Grandpa's 66th! But mostly car ramblings...

We took an evening trip to Pendleton yesterday to celebrate dad's birthday with a picnice.  Doesn't that sound nice and relaxing?  It would be, except we took the little car with 3 squished kids in the rear.  But I thought ahead and packed snacks to keep their mouths too busy chewing to argue with each other.  I also opened the back door and threw some books at them before taking off.  These tactics worked well, and the final unplanned tactic helped keep the peace as well-an old Primary songs CD sung by an a capella group called "Inside Out".  The last 10+ songs on the album are short versions of "Once There Was A Snowman" each sung in a different style.  Tate requested that I name each style as they came on.  I tried, and it was something like
-90's poetry reading style in a lounge (think "So I Married An Axe Murderer")
-70's folk (sung to the tune of a Simon and Garfunkle hit)
-soul (like a James Brown song)
-rap
-rock and roll (like a Michael Jackson song)
-Jamaican
-Spanish
...and one in the middle sounds like some monks, which I tried to explain to the kids.  But each time that version came on, Tate would identify it as the "old Chinese men one".  Avery's reaction was the most perplexing and made me laugh every time.  When she heard the monk version, I would hear a hushed little voice from the back seat say "Baby Jesus died." I explained to her that Jesus lived to grow-up, but did die as an adult for us. 

Anyway, we had a nice visit with the folks, and enjoyed some delicious food!  The ride home was almost as peaceful as the ride there.  But I spent a good half hour explaining the details of an episode of "New Girl" Tate overheard me telling mom and the gals about.  It involved a haunted house and zombies and a mummy.  "It's funny, Tate, because he punched the zombie on accident because she scared him when he temporarilly forgot she wasn't real.  So the girls work friends, who were dressed as more zombies and a mummy, punched the guy who punched the girl zombie.  A zombie is a pretend monster. All adults understand that zombies are not real.  I don't know if they walked to the haunted house or drove there.  She had a wig and zombie make-up on....It's a grown up show.  I'll show you when you are much older." The punching part was repeated no less than 4 times.  It was much more tedious to explain than it was for you to read =)

Here's a picture of zombie Avery: