Bowling, anyone?

Today was Daddy-Monkey day. It was the last day of school for him before they let out for Thanksgiving break, and I didn't have class until 6pm...so I kept him home for some quality time. We went to his OT appointment, had lunch at Dairy Queen, watched some TV, and then went bowling. Hoooo, yeah, bowling. Now THAT was some kind of fun!

We took the back way home from DQ, and I noticed the old bowling alley as we passed by. I thought about it for awhile, and figured it would be fun to get out there and bowl, so we headed off to a closer facility to give it a shot. It's a new place, and knew that it had an arcade and laser tag as well as bowling, so it seemed worth a look.

In no time at all, we're set up with a lane and some shoes. Honestly, I've never seen bowling shoes that small, but they plopped his right down on the counter next to mine like it was no problem. We headed off to our lane, put on the shoes, and then spent 10 minutes trying to figure out the scoring system keyboard. I finally got it to work well enough to put our initials on the overhead screen, and then we bowled our tails off!

Here are some things I learned today by watching my son learning to bowl:

1. With the bumpers up, almost any ball with the tiniest bit of forward momentum will probably make it all the way down to the pins and knock several of them over.

2. When you underhand a bowling ball as hard as you can, and it catches some air, it will land with a mighty THUD. Much to the delight of everyone around you.

3. After a mighty THUD, if a small person's ball gets stuck five feet away from the line, you might consider asking an attendant to go get it for you. The alleys are slippery, my friends. I mean "super-crazy-Wesson Oil-Vaseline-fall flat on your butt in front of everybody" slippery. And that's all I have to say about that.

4. Form is important. The little dude actually got a strike by imitating my follow-through.

5. Score, however, is truly unimportant. Watching my 5-year-old son throw his first ball down the lane is far cooler than any perfect game I might ever have a chance to bowl.

When our time was up, we played a few games in the arcade before heading home to doze on the couch in front of Lazytown. It was a pretty great day.

In other news, we're closed for the rest of the week. Even I need a break now and then, so we're having some heavy-duty family time, and then we'll get back to work next week. I'm still training for that half-marathon, though. My dear friend BB is working on an ailing calf muscle, so he'll probably not be able to run with me this time. However, he has said that he'll still come down to help me totter back to the van after the race and we can go have lunch.

Class was fun tonight...I had more folks than I expected come in this close to the holiday, and we worked on some good stuff. The grappling class is coming along well, although everyone there is pretty much at square one. That's OK...we've all got to start somewhere.

Nothing much...

Go GSP! We had a relaxing weekend, but an exciting Saturday night as we watched Georges St. Pierre beat the stuffing out of Matt Hughes at the UFC. WOW! The Sylvia/Monson fight may have been a snoozefest, but GSP came out ready to throw down! After battering Matt with punches and kicks (yes, a couple of them came in a bit low by accident) Matt got caught with a shinbone to the noggin in round two, and went down thinking that he was Batman. When asked later, he said he really didn't know what hit him...he thought it was a punch. GSP is a really nice guy who totally deserves this title. What a fight! We only had a few good friends over to watch the show this time...our favorite bellydancing massage therapist (with a killer outfit, I must say!) and our new favorite doctor were here, as was the fabulous Green Goalie.

So now it's Monday, and I have a pile of laundry that resembles Mt. Everest, a list of chores to do, and I've just rolled in from teaching class and working out. I have to admit that I really love this feeling...when I've pushed myself hard, I usually come in and just sit, slack-jawed and exhausted, until I recover enough to get on with my day. Just fighting off Father Time for another day. He's a sneaky bugger, and I know that if I don't keep working out and staying strong, he'll start slapping me around. Today, I managed some strength training up at the school and then I hustled off to the park for some intervals...I didn't run nearly as far as usual, but considering the workout I'd already put in, I was fairly pleased.

It's Thanksgiving Week, and we're only having class on Monday and Tuesday so that we can have some family time. I'm thinking of keeping The Monkey home from school tomorrow so that we can go ride bikes or something...we haven't had much Daddy-Son time lately, and I'd like to hang out with him a bit. We're staying home for Thanksgiving and heading up to Indiana to see my family in December. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone up there, and watching Grandma and Grandpa play with the Monkey. He misses them and talks of them often.

So now I'm going to watch Y&R until I can move again, then jump into the laundry. Funny...a martial arts instructor's life shouldn't be this boring! Next time, I'll find something more interesting to do so I can write about it.