We did the usual stuff–steak dinners at the Leona Steakhouse, lunch at Pecan Grove, a trip to Buc-ee’s and Walmart–along with our first stop at the somewhat recently opened Leona Drug Store, which houses a soda fountain.

But the weekend was really about being out in the elements on ATVs. All of the mothers made them promise to be careful, and Speed assured his mother that all ATVs are meant to be ridden two at a time. Wrong on both counts.

But this weekend won’t be remembered for the good food or ridiculously awesome convenience stores. It will be remembered first for Noah crushing the mule against a tree within the first 45 minutes of use.

Second, for Ryan splitting his forehead open with the Mauser bolt-action rifle scope (hence, the need to trek to Walmart for bandages, etc.).  A little competition for Madysen.

Amazingly, the last 24 hours went accident free. And the boys claim to have had an awesome time, injuries notwithstanding. I hope Speed enjoyed it because I doubt I’ll say yes to future similar request.

Last Friday, Layla and I were invited to join a group of school friends and dads to attend a Chick-Fil-A fan event. Riding to/from the event in a limo bus was nice (complete with a rose for each girl).

Of course, we were greeted at the door by cows.

Dinner was–what else?–chicken sandwiches and sweet tea. Nothing wrong with that.

After dinner, we watched Tim Hawkins, a comedian/parody singer. He was fine for me, but Layla and Hattie laughed amazingly hard. During his last song, “Peed Just a Little Bit,” he threw out adult diapers. Layla and Hattie both got one, which they got Hawkins to sign afterwards.

A nice event capped off by one of the dad’s mistaking construction booms on the way home for gunfire and diving into the bottom of the limo bus and freaking out the girls. Good times.

The remnants of the Saturday evening egg decorating extravaganza that Madysen and Speed were way too cool to participate in.

On Easter morning, Emma was the first awake (as always), and she took pictures of the Easter Bunny baskets. (This first picture was taken with the ToonPAINT app that I quickly became obsessed with and then soured on just as quickly.)

After Madysen, Speed, and Layla returned from church (Emma stayed home and in her pjs because that’s “the rules for egg hunting.”  Pay special attention to Emma’s marbled eggs with eyes and Layla’s Madysen and Speed eggs. (I’ve included some ToonPaint versions, which intrigue me but seem completely pointless, which explains most of my days.)

The decorated eggs were hidden in the backyard where Layla and Emma went in search for them.

We also had over 100 plastic eggs stuffed with candy of everyone’s choice. Speed had chosen Blow Pops, which didn’t fit well in the eggs. So Holly broke the sticks to make them fit. Surprising how much a broken Blow Pop stick can impair one’s enjoyment. Anyway, Madysen and Speed hid the eggs inside the first floor. Speed’s effort at hiding declined aggressively over the 3 minutes he invested, which is why there were 20 eggs laying in open site in the dining room.

One final ToonPAINT. I think my ToonPAINT dalliance is over.

Starting with Friday evening where I was at Good Records until 1 a.m. helping set up for the big 11th anniversary/Record Store Day party on Saturday. I still have my regular job in case you were wondering.

Seven hours setting up for a party I didn’t even attend. Because Speed, Layla, Emma, and I headed to Norman Saturday morning (Madysen had a tough day of work and Habitat for Humanity) for the Red/White Spring Game. Big things are expected for the OU football team this fall, and it’s always nice to be on campus on a nice April Saturday.

We had access to a special pregame event but getting inside just 20 minutes after the gates opened and 70 minutes before scrimmage start was too late to hear from Coach Stoops. Oh well, the barbeque was fine and the Stadium Club seats were pretty nice.

Speed made out like a bandit on the day as he is planning on sharing the OU Chuck Taylor’s with Layla (they are too big for her, too small for him–perfect, I guess) along with a pair of brand new Nike running shoes for $20. I clearly didn’t oversee him sufficiently as I’ve since learned that the shoes are women’s, but I haven’t told him. We’ll see how long it takes him to notice and how much longer it takes for him to fess up. On the later, I’ll take the over on an short of forever.

Saturday night I had a brilliant idea of dinner down in Bricktown with Pat and Cousin Megan. It took four hours and much head scratching, but we had a meal at Pearl’s Crabtown. I have marked that off my list of things to maybe do if it’s convenient.

So what was Holly doing with her carefree day at home? Running a practice, semi-official half marathon as part of her Alaska Marathon training. She made it and was actually happy with her time. She took an ice bath that afternoon and a salt bath on Sunday to help recover. Good for her.

Once we were back in Dallas, Layla talked me into taking her and Emma to see Soul Surfer, which I had no idea what going to be a tearjerker and have copious amounts of Dennis Quaid shirtless. Emma remarked more than once, at particularly touching moments: “It looks like you are going to cry.” Heart of gold, that one.

But before we move on to 2003, which contained so many trips, adventures, etc. I can hardly believe all of us survived, here are a few quick stories of things that have happened in the last couple weeks that I won’t otherwise get to.

First, a couple Saturdays ago, a group of kids and Emma started a lemonade stand on our front lawn–without consulting Holly or me–at $1 a taste, which is on the high side for yellow water. Because it was successful, lots of neighborhood kids tried to glom on for a share of the cash. And then it devolved further into kids standing in the street defying cars to attempt to pass without stopping, yelling–lots and lots of yelling, and tons of lemonade trash in the yard. So I told them to shut it down, clean up, and split the money. Not hard to guess that everyone disappeared as did the money and trash remained. With a lot of effort, everything got resolved (Emma came home with $5; totally worth it), but my bitterness of others increased a bit higher.

Second, when having dinner on the patio of a local taco joint with Madysen, Speed, and Layla, Madysen informed as to the Blitz/No Blitz rule in Calling Shotgun (i.e., providing or preventing a race to the car to override an initial shotgun claim). Upon finishing our meal, we moved towards the car where Layla called out: “Shotgun. No Ditz!” Actually, there is at least one.

Finally, on Saturday night, Speed went to a Sweet 16/”Gloteen” party for a group of high school girls. Since the theme was neon/glow in the dark, Speed had to get an outfit together. The result:

$8 neon green shorts he bought a hippie house in east Dallas; Layla’s “Dancer” t-shirt, and his black/electric blue/purple Nike jacket he got while in Italy. Talk of coloring his hair he quickly since it was “nearly neon already.” Agreed.

Update: Forgot to mention that I took Speed to the best meal he’s ever had last Thursday night at Hattie’s. He had Low Country shrimp & grits and fried green tomatoes, but he loved, loved, loved my bacon-wrapped, jalapeno stuffed quail with sweet potato mash. And that was just a prelude to the Band of Horses concert at Verizon Theatre where we nearly got into an altercation of a spilled beer.

Second, Most Important Update: Madysen got a real job last week (as opposed to last summer’s pool cashier job) at a local sports and casual wear boutique (she also tutors for nearly 3x the money). With just a couple of shifts under her belt, she’s pretty adept at folding t-shirts and has experienced the glories of handling customers.

But I’m happy to report that he got a real haircut last week. He hates to be photographed and probably even more for them to be posted here, but I thought this photo was great. Because he got it cut. But also because he looks like he’s smiling. The reality is the woman was pressuring him into it to enter some contest.

An MVP haircut

So there’s that. In a somewhat related note, around this time we were discussing funny guy Zach Galifianakis. Speed summed up his thoughts: “He makes me want to get fat and grow a beard.”

But Speed made the game for me on the first night. You first need to know several things. First, generally speaking, Speed’s hubris in his own non-academic abilities is weighty. Add to that, he considers himself quite the dancer–he is even taking Dance as a school class this year. Second, he has a new family nickname–Red J–based on a local newspaper columnist/radio host’s mocking nickname of new Cowboy head coach and fellow ginger, Red Jesus.

So when Speed finished some MJ song with the high score and the only one to have gotten four stars, he was talking smack. And when he was entering his name, to reserve his eternal glory, he asked: “How do you spell ‘J’?”

I guess his Dance grade is better than his English grade.

And then there’s this. I love the show CBS Sunday Morning and often the girls watch part of it with me. And that inevitably led, I guess, to them spoofing it. They wrote a script and had an MJ cameo. Nice.

Louis Armstrong is my favorite cyclist. I’m guessing this is just the tip of iceberg since I just came across them trying to clean up their iMac hard drive.

That’s it from us for 2010. See you (on the radio?) in 2011.

Speaking of World Cup games, on the afternoon before the wedding/epic Spain-Paraguay game, Uruguay and Ghana played their own very, very memorable quarterfinal match.

But the game itself was nearly the background to what we saw while watching the game at a local sports bar. A woman there was a huge, huge fan of Uruguay. Really, I can’t even begin to explain how vocal she was in support of her team. Good for her. And for us as it brought great entertainment to us, especially Layla and Emma.

And miracle of miracles, I took one video of the entertainment and it happened to be this:

Unfortunately, while Uruguay went on to win in PKs, we didn’t get watch her agonize/celebrate as it went down. Due to rain, the satellite got knocked out, so we rushed home to watch the extra time and PKs.

But even before his birthday got here, I took him and his friend Grayson to the OU-Texas Tech game, which was a lot like the last time we played Tech at home. And poor Grayson, he’s a Tech fan and was at both beatdowns.

But Grayson and Speed remained friends–at least for the weekend–as they spent two nearly sleepless nights playing Call of Duty: Black Ops Edition. Of course, this being Holly’s parents’ house, playing the game meant Speed had to take his PS3 and the boys had to help Papa install the TV that had been sitting in a box in the corner for several months.

Papa, Speed, and Grayson place the TV on the mantel

Still a bit surprised that Holly thought that game was a good idea in her parents’ house–the same house in which she didn’t see any R-rated movies until we were married. But PatPat and Papa were good sports–even buying Speed (and me and Grayson) dinner at the original Cocina de Mino and posing for a picture that Emma needed for Greatfriends Day at school.

Papa and PatPat in their new kitchen

And then his birthday actually got here, Holly went to all the trouble to get him an appointment for his drivers test, gave him last minute, probably faulty, and probably ignored pointers. And he passed on the first try.

That evening, we kind of opened presents. He’d already gotten most of them–OU/TX tickets, OU/Texas Tech tickets, Call of Duty: Black Ops Edition, etc.–so there wasn’t much drama.

Speed attempts to read as Layla and Emma watch

He even pre-picked out these ugly black/white/purple things.

Ugly shoes; I guess that's teens for you

And he pre-ordered a Dez Bryant Cowboys jersey even though he’s a former OSU Cowboy.

Ginger Dez Bryant

For his birthday dinner, he decided on trying a new (to him) burger place, Maple & Motor. It’s very, very good, but the best part was that Madysen got to see her former freshman English teacher, now Maple & Motor burger genius.

Finally, Holly told Speed to endorse a birthday check. Apparently, he has no idea what that means. I guess he’ll sign anything, anywhere.

He actually practices that signature

So we are two weeks into Operation Speed Drives–he’s even taken Emma to basketball practice–and we are all making it. FINGERS CROSSED.