Things are pretty quiet today in the '2k house. Monday we went bowling with my neighbor friend and her two girls. DS8 had been bowling once before and loved it, so he was thrilled at the idea! DS4, of course, had NO IDEA what we were asking him to do, or WHY.
The alley has automatic bumper guards, which we requested be raised, so no gutter balls for our foursome.
AND they were having "cosmic bowling", where they turn out most of the lights and everything glows under blacklight!
Ooooooo! Aaaaaaah! 
About halfway through the game DS8 said he was bored and wanted to stop. We had to rent the lane by the hour, so I said we'd finish up the game and then figure out what to do from there. (DS4 and the girls were having a blast!)
We finished up the game with 15 minutes to spare, so just continued playing until the lane automatically shut down.
We'd packed a picnic lunch, so then drove to a local park with a huge grassy area and two playgrounds. We ate our lunch, and then the kids took off to play at the nearest playground. We'd also brought a couple footballs and a round ball, and the girls brought a frisbee, so after a bit DS8 was tossing a football and the girls and DS4 were chasing the frisbee.
DS8 happened to bump into a kid from his school, who was there with his family and cousin, so the boys tossed the football around a bit.
The other boy disappeared after a bit, so DS started tossing around the round ball over by some trees. After awhile we realized the kids were clustered around the bottom of a tree, and tossing sticks up. We wandered over and found out one of them had tossed the ball up and it got stuck in the tree.
Several tosses of ANOTHER ball failed to dislodge it, so my friend's younger DD8 offered to climb up to get it. We pushed her partway up, then she climbed a bit and chickened out, so we helped her down.
I talked DS8 into climbing, and he agreed. So we pushed him up as high as we could, and I guided him in where to step or grab to get higher. He got to the same point as my friend's DD and started to chicken out, but just then the boy from his school was back, AND his brother and cousin, too.
Suddenly DS was climbing again (didn't want to chicken out in front of these boys, I suspected), and he successfully popped the ball out, and climbed down. I was just bursting with pride for him, because I knew he was scared but kept going anyway, and knowing he would be so pleased he did it in front of these boys. My friend said she hoped the incident made it all around the school when everyone goes back on Thursday.
Yesterday (with the same friends) we went to Jump Planet, a blow-up gymnasium kind of place in Bothell. The kids had a blast, ran for 75 minutes straight, and very nearly crashed once we got home. LOVE that.
Today we have no plans (other than housecleaning.) We are watching PBS kids' shows, having a lazy breakfast and pondering a trip to the bookstore later today.
But I guess on the plus side some of the guys that were laid off in December are starting to get called back.
That doesn't sound very professional to just quit without notice. Weird. We've had people like that come to work here for 1 day and then disappear. 
*POOF!* 
She was like.. Only 2 more weeks! I gave her the WORST look... A week and a HALF. NOT two weeks. 
