1st Inning - Arrival and Greeting by Bree - According to Bree's 6th sense, Dad is as shady a character as Carl! Who knew. Thank God Bree pointed that out for us.
2nd Inning - Bob Evans and Wal- Mart - North Dayton thought it was a Philadelphia Eagles convention b/c of all the Eagle's appeal (pre-fantasy draft).
3rd Inning - The family draft was accompanied with a little Brain Age on the DS. So who had the biggest brain after all? The Draft went off without a hitch and 7 of 8 players participated.
4th Inning - Bowling, Sirmans and Chipolte - The Sirmans came to visit while we bowled in Moraine. GG Harris play 2 games at the age of 87! Dad put up scores to prove why he is king and never talked any trash. His high game was a 173 but he beat EVERYONE on EVERY game! If you know E&J you know that no trip to OH is complete without a visit to Chipolte.
Bottom of the 4th - The only major downer of the weekend was Mom's ailing Nissan Murano which quit working for no apparent reason. The vehicle only has 8000 miles on it so there was no reason for it to break down and strand 4 people 500 miles from home.
5th Inning - B/c of a debate over church locations and times we ended up at the Apex Church in Kettering. The 9:30 contempory service was well done. I think everyone enjoyed the message on idolatry. Church was followed by a Jazmin favorite, First Watch. During the wait Uncle D bought Will the coolest pop-up book I've every seen. Really! Following brunch the ladies went to?, Dad and Will went to the Wright Patterson Air Force Museum and Carl, David and I went to play paintball at RUSH paintball. David was unstoppable as the sniper (with arguably the most impressive paintball shot ever) and this outing was my best outing to date. Playing with a little confidence helps. I was picking off 10 year olds left and right. Carl was on the short end of the stick primarily b/c he was playing against us most of the time. When the 3 of us were on a team we were unbeatable. Believe that!
Rally in the 5th - Following tennis, we ate and played Taboo. The group had grown considerably by this point. Tammy Enright stopped by and the Sirman 4 were present as well. Although some should not have nearly all stayed up passed their bedtime, and for one it took a magic pen to bring the night to an end, all had a great time and the boys were victorious. We won by 3!6th Inning - Labor Day - The plan was to eat at the Golden Nugget but Rosemary was smart and called ahead. They were closed so Cracker Barrel received our 15 person party and the tip to go with it. Mary and Missy dress alike and took a picture.
Despite the fact that everyone want to do something different the great negotiators of the group worked out a deal that was approved by all (at a 2:1.5 ratio) . The Sirmans took Tommy and Missy for the afternoon. Then we headed to the Dayton Mall where bargains were found, massages enjoyed, and comments like "no one wears jean shorts any more" and "the situation is skewed".7th inning - All of this was followed by an invigoration round of Paintball. Per the deal made earlier after 2 hours in the mall the girls had to play 1.5 hours of paintball. We choose an overgrown field in the middle of nowhere. We crawled through poison ivy and all types of thing in the field. We ended up with 5 working markers for 6 people. Major props to Dad, Jazmin and Kerry for getting out there and playing with the boys. Special mention for GG Harris who was willing to come along video tape. It was an outstanding event.
Run rule- After showers everyone showed up at Cheesecake Factory. Cool restaurant. The Cheesecake Factory was effectively the end of the weekend but a great time was had by all.
Thank you all for coming and making this a great weekend. While a few things did not work out the way they were intended, this was truly one of the best weekends of my life. Thanks for making it happen!
