Happy Birthday Eli!

Before I share this past "birthday week" with you, I want to give sincere thanks to all of you who have voted for the Blog on Babble.com's Top 30 Autism Blogs for Parents 2012.  I really and truly never thought our blog would actually make it into the Top 30, but the last I knew, it was holding at #15.  I was honored by my co-worker Steve's nomination description and just the outpouring of support and positive feedback.  Thank you so much for the overwhelming love!

Sami really liked Conner.  

Today Eli turns 10.  Ten years old.  A decade.  We have stretched Eli's birthday out over the past week. This weekend has been filled with rehearsals and our spring performance at church.  So, knowing this ahead, we had planned and for the most part celebrated Eli's birthday last weekend.

Eli's buddy Conner came home with E after school last Friday to stay the night and "party" with us.  Sami really liked Conner.  While he laid on the floor watching tv, she laid on him.  Conner brought Eli a really nice gift bag full of cool little gifts, including a monkey and some "guys" and a few other items.  It was a nice surprise!

We took off for Columbus to go to Dave & Busters for the evening.  If you don't know what Dave & Busters is, it's a combination restaurant/bar/arcade.  It's sort of like an adult version of Chuck E. Cheese, but far classier.  Even so, kids are welcome, as long as they are supervised.

What was left of multiple bugs after we drove
through a swarm of mystery bugs.  Eeeew!

On the way to Columbus we hit heavy traffic.  Thankfully it was mostly on the other side of the highway.  Apparently at 5 p.m. on Friday, everyone LEAVES Columbus and comes down to where we live.

We also hit a swarm of bugs...or more accurately, they hit us.  I don't know what kind of bugs they were - Ash and Ben were both guessing they may have been June-bugs - but there we were driving along and all of a sudden they were just smashing into the windshield and they were everywhere!!  And then they were gone.  We were left with bug guts slime all over our windshield!  That thrilled the boys in the backseat of course.  Nothing like a bunch of bug guts to get the giggles going!

Conner was cracking me up, reading the
drink menu like it was a good book

Dave and Busters in Hilliard is REALLY NICE!  I'd been to the one at Polaris about a month before for my sister's Bachelorette Party and we had a really nice time at that one as well.  The one in Hilliard is much larger just "fancy", but it's still fun and laid back.  I felt really relaxed there, and even though there were a lot of people at the place, it didn't have the feel of being cramped or packed.  There's just a lot of space for everyone to move around in.

I asked Eli and Conner for goofy faces for a picture
and this is what we got

We started in the restaurant and had a really good meal.  Conner and Eli were excited and silly, but not in a bad way.  They were just having a good time, and everyone was feeling pretty happy. Ben and I got the same thing for dinner...wish I could think of what it was called, but it had chicken, shrimp and steak on skewers that had been grilled and had different dipping sauces...OH YUM!  It came with a spicy rice and it was just enough food, but not too much food.  I felt really good about what I ate that night!  It was healthier than what I normally would eat in a restaurant, and definitely didn't stuff myself.

Ben's dessert - a Ginormous Brownie Sundae

Ash, Conner and Eli ate quickly and took off for the games.  Ben and I sat there a while longer, enjoyed our meal, and even got dessert since we weren't bloated from our meal.  It was nice to just sit at the table together for a little while and know they boys were safe and having a good time.

When I'd played at the other Dave & Busters in March, I'd fallen in love with the Plinko Game there.  I found the same game at this D&B but it was called High Casino.  Since I'm not much for video games I plopped down at the High Casino "game" and said, "Have fun!  This is where I'll be!"  I say "game" because there's not really much to it.  You drop in your token, the two-tiered trays move back and forth.  You try to drop your token so when it moves forward again it pushes tokens on the top tray off onto the bottom tray, in order for the tokens on the bottom tray to move and push the tokens at the very front over the edge so they drop.  When they drop, YOU GET TICKETS.

Lame, right?  ENTIRELY!  And soooooo addictive!

True to my word, I spent the entire evening at that one game.  I start my 12 step program next week to deal with the addiction.  Just kidding, but seriously...it's pathetic how the game just sucks you in!  People all evening came and went at the seats next to me and every single one of those people would be mumbling..."This is soooo stupid...why can't I stop playing it..."

THIS is the game we all kept playing.

I think I know.  You get tons and tons of tickets playing it!  And you get instant gratification every time a coin falls or moves other coins!  You wait and watch and hope this time...this time...the coins at the edge will drop, and even if they don't, they moved just a little, so you drop more tokens in because this time...this time....they might fall!

The funny part was, as I sat there, eventually the whole family plus
Conner all moved into the seats around me, and our party pretty much took up the entire bank of High Casino machines.  And we weren't interested in moving or sharing, as we sat there mumbling to ourselves, "This is soooo lame...why can't I stop playing it?!"

We all spent a considerable amount of time...and money....on these machines and none of us regret a moment of it!  It was a total blast!  We all had tickets pooling and tangling around our feet.  It was a really fun evening.

Trying to figure out what to spend the tickets on was more challenging.  Since I plan on going back again at some point, I didn't feel it necessary to cash out all of my points.  I got some Nerds and a couple plastic lidded glasses with built in straws to tote water around in.

Eli and some of the many, many
tickets he won on the games

The boys were downright goofy on the way home.  We were all so tired, that someone would just say one word, and the whole car would erupt in laughter.  There were a couple of times I had to ask them to stop being so wacky simply because I was laughing so hard I couldn't see the road.  We had a lot of fun!

Two peas in a pod, these two are.

That Saturday morning, I got up early to take the dog to the vet and Conner and Eli got up early to play video games, since they hadn't had a chance to the evening before.

Conner won a lot of tickets
on the High Casino Game

On to this weekend, Friday night we had dress rehearsal for the performance so we didn't do much then.

Saturday Ben, Eli and I ate at Donatos Pizza for lunch while Ash was on a hike with the Youth Group.  Then we went to WalMart so Eli could spend the birthday money he'd received and he bought himself a new Batman video game which he is REALLY excited about.

Saturday night we had movie night, set up the projector and watched the movie Big, with Tom Hanks and ate popcorn.  It was fun!  That's a great movie...I'd forgotten how fun it is.

Then today (Sunday), Eli's actual birthday, most of it was spent at church, in the a.m. for service and then this evening for the performance and the dessert social which followed.  Eli spent a great deal of time playing with his friend Fox, so it was fun for him.  Eli wasn't all that interested in watching the performance....it's too hard for him to sit still and follow what's going on, especially in that big crowd of people who he didn't know.

I think Fox had seen the performance so many times from being at rehearsals that he didn't mind having the distraction either!  They played up in the balcony while we were singing and dancing below, then the two of them ate lots of dessert and went back outside to play some more.  It was a beautiful evening and I was glad Eli had a chance to be out in it.  Sometimes it's hard to get him out of the house!

Overall, I think Eli's had a great birthday week.  We have a cake for him at home.  He picked out colorful cupcakes to take to the dessert social instead of taking anything to school.  That might be best, so we don't sugar up the whole class.

I think of how much has taken place for him ... for all of us....in the past ten years.  I wonder if the next decade will hold AS MANY changes.