose for others to answer about me were these two: Best candy of all time and Tastiest pie flavor. Now, G spent a great deal of time thinking on both of these, because he knew he should KNOW the answers to these for me, but he drew a blank. But don't be too hard on him; he got the blueberry amaretto syrup spot on! As it turned out, E won on both questions for the closest right answers. She said toffee, which ranks a very close 2nd to peanut brittle, and it's mainly the sentiment attached to peanut brittle that pushes it to # 1; and she said coconut creme for the pie, which is # 2 behind blueberry pie for me. And oh yea, blueberry amaretto syrup is definitely showing up in the next blueberry pie! It really is good, guys; we had some on pancakes yesterday. Yum!
Good birthday.
One other moment happened during birthday week that was the first time I ever wanted to tweet. I don't tweet, nor do I follow any tweets or make things appear more important by hash-tagging # them. Please note: All of the uses of "#" above are as a number and not as a hashtag, just so we're clear. But G & I had been shopping, and we'd taken a break to share a pineapple smoothie. I don't recall what exactly came right before this, but we were both laughing at something one of us had seen or said, and G comes out with this, which just sounds like it needs to be tweeted somewhere:
You know you're old when you laugh and you feel it all the way to your bottom.
I have no idea what that means - which I suppose means that I'm not old yet. But were I younger and a regular tweeter, I would have tweeted it. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves on what this actually means...
Happy! Happy! Birthdays are fun!!!
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