Spontaneity

I remember the last time Karen was this spontaneous...it was before Nicholas was born, in the spring of 2000 I believe. One Sunday afternoon while relaxing in Greensboro, Karen looked at me and said, "Let's go buy a video camera." So we did...

If you don't know this about Karen, she is a planner. We research everything before we buy it, to get the right product and the best deal possible. Moments of spontaneity are rare, but one came around again Memorial Day weekend...

We were driving to church that Sunday morning, and Karen said, "I wonder if the Braves are in town." It seemed an innocent question; the Braves play 7 hours away in Atlanta, we needed a new tire on the Odyssey to replace one with that had picked up two screws. It turns out the question was not as innocent as I had suspected...Chipper was batting over .400 at that point. Who could miss that? Check out that .420 batting average in this photo...














Once we got home, Karen had to go to work at the clinic, and asked me to check on the Braves. It turned out they have a 1:05 PM game Monday afternoon; about 24 hours from that moment. To pull this off, we had to 1) get a tire replaced on a Sunday afternoon, no less, and 2) get to a Memphis Redbirds game that Sunday night. I helped out the new organist for the Redbirds, and he offered comp tickets to any games. We had tickets waiting for us at Will Call that night...

But, we needed a tire, we needed tickets, and we needed a place to stay. Nick ordered the tickets online, and had to wait for them to be emailed to us...More on that later! We booked a hotel room near Six Flags, and the plans were underway. I called Karen with a report, and she said, "Why don't we let Nicholas skip school on Tuesday and spend a half day at Six Flags?" The hits just kept on coming...Now for a little perspective, I've said that many times throughout the school year, but not for Six Flags. I'm all for Nicholas skipping school to do fun family stuff, even thought that will come back to bite me one day. At this moment, I became the voice of reason, and exclaimed..."Nicholas can't miss school!" To which Karen replied, "why not? It'll be fun!" I was all in at that point...and promptly bought Six Flags tickets online, mostly to seal the deal so there was no turning back.

So, after amazingly locating exactly our tire at a local Sam's Club, off Nick, Nicholas, and Caroline went, and had to kill 2 and 1/2 hours at Sam's getting our tire fixed. We enjoyed reading books in the office chairs, visiting the "cookers" several times, and sitting in the dune buggy...

Finally, with tire replaced, we made it home in time to change clothes, pack the backpack with snacks, and hit the trail for downtown Memphis and the Redbirds game. The plan was to do the Redbirds, watch the fireworks afterwards, and get to bed at a decent hour; to make it to Atlanta in time for the game, we had to be on the road by 5:00 aM at the latest. Normally a Redbirds game is only a couple of hours; this one just happened to be 12 innings! We still stayed...Hey, fireworks are not to be missed! We got to bed between 1:30 and 2:00, and were up again at 4:30, out the door and off to Atlanta...and oh, by the way...we took the Corolla and not the Odyssey, but we still got a new tire! Geeeesh...














In a word...SPONTANIETY!

We did have a truly awesome time, and the Braves beat the Diamondbacks and Brandon Webb that day, which is no small feat. We had a blast at Six Flags the next day, and drove through a severe thunderstorm in Birmingham to make it back by about 10:00 that night. Off to school the next morning for Nicholas...whew!














We have some pictures that are truly priceless...Here's Caroline right before riding her first roller-coaster...














Here is Caroline right after riding her first roller-coaster...














Wonder Woman, Bat Man, and X-Man Jean Gray (the ultimate power) await our SuperHero photo...















Here's a slideshow of all of our pictures over that trip, including different baseball shots, Six Flags shots, and of course, jumping on the hotel beds...



Peace and love to all!