The Legend of the Pirat

Bruce has been a little obsessed over money-making schemes for awhile. Ever since we opened a bank account for him and he declared to the teller that he was going to make a million dollars, he has been working hard on that goal. He sold a few Lego pieces to his friends (until I found out!), he planned on drawing caricatures in the park (until he found out that most people want themselves drawn and not random Star Wars guys), and he has been working on building a comic book store in his bedroom for months. I'm not sure when that last scheme will be unveiled because he always says he is "working on it," but I'm sure he would be happy to sell a comic under the table too.

Bruce asked me to contribute a comic book to his store, so I spent hours/days making a comic book about our adventures in getting ready for school every morning. Once I finished it and handed it to him, he said he would sell it for one dollar. So far, no takers. I guess his friends aren't interested in comics that don't have weapons in them.

Above is my first purchase, The Legend of the Pirat. When I told Bruce he spelled "pirate" wrong, he informed me that the pirate is actually a rat, so he is calling it a "pirat." Of course. The story goes something like this (in case you can't tell from his scratchy writing)...

The Pirat saw land and crashed into it, then realized it was a factory. He figured out a code, then battled an alien, then a real alien who stole his weapon. Pirat somehow defeated the alien with a key and got some treasure because that's what pirates do. The ending is the best part: "For now Pirat has to fix the moon!"

Serious adventure.

Sunday evening

This week's busy-ness included coordinating a blood drive, hosting a baby shower, and having Scott's sister Nancy and her husband Jared in town.

Which is why we are all relaxing in our jammies tonight.

Ahhhhhhhh.

They are so cute when they sleep.

 In looking at pictures from my phone, I noticed a pattern.

 I think I took most of these to text to Scott as proof of some terrible tantrum that occurred before the crash.

 Indeed, Phoebe can sleep in the dirt (top photo)...

 or on the floor...

 or in a bed...

 or in a bus...

 or on a futon...

or on the couch.

NY, NY

 Last weekend we went on a whirlwind trip to New York City. Scott had an epic Friday at work and didn't climb into bed until 1 a.m. Unfortunately for him, my alarm went off at 3:28 a.m. I packed the car, woke Scott up, packed the kids and Scott in, and climbed behind the wheel. Three-and-a-half hours later, we pulled into NYC and found a place to park. As you can see, parking is not cheap (that said, this is much cheaper than the weekday parking sign).

 The purpose of this trip was to 1) see my good friend Tiff, 2) see my good friend Breanne, and 3) run the Angel's Run 5K. The race was a charity benefit for a cancer center in honor of Tiff's mom, who passed away from cancer three years ago. My hip is still not completely healed, but there was no way I was going to miss this.

 Two weeks before the race, Tiff got in a car accident and hurt her back. She emailed me and was so bummed that she now couldn't fly out for the race. I was sad that I wouldn't get to see her, but I was determined to document it for her so it would be as if she was right there. I took my phone and took lots of blurry crummy pictures like the one of her dad and brother, above.

 And this nice one of me checking my watch, which I'd forgotten to start.

 And this one of my feet pounding the pavement. Feel like you're running a 5K yet? I texted a bunch of pictures real-time to Tiff and found out afterward that her phone doesn't do picture texts. Oops. I dumped them on Facebook for her instead.

 And the finish. My time was really unspectacular. I pretended that I was going for a normal training run and resisted the urge to sprint out at the start or surge at the finish; mission accomplished as my hip isn't any worse than it was before.

 Everyone wore halos and white shirts with angel wings on the back. My halo actually stayed on while running. Breanne ran so fast that hers popped off in the first 50 meters.

 Here is our wonderful (and very tired) support crew. We ate bagels in a park with Breanne and her family afterward...

 ...then headed uptown...

 ...to the American Museum of Natural History for a nice visit before heading home for the day.

When asked about his favorite part of the trip, Bruce said it was the bacon-egg bagel that he ate at the park that morning. Phoebe said her favorite part of the trip was the bounce house that was next to a restaurant we stopped at on the way home. Just looking at it must have been a thrill because we didn't even step near it. Scott's favorite part of the day was probably laying his head on the pillow that night, where he caught 7 hours of sleep before heading to another long day at work on Sunday.

Blogtastic

I haven't been blogging enough, so I downloaded an archaic app on my phone so I can at least post some crappy pictures and raw, unedited, and probably too brief text.