Connor's Birthday

Madden 08 for XBox 360, Connor and Caleb at Red Robin for the birthday dinner, mom and dad at Red Robin-note the Wrangler's gear on mom.

The actual Red Robin singing Happy Birthday to Connor with some of the staff, Connor and Caleb with the Red Robin, Connor at the hockey game with the treat that Duke the mascot "stole" for him.

Go Wranglers! and the mascot Duke who is a green bull with yellow horns. Kind of hard to see because he is so far away. He ice skates and throws Tshirts and comes into the crowd.

Friday Connor did not go to school on Friday because there was a field trip that he did not want to go on so he spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's, had birthday pasta for lunch and then came home to open his presents. He was so excited about his presents that he did not want to wait until dad got home but mom made him wait. He got Madden 08 for the XBox (a football game for all those who are not up to speed) a wind breaker vest-camoflauge color to match his hat. He said he wanted to wear it hunting. He got some other clothes, and another game for his DS. We left for Vegas about 4:30 to go to dinner and then to the hockey game. Cody stayed home and took care of Cayden. Last year we took a bunch of his friends to dinner and to the hockey game and it was crazy. We have decided that we will do friend birthday parties every other year. He could not decide where he wanted to eat but really did not want to be late to the hockey game because the teams practice up until 20 minutes before the game starts and then they leave the ice. 2 minutes before the puck drops they call out the starters and they run onto the ice to set up. Connor always likes to cheer for them coming out. Anyway so he decides on Red Robin because it is pretty close to arena. We get there and order our food and Connor tells the server that it is his birthday-we know what that means-singing! After we had finished eating we were waiting for the check and guess what-the actual Red Robin-of which we did not know even existed-came out with a group of servers. They gave Connor an ice cream sunday and they sang to him. You should have seen his face when they came out and stopped at our table. As we were leaving the Red Robin was sitting by the door and so we stopped and got a picture of him with the boys. We drove to the arena and went to get our seats. Mom stopped to visit the ladies room while dad and the boys headed to their seats. When mom got to our seats Connor was all smiles. As they were walking around the corner they saw Duke the Mascot at the cinnamon nut shop. Of course Connor ran over to see and said " Hey Duke! Today's my birthday and the Wranglers are gonna win! Yeah Duke!" Then the Duke put his arm around Connor, reached over and grabbed a bag of nuts (very sneaky like the people running the shop could not see him sneaking Connor the nuts) and then he patted Connor on the head. Connor was thrilled. To further make his night the Wranglers won the game in a total shut out 5-0 and because they scored 5 goals to spell the word TACOS we all got coupons for a free taco at Del Taco. Dad also let him and Caleb do Chuck a Puck. That is where you buy soft hockey pucks that have numbers on them and during one of the period break they let everyone throw them onto the ice. Whoever gets closest to the target in the middle wins an autographed jersey. We did not win but they had fun chucking their pucks. Of course, they got lots of junk-popcorn and nachos and soda and mom's cinnamon pecans. It was a great birthday for Connor. Thank you to everyone for the gifts. He appreciates it!

This is Connor freaking out when the Wrangler's scored their first goal or maybe it was the second. Grandma Dottie called right in the middle of the mayhem and got an earful I think! You may want to turn down your sound!