Garrison's Birthday

I can hardly believe that my oldest son Garrison is already 9 years old. It occurred to me that if he leaves our house when he is 18 years old, we will have already spent half of our time with him as a member of our household. It's crazy how time flies.

Here is how we spent the day celebrating Garrison. As per our family tradition, Garrison picked the events and meals of the day. When the boys woke up, Joi made them Cinnamon and Orange Rolls. Garrison decided that he wanted to open gifts throughout the day rather than all at once. So, we let him pick two gifts in the morning. He opened a new bathrobe and a hematite cross necklace. We took baths and showers and got ready to leave. We headed over to the mailbox store to mail a package to my Mom and our tax stuff to our accountant (this was not part of Garrison's plans). We headed up to Red Robin for lunch, upon Garrison's request. At Red Robin, we let him open two more gifts. This time he opened a new Leatherman Squirt S4 pocket knife and a lock box for his collection of knives. He was very excited about these gifts. After finishing our lunch, we stopped at Sam's Club to buy some bulk hamburger meat. On the way into the store, there was a man who was having a seizure/medical emergency. Someone ran up to me and asked if I had a cell phone to call 911. I called and stayed on the phone with the operator and gave directions to the people that were gathered around helping him. He had fallen and busted his head near the beginning of his seizure and was bleeding profusely from his head. Joi took the kids into Sam's Club and started shopping because they didn't need to see that. I stayed outside with the man until the ambulance came. Poor guy. He was really out of it and wasn't in good shape. Once the ambulance arrived and the paramedics started taking care of him, I joined my family inside. When we were done shopping, the ambulance was still in the parking lot, but everyone was in the back working on the gentleman. I don't know if that was a good sign or a bad sign. We left and went to the Ferris' house to grab Josiah and Dylan and they joined us for an outing at the Nature and Science Museum. We looked at the exhibits and watched a 3D IMAX movie about ocean life (narrated by Jim Carrey...which was weird). After the museum, we dropped the Ferris boys back at home and went back to our house to meet Uncle Dale for a birthday dinner and cake. Garrison wanted pigs in a blanket and macaroni and cheese. I made dinner while Joi split up the hamburger meat that we had bought. During dinner, Garrison opened his last gifts. Two rolls of orange duct tape and a box of  1000 popsicle sticks. Later on, we had some cake and ice cream and sang Happy Birthday to him. We watched American Idol and enjoyed the rest of the evening in the warm house. It was only a high of 8 degrees yesterday, so it was pretty chilly outside. Later that night we said goodbye to Uncle Dale and adjourned upstairs. I read "Lord Brocktree" from the Redwall series to the boys and then we kissed them goodnight. It was a good day. I'll post pictures once I've had a chance to download the camera. I still can't believe that my Garrison is nine years old. Where does the time go?