Hope you are all having a nice weekend. We are making the most of the last couple of days of Eldest's visit before he has to fly back to Blighty tomorrow :( Can't believe it has gone so quick!
We had great fun on our mega shopping expeditions, floating around in the pool and trying out new places for brunch/lunch whilst youngest was at school and Mr B was at work (purely for the sake of research obviously) and then introducing him to some of our favourite restaurants and Happy Hour spots in the evenings. I think I have only managed to cook twice during the whole time he has been here ... Result! (Diet starts Monday).
On Thursday evening we also managed to tick off another new experience from our list - going to watch an NFL game (albeit a friendly pre-season match) between the Arizona Cardinals and the Denver Broncos. As I am sure you are all well aware by now, sport is not really my thing and despite Mr B's best endeavours at a pre-match crash course on the rules of the game, I have to say I came away none the wiser! At least proper football (whilst still as dull as ditchwater) is easy to understand - well, apart from the offside rule obviously. 11 players ... 3 substitutes ... 45 minutes each half ... try and kick the ball into the goal as many times as you can. Simple as. American football - not so much it turns out. 11 players ... 34 substitutes (I'm not even kidding) ... 4 quarters each lasting 15 minutes ... oh ok, an hour's not so bad. Except it's not just one bloody hour is it? It's at least three! Because they keep stopping every 5 minutes for a rest or a 'time outs' as I believe it's called. And what's with all the paraphernalia? Helmets ... pads ... blimey, they wouldn't last 5 minutes in a proper game of rugby! That's what you call a contact sport!
Before all that though, we had to actually get into the ground. As we had never been before, we weren't aware that we should have pre-purchased passes for the car parks nearest the stadium and so instead had to park in the neighbouring Outlet mall, which whilst not really very far away, still involved a 10 minute walk across the surface of the sun in a zillion degrees (even my eyeballs were sweating). By the time we arrived at the gate we were all looking forward to getting inside in the air conditioning and downing a nice cold drink.
"Oh, excuse me Ma'am ... " one of the security guards called after me, "... you can't take purses *handbags to you and me inside the grounds"
"Sorry, what?!"
He handed me a clear plastic bag.
"You can put everything in there but you have to leave the purse outside".
Cosmic. That would have been a really useful piece of information to know beforehand wouldn't it? I suppose it would be too much to ask to expect someone to actually think about that though eh? Oh wait ... hang on ... it probably says on the ticket ...yes, that's it ... it's probably my own stupid fault for not reading it properly... let's have a look ... yep, thought so ... NOTHING!
"Well what am I supposed to do with it exactly?" I asked, trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to hide my irritation
"Either dispose of it or leave it in your vehicle ..." replied the security guard, making no attempt whatsoever to hide his!
"Dispose of it?!?" It may not have been the most expensive bag in the world, but I was not quite ready to chuck it in the bin just yet ...
Mr B, quickly sensing that the next words to leave my mouth were likely to be of the four letter variety, and that I was very possibly about to spontaneously combust at any minute, valiantly offered to trek back across the Kalahari and take the offending article back to the car. What a hero!
Once inside the (thankfully cool) stadium and cold drinks purchased, we made our way up the stairs to our seats in the 'nose bleed' section (I had made Mr B purchase the cheapest tickets so I wouldn't feel too bad if we wanted to ditch after an hour!) to await the return of Lawrence of Arabia. As it turned out, it was quite a fun evening. Don't get me wrong, the football was still boring as, but I amused myself by dancing along to all the music and irritating Ben by asking "what's happening now?" and "why are they doing that?" every two minutes. Lol. He also decided what he wanted for Christmas this year whilst watching the game ... a Cardinals shirt? No. A Cheerleader apparently! Dream on Son. Even Ethan, who doesn't normally do crowds .. or sports ... or for that matter any activities that don't involve a screen, controller and headphones, seemed to have grasped some concept of the game and even said he had "quite enjoyed himself" *gasps!*. Not sure I'll be going back any time soon though!
This afternoon we spent a very interesting couple of hours exploring the MIM - Musical Instrument Museum - in Phoenix. Some fascinating instruments, all arranged in rooms by Continent and accompanied by headsets which very cleverly played samples of music from each as you stood in front of them. Sadly, the best they could come up with for England was a video of George Formby playing his Ukulele and a group of Morris Dancers with poles and bells!
Well, just time for one more brunch with Eldest in the morning before we have to say farewell for this visit *sniff* and deliver him to the airport.
Hope you all have a good week and a special 'good luck' to all the kids going back to school next week and especially those starting new secondary schools, I'll be thinking of you! Have a blast ... best days of your life apparently ...!
TTFN
Bev x
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