When Mommy's Away, or "The Man-cation"

This week Mommy is in Palo Alto for a week of training. We miss Mommy a bunch, but we've tried to come up with some ideas to make this a non-lame week. Since us guys are getting getting a lot of male-bonding time this week, we've dubbed our time together "the man-cation" (it's like a vacation, but more manly).

First, we watched roughly 780 hours of television coverage from the Ryder Cup (a biannual golf event played between teams from the U.S. and Europe). We were pleased to see the U.S. win again finally, and our appreciation for Boo Weekley, one of the American players, grew so much that Joseph and I declared him to be the symbol of our man-cation. Boo can flat out play the game of golf, but he's got a down-to-earth, everyman appeal to him that has won him a place in the hearts of a lot of fans.

Aside from having a fun name to yell out, Boo has a great story. Before his arrival on the professional golf scene, Boo tried to earn money by doing anything from boxing orangutans to power-washing chemical tanks. If those stories don't win you over, you can't help but appreciate a professional that follows his opening tee shot with this trip up the first fairway:

Once we finished watching all the golf we could find, we decided to head up to Nana's house, where we found lots of people who love us and keep us entertained with a seemingly-endless supply of toys.


Lunch at Nana's sometimes features waffles or chocolate chip cookies and other verboten treats that we don't get to eat for lunch when both parents are in town. For dinner, we ate the manliest food we could think of:

"The Hat"--home to the world's greatest pastrami

The Hat has been clogging arteries in Los Angeles for nearly 60 years. It's an institution dripping with character and worthy of an annual pilgrimage.

To top off our day of manliness, Joseph didn't take a bath--even though it was warranted.

On Tuesday at Nana's house, we were left with an empty house as everyone else had places to go and things to do. But we didn't let that slow us down.

Wearing PJ's all day--because we can

Eventually, Joseph did take a bath, because being manly doesn't have to mean never taking a bath.

That afternoon, we played "Dukes of Hazard." This involves running around without a shirt and jumping into the little tykes cozy car (aka "The General") without opening the side door.

Sitting on some riding toy backwards (also very manly)

Tomorrow, we're probably going to play "The A-Team," but we're still trying to figure out which car would be the best one to flip over. We thought about "Knight Rider," but Joseph didn't think the idea of a talking car was very believable.

We ended the day with some good ole' fashioned rasslin' and playing in the dirt before heading off to bed (a little past our standard bedtime).

We sure miss mommy a lot, but we're having a heap of fun finding manly ways to make the time pass quicker.