Road Trip

Those of you who follow the blog know that I've grappling with teaching my kids how to be fans of both the Cavs and Heat. This last weekend I added the Memphis Grizzlies into the fray. Why you ask? My boys are sports nuts, and my recently-turned 6 year old son is really big on basketball right now. I wanted to take him to a game for his birthday, and Memphis is the most attractive city/team within driving distance. (Indianapolis isn't much fun, Milwaukee has too much beer for me to be the designated driver and I still remember Chicago doing this). Memphis also allowed us some great seats at great prices, and I knew they'd still have something to play for at that point in the season.

We decided early on this was gonna just be a great "man" road trip. When we got hungry, we ate. When we were thirsty, we drank. When we wanted to switch from watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to Disney's Dinosaur we did it. Living on the edge ain't easy, but somebody had to do it.

We made it to Memphis in time to walk up Beale and grab some dinner before heading into the game. I was really proud watching Michael play the mentor role to his little brother on topics ranging from holding his hand while crossing the street all the way to why it was really important to eat his shrimp even though it was a little spicy and had some potato salad on it and it had chicken breading on it.

I was also pretty impressed by Lucas who noted -- about 2 minutes into his first live NBA game -- that it was cool how the announcer was said the scorer's name a lot louder when the home team made a basket.

After the game we were all pretty pumped (the game was actually really exciting, we got to eat snacks TWICE during the game, and we brought home a winner), but I was able to talk the boys out of putting me to bed and heading back out on Beale. Amazingly, we didn't get security called on us.

It was a long ride home, but we'd all do again. Who knows, maybe next time we'll even bring Cooper along.