What's up?

So this past weekend we celebrated Carter's TENTH birthday, which was yesterday, though pedantic-boy Carter claimed today as well since his 9:28pm east coast birthday translates as 3:28am on the 26th here. We pretty much let him call the shots for what we did all weekend, until he tried to push Sunday night (school night) bedtime past the limits. So Friday we took it easy and watched a movie at home and ate galette de roi (king cake). Saturday we had to get up and out early, as the boys had a piano recital so we had to be at the American Church by 9am. After the recital, we walked back toward home and had lunch at an Indian restaurant, which was Carter's choice after he agonized over whether he was picking something nobody else really wanted. Turns out HAVING to choose isn't the easiest gift to deal with. We chilled out for a few minutes at home after lunch before heading out to ... the bowling alley! Yes, he picked bowling over the fencing World Cup tournament in town, and even though we had to wait 45 minutes for a lane, he and we all had a very nice time. Even though we pretty much suck, despite all the Wii practice. We high-tailed it home to watch Duke completely destroy Maryland, thanks to the miracle of Slingbox and the generosity of Jeff (don't mention the score to him). We ate super yummy homemade ribs for dinner, with Carter's secret-recipe barbeque sauce (including coffee!). After the game and dinner, Carter decided that a relaxing Sunday morning would be better than getting up early to go to church, or watch fencing, or visit the polar explorer boat, or anything else.





So Sunday he and Calvin got up, opened the present from Calvin (extra Wiimote), and played Wii for an hour or so while we slept in a bit. We had breakfast and he opened his other presents, and was very pleased with them. Calvin's friend Jakob's family had offered to take Calvin to an IMAX movie at La Geode, so he headed out with them while we relaxed a bit longer, before heading to Chinatown for a terrific New Year's banquet. After seven or eight courses and the associated wine (no, not for Carter), we took the tram and bus back home, followed by a bit more Wii before skipping dinner and heading straight for birthday tarts - who needs cake with bakeries like we have here?

Seriously, if he would honestly say what his favorite parts of the weekend were, I bet they'd be

1. Playing Wii almost as much as he wanted
2. Playing games on my iPod touch almost as much as he wanted
3. Watching Duke crush Maryland
   

Next time you talk to him, ask him what his favorite things were, and let me know what he says!