Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Boys' Night...

…yes, I had a Girl’s Slumber Party the weekend before last and haven’t written a word about it, and to be honest I may not, seeing as I haven’t had the blogging spirit of late. It was quite the ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ type of party and I may come around and share or I may decide to crawl back in my proverbial hole.

That aside, this past Saturday was all about the boys. Hmm? My husband is and will be in India for a spell so you may be wondering about this so called ‘Boys’ Night’. Well let me just clear things up for you…

No, I did not cheat. Nor did I go bar hopping or hire a male stripper for my own personal amusement. No, it was nothing like that but I did pull the Cougar Card. Ya know; the whole old lady thing with a younger guy…or two. I totally did THAT!

So now, let me just tell you to pick your minds right back up out of the gutter because when I said it was all about the boys, I meant two eight year olds.

I invited my grandson and Sheila’s son to keep me busy company, and we had so much fun it got me out of my funk and made me want to share.

When they arrived they were on full attack mode because they had overheard that I had a surprise for them. “What’s our surprise?”, “What are we doing?” “What, What, WHAT IS IT?” To which I replied, “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?”

As soon as the parental unit (read: Shelia, as she was the designated picker upper and dropper offer) was gone, it was ‘on’.

I had a treasure hunt planned for them…

…that had them bouncing back and forth between the rooms in my house with all the clues. One of the rules was that if it was dark in a room they couldn’t turn on a light, but had to use a flashlight (yeah, more fun!). They had a blast doing it, but let me tell you I wish I had the video camera going to show you the two of them reading each clue out loud and their excitement as they figured each one out…totally MasterCard priceless!

They eventually got to their treasure which was a Tech Deck kit each and Jelly Bellies to share. Nothing says non-parental spoiling like various sugar coated sugar! Sorry, I didn’t get a picture right away. Oh, wait, I did. This is what the box looked like five minutes after they opened it.

Hey! They, uh I mean we, were having fun. Were you aware that you could mix different ‘beans’ and come up with new flavors? For instance, Sunkist lemon + coconut = lemon meringue pie; and blueberry + buttered popcorn = blueberry muffin. Who knew? At least there’s a use for the damned buttered popcorn flavored jellybean, because on its own, it’s just nasty.

So the whole treasure hunt and sugar binging lasted about 45 minutes and then? They were bored…wha? So they did what boys do best. They built a fort in my family room.

But then, they were bored again…double wha? And they were hungry. So I packed them up in the back of my SUV and we headed to a craft store for some spray paint and stickers and then hit both Taco Bell and Arby’s. These boys may be like two peas in a pod, but when it came to choosing lunch they couldn’t compromise, so we went to both places. Hey, that’s what Nana’s do!

Anyhoo, once we got back, they ate while I spray-painted two boxes in the garage. If you’re going to give a kid mini skateboards, they need to have their own skate park. Once the boxes were dry, they painted the ramps inside them and decorated with the stickers.

They kept busy and played for quite a bit (surprisingly not on Wii) and were hungry again. At this point I informed them that they were not only making their own dinner, but mine as well; mini pizzas on English muffins. I think they ate more pepperoni and cheese while making them than they actually put on their pizza.

After dinner I had them make a dump cake for dessert; a can of cherry pie filling mixed with a can of crushed pineapple and topped with yellow cake mix, nuts and butter; baked for an hour and topped with whipped cream. One was fine with this…

…and the other opted for popcorn.

No big deal at Nana’s…it was actually a plus as I got to have dump cake AND popcorn!

They watched ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and then bounced around like Wild Things for a bit.

We then had to reconfigure the fort to make it conducive to sleeping. While I rearranged furniture, pillows and blankets; they made signs.

Notice how the sign originally said ‘No Girls Allowed’, but then they squeezed in ‘or women’? Apparently I don’t qualify as a ‘girl’ anymore. What ever!

They were out by about 10:00…

…which was much earlier than I expected, but that was fine. I was pretty tuckered out myself.

I’d chalk it up as a success. They had fun and I had fun. It filled up my normally void weekend and hopefully gave their ‘rents a break. I look forward to doing it again, but I’ll need to come up with something to top the Treasure Hunt. Any ideas?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! You are one cool Nana! Congrats on getting them to sleep at 10pm!

Avitable said...

And where was my fucking invitation, hm?

Coal Miner's Granddaughter said...

Holy crap! I want to come to your house for a treasure hunt and Arby's and dump cake (FAVE!) and fort building and, and, and...

Dude. You rock.

Wait. What? said...

OK - seriously? That sounds like a great time and no wonder they went to sleep early, you wore them out!

Unknown said...

WAit, you took them to Taco Bell AND Arby's? Geez!
I am glad to see I am not the only one who knows how to make English muffin pizza!

Sheila said...

They had such a great time - Travis can't wait for next time!!

Thanks again for including him!

areason2write said...

Boo hoo - I wasn't invited? At least I have been given jelly beans before 8-) Glad you had fun!

Badass Geek said...

Geez. Can I come over the next time you have a Boy's Night? Sounds like fun to me!

Nej said...

I second that question, Badass. I wanna come over!!!! :_)

5 Kids With Disabilities said...

What great ideas!!! I've forgotten how much fun a treasure hunt is...I used to do it with my kiddos when they were younger. Now I can try it on my grandson.