My niece turned 16 today. Yesterday we all met at Saddle Ranch Chop House to celebrate both her birthday and my Aunt’s birthday. We got our favorite waitress, Tricia, she really took good care of us! I picked up my niece and nephew and Jim was coming in a separate car since Erika and I had some shopping to do afterwards. When she saw me with my Mom and the kids the first thing she said was, “where’s the baby???”. Yep, I’m Robert’s mother… my new identity. Erika and Aunt Barb both really liked their gifts. Lunch was wonderful and then even brought a huge slab cake for all of us to share at the end of the meal. Mmmmm.
On our way to the restaurant we stopped into Game Stop to get Donald the new Madden play station game. He and his Dad always played this together so I make sure that when a new one comes out he gets it. I tell him his Dad would have expected it.
After lunch the boys all came back to our house while Erika and I went shopping. We only went to two stores. Didn’t take her long to run through $150. She got a bunch of band t-shirts at Hot Topic and a Fox Motorsports jacket at Pac Sun. She was happy with her purchases so that’s what counts. We came back to the house and all hung out for a few hours before I took them home.
My nephew is driving to school this year since he decided to stay at his old school when they redistricted. I told him if he needs gas money I have plenty of projects he could help with to earn extra money. Today he came over and helped Jim work on the back yard. He mowed, trimmed until the trimmer battery ran down, did all the sweep up and helped move stuff to the garage. For his hour or so worth of work he got $10. I got a yard that looks A LOT better. They also have a fence row to clean up, a basement floor to lay and some furniture to refinish. I told my niece the same offer goes for her.
Jim and Robert went to the grocery store this morning and some heinous bitch actually went up to my son in the cart and said, “Did your daddy hit you, is that what happened to your face.” If I had been there I would have hit her! Jim just looked at her and said, “No, he was attacked by a gang of toddlers.”
