"Stay-cation" Entertainment....basically we ate ourselves silly. And then, ate some more.

I eluded to the fact that my prescence was scarce on the blog last week due to our little family "staycation" vacation. As noted, due to broken leg boy's, well, broken leg, our usual week long beach trip at the coast was not an option for this year. So, my sister and I devised an alternative plan....and tried to incorporate as many fun activities as we could muster up, that would be certain to hold the interests of all cousins involved, as well as being "crutch" friendly.


Basically, we ate a lot. Because to us, that's fun. We love food. And we all love to find good food spots. And broken leg boy can travel to the dinner table just about anywhere without difficulty! Win-Win for all.


To begin our staycation, we secluded a spot, located at a hotel about half the distance between our two homes. And we set out for a fun adventure, because life can only be what you make of it. Some highlights without photo evidence include the following:

• sucking down some superb milkshakes at Johnny Rockets, while twirling around the barstools and talking to the manager between fry bites!

• the most expensive theater visit known to man......Karisa and I decided to let the kids see a "late" movie one evening for kicks. Mom wouldn't have lasted through the movie, so she went back to the hotel. But we managed to act like complete idiots and agree to pay to watch the movie (G-Force) in 3-D. And our tickets cost $12.50 each. The kids, $10.50 each. What? Are they made of platinum? Do they come with a trip to Hollywood? Our saving grace....it was "Stimulus Tuesday" at the concessions counter....popcorn and drinks were only a dollar. Good thing, as all I had left was a dollar.

• about a thousand trips in the glass elevator at the front lobby. maybe even a 1001.

• the free snack bar during happy hour at the hotel.....where upon our children tried repeatedly each night to clog their arteries, one valve at a time, with big vats of processed cheese (also known as NACHOS). And countless refills at the always available free fountain drink dispenser. Seriously, if the nachos didn't kill 'em, the caffeine did. Twice we thought we might have to send my mom to detox. She slap wore out the Barg's rootbeer spout. No lie, she broke it. But not to be deterred by broken lever, as her root beer fix was in dire straights, she found a sweet little manager who quickly remedied the near tragedy.

• the nightly games of Rook, Bananagrams (fun, fun game), crazy eights, and slap jack.

However, here are some photos of some fun food moments from the trip. Enjoy, I know we all did.

Some of the kids had been to a Japanese Steakhouse before, but others had not. And it's always fun for everyone, not to mention great food, so off to Kobe we went.

Frightened by fire. They were all so funny with their expressions every time the chef did ANYTHING, but especially ANYTHING that involved fire!

At this point, TB and Savannah are BEHIND their chairs and Walt is beyond excited!!

Look at those smiles through the fire!! Warms my heart everytime.

TB looks as if she's doing Fred Sanford's heart attack imitation...."This is the big one....I'm coming to see you Elizabeth".....however she has never seen Sanford and Son, but she was a wee bit overcome by all the fire at times!

And of course there's always a pyro maniac in the crowd. Lovin' every minute of it!

Oh, and we found a new favorite place for Ribs. See it. Go to it. Eat at it. Soon.

The kids had their picture made with none other than "BoneDaddy" himself. The owner. Walt still had rib sauce sticking around his mouth in this photo. They were THAT good.

How good were they? Gnaw the bone, kind of good.

I'll have a few more photos from our mini-staycation vacation coming up tomorrow. Fun times. And just as a side note, mom's slowly making a rehab recovery from the root beer overload. Slowly. Detox is a process, kind of like the 12 step program.