Bowling & Test-Driving

From the time Ammon was 3 years old, he's had a friend party every single year for his birthday. I admit I started out a little too ambitious with my oldest child! I quickly learned from my mistake, and I didn't let Jonah and Micah start having friend birthday parties until just this past year. We've always done something fun as a family for Jonah and Micah's birthday instead--we've gone to places like Hogle Zoo, Lagoon, & Qwivals. I've heard about some families who only let their child have friend parties every OTHER year, and I think I want to implement that rule, too. So, since Jonah and Micah had their friend birthday party this year, I told Ammon it was his turn for a family party, then next year they'll trade. He wasn't too happy about that at first. I told him he could pick whatever he wanted to do, and we'd all do it together. He finally chose bowling as his activity.

A few days after his birthday, we went to Idaho Falls for his orthodontist appointment, and we took the whole family with us to celebrate on that day, too. After seeing the orthodontist, we went shopping to a few stores, and the "special" item for the day seemed to be hats. Every boy (including dad) got a new hat, and every boy proudly wore his new hat on his head all day (including dad)!

We went bowling that afternoon to a nice alley that was open, and it wasn't busy. They gave us two adjoining bowling lanes, one for Josh, Ammon, and me and one for the younger boys with the gutter rails up. We all put our bowling shoes on, and with the shoes and the hats [still] on, we were ready to start the game!!
It was fun to watch each of my boys and their different styles of throwing the ball! Ammon goes to a Jr. Bowling League every Friday, so he's gotten pretty good at his form and he's a pretty consistent bowler. His score was 81.
Kanyon liked to put the ball on the ground and then give it an under-handed push. The ball would go SO slow; it would take forever to finally get to the pins! With all of his slow balls, he still scored a 61, though!
Jonah had the most random style of throwing the ball! He'd walk up to the line, lean his arm back, and then do this whole body twist thing before he'd throw it. He scored 71.
Micah ran up to the line, and crossed it a few times, because he just couldn't release that ball fast enough! He had the highest score of the little boys, with a total of 76.

Josh started out strong with his first ball being a strike! But, things sort of went downhill from there. The best part was when he thought he was going to cross the line, so he hopped to the other bowling lane, but it was so slick, that he landed right on his butt! Oh, how I wish I had a photo of that! We all laughed so hard!! His final score was 79, just two less than Ammon.
I actually won the game, surprisingly enough, with my score of 112. It should've been more, because the computer screwed up twice, but who's counting?!! (wink wink) I used to be a part of a women's bowling league in town, and I used to really like it. During this particular game, I scored several strikes and spares, and I'm glad that I can still bowl alright even though I haven't participated in the sport in years!
We all had a great time bowling! It was a fun and enjoyable activity to do together as a family! Bowling was SUPPOSED to be the last activity of the day before making the 2 1/2 hour drive home, but when we were at the gas station, Josh said to me "I just want to drive out to a dealership to test-drive a car first". I was a little irritated, but I agreed let him do the task.
Josh has been looking at some Scion's online for quite sometime now. We don't have a Toyota dealership in town, and nobody in town drives the Scion xB, which is what he's been wanting to get. So he told me he just wanted to test-drive one to make absolutely sure that's the kind of car he hopes to get in the future. Just a little background info: in our long-term money plan, the goal was to not buy another car until the little tan 1988 Honda civic that we drive around town dies. It's got over 250,000 miles on it, and is on its last leg of life. We figured it would die at some point this year, but we both agreed that we wouldn't purchase another car to replace it until at least spring or summer or fall.
So anyway, the Toyota dealership we went to only had one xB model that Josh was interested in test-driving, because he wanted an older one with the box-shape style, not a newer one with the rounded-style in the back. The boys were ecstatic watching their dad test drive that car off the parking lot with the salesman. I stayed and waited with them in the van while Josh drove it around town. Josh loved driving it. When he returned, he drove me and the kids in it around the large parking lot. The boys all loved it, too. Kanyon kept saying "It makes me smile! I still smiling! I so happy!" I personally thought the box-shaped car was ugly and weird. I told the salesman that we couldn't afford it and that it wasn't the right timing for us to purchase a vehicle. Of course, the salesman's reply to my comment was "just come inside, we'll work out some numbers with you". At this point, I was rolling my eyes at the salesman, and glaring at Josh. I did NOT want to work out numbers, I wanted to GO home. I did NOT want to take my four boys into the dealership, I wanted to BUCKLE them in my car and leave!!!

So yeah, long story short...we headed inside, and after over 2 hours of negotations and deal-making (and kids bouncing off the walls), we signed the papers, and Josh drove away in a 2006 Silver Scion xB! I made him drive the whole way home with all four boys as punishment, while I had a nice, quiet drive home to myself! And we all lived happily ever after! (Well...more accurately speaking: Josh still loves it, it still makes the boys happy, and it's slowly growing on me--although I have yet to drive it myself!)