Cody's 14th Birthday!

           Cody turned 14 today.  14.  Where did those years go?   I used to run Cody, as an infant, in his jogging stroller.  Feed him 'mush'.  Change his diapers.  Help him learn to walk.  Learn to kick a soccer ball.  And to catch a football...while Kimmy, lovingly taught him his alphabet, how to read, how to tie his shoes, etc. And she taught me how to have patience with him. Where did the years go?
           Today, Cody only wanted to ride through Fantasy Island in the morning and go to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner.  That's all.  For a 14 year old, that's not too much to ask for...
           Only Brendon, Janene's son, was availbable to do the ride through Fantasy Island with us.  But Cody did not let that ruin his morning.

     It was a beautiful morning, as we set out into the desert.  About 80 degrees, with a nice wind from the west and some high cloud cover.

                  I love this sign, near the start of the course, and never photographed it (at least, I do not remember photographing it!).

                         Brendon and Cody, about 3/4 of the way through Fantasy Island and taking much needed water break.
              After Fantasy Island, we walked up to Jerry Bob's diner to eat breakfast.  When I told the bambini that we would walk there, Tonio asked 'Walk?  How far is it?'. I reminded him that it was next to Chuy's, where we had walked to several times, and was about 3 blocks.  'How far is 3 blocks' he asked.  '3 miles?'.  No, I explained, it was about a 1/4 mile.  'why is it taking so long, then?', he asked??
             We were able to convince Tonio, that we could make it the three blocks to Jerry Bob's and breakfast was good!

                                           This a.m., way too early, Cody contemplates his gifts..

                                           Ahhh, the Del Piero jersey!  Now we can match!

                    After the gifts and the bike ride and the breakfast, we made eggs...Janene had texted me, last night while I boiled our eggs, 'Hey, our Mom and I want to know what u recommend for boiling eggs so we don't have hockey pucks.  Ha, ha'.  Nicely done.  Yes, it was Kim, prior to me teaching her how to cook, that boiled me eggs for my dinner at Toy R Us for about 2 hours...and we used them for hockey pucks!!  She learned quickly and soon became a fantastic cook!
                

                                          The kids did a nice job decorating eggs....

            All Cody wanted to do, beyond Fantasy Island, was to go to Joe's Crab Shack...where he chose a huge bucket of crab legs for his meal!!

Bryson and Ritchie fight gangland style with crab squeezers.  We can't stop this violence.


Cody, Tonio, Hadley, Autumn, Lexy and Trinity get ready to enjoy some seafood!

Kristie, Kim, Rashon, Jack, Sandy, Mariah, Mark and Angie check out the menu.

Brian, Sam, Ursula and Betsey discuss pre-meal strategy
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Ritchie, Lexy, Trinity and Hadley dance to the music!

Not sure what this is, looks like the back of our waitress, Rashon, Ursula and Mitch.

Tonio, Mitch and the bambini enjoy their meal!

Cody gets the biggest bucket of crab legs available and devours them!
       Last year, Kimmy told the waitress it was Cody's birthday, and they had him ride a stick horse around the restaurant while they sang to him.  Kim thought that was great.  She enjoyed going to Joe's. She loved that the server's would periodically come out and sing/dance to a song - it was festive.  We had some awesome shrimp po boys last year (we shared it!).  Before it was Joe's Crab Shack, there was a Carlos Murphy's there.  Kim and I practically lived there.  We would sit out on their large, covered porch, eat chips and salsa and play the trivia game that they had.
      This year, Cody asked that I not tell them it was his birthday...but, of course, I did.  I had to!  But, I asked them not to embarass Cod.  They brought about 10 servers out to sing to Cody and told him they were going to sing Happy Birthday to him backwards and if he caught them making a mistake, they told him that his meal and Autumn and Tonio's meals would be free!  Then, they turned their backs to Cody and began singing Happy Birthday - they had us all fooled!  We thought they'd be singing the words to the song backwards...they simply turned backwards to Cody and sang...so we paid for their meals!

       It was a fantastic time at Joe's Crab Shack, between Angie and her daughter's families, and the Deever's clan, we had about 25 people eating seafood!!  Even Angie's cousin, Sandy and Jack, came with us after a long drive down from Phoenix.

      When we were done, we headed to Viro's, for some bread to be able to make the French Toast that Kimmy traditionally made the bambini for Easter breakfast.  Rosa and Vito gave all  of the kids gelato and some other treats and we were on our way home for Amy's brownies!!

Amy's brownies were delicious!! She saved the day with them!!  Cody had a great 14th birthday!! Thanks to all of those involved!

I watched Cody enjoy these moments during his 14th birthday...I could not help but to feel proud of the young man he has become...and I silently thanked Kimmy, for all she had done, to make him that way...

And, this being my first major holiday alone...I looked back, in retrospect...I remembered to make Kimmy's coconut eggs, forgot to buy candy (thanks Lola for bailing me out!), remembered to make hard boiled eggs, but not too hard, and make time for bambini to color them, also, got the nice loaf of bread from Viro's for their French Toast.  Made sure the Easter Bunny brought equal t-shirts, DVD's and gift cards...I'm confident the bunny will be here between now and 5ish to hide the eggs that the bambini painstakingly painted...

Wishing you all a blessed Easter!

Love,

Dave