Vacation Bible School and the Mechanical Bull...not your typical Saturday.

And so another weekend flies by in the W household - it seems as if I just settle in to enjoy them and they are over. But hey, things are busy. It's a busy time of year. Saturday alone was jam-packed full of stuff!

Saturday dawned bright and early with a one day "Christmas For Kids" vacation bible school being held at one of the churches in town. Now if you know us at all, you know that we typically don't attend church. In Skippy's case, we outright AVOID church. But we have said from the start that we want to let our kids explore all different beliefs and faiths, so when an opportunity comes up for a little youth ministry (especially around the holidays), we usually take it. Not to mention the added bonus (at least in my mind) of being able to go Christmas shopping with just my two handsome boys and no girlies with a mega case of the Christmas "I Wants."

So it was with a light heart that I dropped the girls off at 9:30, smiling as they skipped off to decorate cookies and sing carols. From there, I went straight downtown to get a haircut - a truly extraordinary event considering my last trim had been in Chicago in July. To say the least, I was badly overdue for some hair TLC. And once my new coif was dry, fuzzy, and stuffed under my awesome blue knit hat, I cruised back up the hill and picked up my big man and my little man and we beat a path to Hood River, 20 miles away and the site of the nearest WalMart.

Apparently, everyone else had the same idea that we did - we ran into various fellow-parents who were also kiddo-free thanks to Vacation Bible School and we got into a minor argument while debating the merits of various sleds for the kids. Chunk be-bopped to the carols being broadcast and Skippy picked out a dashing new Christmas shirt for the party we were attending later in the day. We shopped. We chatted. We had lunch (just me and my boys!) and then we cruised back to town just in time to stash our new purchases in the garage and pick up the girl children, who chattered all the way home about the Christmas star and singing Silent Night until we tossed them all into bed for a quick snooze.

Then just a few hours later, we were heading out the door again - only this time I was wearing make up AND my *good* bra! It was truly a miraculous Christmas miracle - my boobs were where they belonged! Our first stop was Laura's house - Laura my parenting soul mate was braving all three of my children for multiple hours while my husband and I hit the Google Holiday Party. She is a brave soul...or possibly just a huge glutton for punishment. But either way, she was stuck - we had watched one of her munchkins overnight the weekend before and we both felt that one of her kids for 24 hours was about equal to three of my kids for four hours, so it all worked out.

Blissfully child-free, we coasted down the hill to the Civic Auditorium in town. It's hard to feel cool and sexy on a date with your husband when you're in an empty minivan and an empty McDonald's french fry carton keeps bumping into your foot when you turn, but I was really working to persevere. Then after Skippy made fun of my parking job (you try parking with a french fry carton constantly annoying YOU) we made our way up to the ballroom.

Just like the year before, the decorations in the lobby and up the stairs were gorgeous. The smell of food wafted out to meet us at the entrance and my stomach grumbled. The tables were set. You could hear the tinkling of ice in glass as the bar organized itself. The DJ was in place.....

And there was a huge inflatable pool with a mechanical bull set up prominently in one entire corner of the ballroom.

Huh?

Talk about disconcerting. But it was just too much fun for words - just SEEING it there was enough to make me giggle. The thing was HUGE. And the "pool" was just too far over the top forget sawdust on a dirty bar floor - this bull had STYLE! He had even brought his own landing pad!

Thus my second Google Christmas party kicked off. We ate, we drank, we mingled. We entered raffles and admired a brand new baby. We held hands and we ate and drank some more. Skippy played a few hands of blackjack. I socialized with all of our friends.

Then my husband decided he was going to ride the bull.

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.....

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Yeah....that didn't last long.

So we ate and drank and socialized some more.

And finally, at the late LATE hour of TEN O'CLOCK (ohhhhh party animals beware) we picked up our sweaty overwound kids from an exhausted Laura and we headed home.

So yeah. Bible School and a Bull. Just a Saturday in W World.