My Thelma is TEN this year. Ten years old! I can’t believe it’s been ten years already. This year, instead of a party, Thelma, Louise and their best friend, Kristen Stewart, celebrated not only Thelma’s Birthday, but Kristen’s birthday as well cause it was not too long ago.
Kristen came over to spend the night and Thelma planned on spending the night out on the town…downtown Metropolis…decked out in their zaniest threads.
Benz gets to tag along too!
CONVERSION VAN LIMO SERVICE
At Thelma’s request, we took a Conversion Van that we have. Dick and I are like their personal drivers while they partied in the back. The back has lights like a limo and blinds that you can pull down for privacy. It’s also got a TV and VCR but who the heck uses a VCR these days??
The girls love this van so much and they always want me to drive it. So, you may see me cruising around in this huge bus but I really hate it because it’s too big and I’m always nervous that I’m going to hit something or someone. I feel like a dang bus driver fo sho! Oh but the things I do for these girls.
Me and my birthday girl.
Downtown is all lit up and festive for the holidays.
Our main reason for heading downtown is because there is an outdoor ice skating rink that is set up for the holidays. It reminds me of when we went outdoor ice skating in California…except, we were ice skating in much colder temps and not in shorts like we were in Cali.
There’s a super long line to wait to get in. It seems everyone is here to ice skate!
So, we decide to eat dinner first at one of our favorite pizzeria’s downtown. Owned by a Persian lady and offering organic/natural ingredients, Dick and I have been going to this pizzeria since our days of first dating.
Even though it’s chilly, we sit outside because that way, the girls can skate, we can keep an eye on them, and still sit and hang with Benz.
Look how Benz is passing the time by getting his fingers stuck in this table.
The girls then go get in line, which I thought was the long line outside. But, once you pay and get your skates on, there is then an internal line to get on the ice because the rink is FULL to capacity. So you have to wait until someone gets off before you can get on.
I didn’t realize this and had dedicated a “shout out and birthday wish” to the girls through the DJ and had him play “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper but when he played it, the girls were still waiting in line! They heard the dedication though.
“Hey, did they just wish us a happy birthday?”
Finally, the girls get on the ice and skate around to the blasting music. The music was actually pretty good and played over a great sound system…which is MUEY IMPORTANTE. I’m a music snob so not only does the music have to be good, the speakers need to kick ass.
The girls skated around for a little while but grew tired of the extreme crowd and were ready to go home.
Except, there was a horse and carriage that was enticing them. It’s $40 for a 20-minute ride but we didn’t want to ride around for twenty minutes in the cold. I was ready to go home. So, we told the girls to negotiate with the driver to take us to our car for $10 and he so graciously agreed since it was their birthday.
I hadn’t noticed at first glance (and this pic doesn’t do it justice) but the black horse was really a BLACK BEAUTY!
The girls had never been on a horse carriage before and were super excited.
It was chilly but since we had been outside for a while already, we were cold and the breeze made it brisk. We made sure to bundle Benz up.
It was really nice riding around downtown and having a “taxi” ride to our car by horse.
The girls had a great time but we were really cold by now so we were ready to head back home.
SNOOPY CAKE
When we got home, the girls were ready to have cake.
One of our homeschool friends from co-op had made us this great cake!
Thelma had requested a Snoopy Red Velvet cake and was so excited when she saw her custom cake. She loved it!
Look who had to improvise cause I didn’t have any candles.
Happy birthday ladies! May you have a fabulous 10th year in life. No longer in the single digits, I pray that your next decade is just as simple, fun and happy as your first decade.
BREAKFAST AT WAFFLE HOUSE
The next morning, we finished off the birthday celebration with breakfast at Waffle House.
There was an actual jukebox and the girls were like, “What’s this?”
You kids these days won’t remember the days of having a juke box for music requests but I remember the days of being so excited to be able to select what music will be played on one of these things. That was back in the 80s and I probably picked “The Final Countdown” by Europe (That was my favorite song back then.) or something by Def Leopard like Pour Some Sugar on Me or Love Bites.
For some reason, I really like the small-town diner feel that Waffle House offers. Growing up I never ate there and always thought of it as a greasy, dirty, crap joint but actually, it’s simple, clean, fast, not really that greasy and pretty good tasting.
It was quite a breakfast…
Waffles, toast, hashbrowns, grits, scrambled eggs, sausage, juice, etc…
Pac-man waffle!
Although, I’m not really crazy about how they make their “cheesey hash browns”. Basically, it’s a slice of cheese melted on top.
Do you think we were hungry?
After we got home, Daddy let Thelma have her birthday present…a keyboard.
She’s been asking for a keyboard and this one can do all sorts of things I don’t know how to do plus it can teach you as you go. Now go on a make millions of dollars by being a famous singer so that Daddy and I can retire. LOL. Not really. I don’t know that I would wish that lifestyle upon my kids.
-Jane, Mommy to 10-year old Thelma.
So, I agreed but I was not thrilled to sit in the hot, muggy sun (89F) and get eaten alive by pesky, blood thirsty mosquitos.
