Little Brick Houses for You and Me: Kites, Chaos and Hugnry Hippos

This weekend was one like any other. We didn't really have plans besides Justin playing darts and the weather was unseasonably warm. Here are the highlights. The always fascinating highlights...

On Friday afternoon we headed outside. The kids wanted the basketball hoop so I brought it up from the basement. It started with our standard version of backyard basketball, which entails shooting the ball from the middle tier of our backyard.

The kids got sunglasses from my aunt when we were in the mountains (Paw Patrol themed, of course) and to my delight they actually enjoy wearing them and keeping them on their faces. Shocking.

I should have known that a simple game of basketball would evolve into something else entirely and it escalated quickly into this.

Oh jeeze. I knew this day might come. For reference, that wall is up to my shoulders so close to five feet tall. There is a big rock they like to jump from at the end (the second highest one you can see down there. It has a flat top.) but of course that wouldn't be satisfying for long. After Ben realized he was comfortable with that jump the afternoon spiraled downward into a WWF wrestling match (sadly I know something about this since my classmates went through a big phase of watching it in the late 90's.)

Tessa tries to keep up but playing with Ben gets kind of crazy.

To distract them I suggested rolling down the hill like logs which devolved into climbing has high as possible and sliding down the hill repeatedly like a mudslide with no mud.

I fantasize about a standard "family" backyard with a fence and a swingset.

On Saturday morning we knew of a large indoor rummage sale hosted by a boy scout troop so we decided to check it out. There wasn't a lot of merchandise for younger kids and we were there an hour after it opened which means everything good was already gone. But Tessa did score this bag of "treasures" which seem to be gems that a person might put in a vase to decorate for Christmas possibly? I'm not sure. But she likes them.

Then we looked in the classified ads and saw that there was one other indoor sale in town. We headed there and at first didn't except much but I will say that we found one of the luckiest rummage sale finds of my life.

When we were cleaning that attic at my parents' house pre-tear down we unearthed our old Hungry Hungry Hippos game which I (regretfully now) introduced to Ben. He loved it and still loves it and wants to play as soon as we get to the farm. It is loud and tedious to everyone but him. At the sale, at the last booth before we left the building there was a box of junk toys that cost a dime each. I wouldn't have even looked in it but Ben and Tessa were in it before I could stop them. And what was in there but an old travel sized Hungry Hippos! For $.10!

I looked a bit dingy but it just needed to be wiped off. This game brought back a wave of nostalgic thoughts. Remember when every popular board game came in a travel version? Every year at Christmas they were advertised as the premier stocking stuffer. My family had a few. I remember playing yahtzee the most. Add them to the list of things that are now obsolete relics because of technology.

There was a table at the second sale that had other items that inspired nostalgia. They had piles of zip lock bags with sets of happy meal toys from the 80's and 90's. Justin and I both remembered most of them. My family didn't eat a lot of fast food. My mom cooked most of our meals and after 1990 we lived in a country without a McDonalds and then a small town that was 40 miles from the nearest McDonalds but still we had the toys. Tessa (I) picked a $2.00 bag of Garfield toys because Garfield, in all it's sarcastic and not educational at all glory, was one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons (also a relic now because kids can get cartoons whenever they want now).

The old "Garfield and Friends" from Saturday morning is available on Amazon Prime streaming but I haven't been able to get the kids interested which is a shame because I want to watch it. She likes these "kittens" so maybe there is still hope.

On Saturday afternoon, while the other kids were napping, Ben flew a kite for the first time. Justin got him a $1.00 kite and he has been asking to fly it. I hadn't flown a kite since probably 1990. It happened at the farm when my grandparents still lived there and I think we bought the kites at the Hardware Hank in town. There is a picture of the event somewhere. Justin thought it had been almost as long since he flew a kite. Fortunately, it isn't very hard.

He was pretty intrigued. Of course, the inevitable happened and he let go of the string and it ended up on the roof of our neighbor's house. He was outside doing yard work so Justin got a ladder and the neighbor climbed up from his backyard deck and we saved it.

Later that evening, we made the inaugural visit to the neighborhood park. I was not looking forward to this because I was worried about the certainty of tantrums when we had to leave (they lost their minds over coming in from the backyard so the potential for meltdowns over leaving the park was high) and the bathrooms aren't open yet. We had Jello setting in the fridge so I had that to hang over their heads and the visit ended smoothly.