The weekend started out with a daddy son date. Dax and I went to get some of our favorite pizza at Abby's legendary pizza. We then went to the local bowling alley. Dax had heard about a pretty cool arcade at the bowling alley from his friends at school. It was a fun place, when we first got there it wasn't too crowded but it was a Friday night and the crowd soon followed. It isn't the biggest arcade but the games they have there were a lot of fun for kids of all ages. Some of the highlights of the night were the pacman game, fruit ninja, and an ice age game. But I would have to say that his first jackpot is what takes the prize as the biggest highlight. There was one machine that the kids would all go to and get lots and lots of tickets, you pushed a button that released a ball that would drop into a wheel with slots with different ticket values. We quickly asked a kid that had had much success at the machine what his trick was and then we took our turn. I told Dax when to push the button and then he would proceed to push the button after a slight delay. The first push…..2 tickets. He asked to try again I reluctantly agreed, I gave the order to push……slight delay and then whammo, JACKPOT! It was fun to see his eyes light up as the machine continued to spit out more and more tickets. You could see the gears turning in his head as he thought about all the plastic spiders and tootsie rolls he could purchase with all of these tickets. He earned more tickets with that one push of the button then we had accumulated the whole rest of the evening. When we got home and he was telling Janelle about the jackpot he said, "Well, daddy was a good coach, he told me when to push the button and I did and we got a jackpot, we make a good team." I would have taken more credit for the jackpot had he pushed the button when I told him to, but since he was going push it whenever he wanted to regardless of my command, I think he deserves full credit for his first jackpot. He picked out several prizes, including something for each of his sisters. He is a thoughtful brother. One thing that he picked out were these funny teeth. He gets a kick out of them and wore them the next day at his wrestling tournament. They were a real head turner. He is a pretty funny kid. 

 Dax had another wrestling tournament this weekend. This time it was at Ephrata High School. There were teams from all over central and eastern WA. Teams included Sunnyside, Yakima, Wenatchee, Othello, Toppenish, Grandview, Ellensburg, Richland and Ephrata. He weighed in about 5 lbs less this week then he did last week. I guess that happens when you weigh the kid in the morning rather than the evening right after eating 3 pizzas of pizza. He wrestled very well. He pinned his first guy in the first round. He was from Richland. In the second round he pinned a girl from Yakima. He ran into a buzz saw from Sunnyside in the finals and got pinned, but he wrestled hard. He has been fighting a very nasty cough lately and was having a flare up during the last match, he was having a hard time breathing on top of the fact that the kid was very good and Dax spent a lot of time fighting off of his back. He got second place and was very excited to get his first metal. I asked him if the season ended right now would he want to wrestle again next year, he must of heard me wrong because he said no, he was pretty tired and he didn't want to wrestle anymore tonight. Funny kid, I explained my question and he said that he would like to wrestle again next year, so we'll see how it goes. He has a few more tournaments, it will be fun to see him learn and improve.

 Dax lost his first tooth this weekend. He had been working on it for a while. I came home from work on Thursday and he was excited to show me that he would be losing the tooth soon. Of course we had to come up with a clever way to remove it, so we grabbed a straw and went to work. He was very brave and the tooth came out nicely. Unfortunately the tooth fairy didn't show up that night, we attributed it to the placement of his tooth on the kitchen island rather than under his pillow. He said that he was just trying to make the fairy's job easier, of course he didn't consider the tooth sensor that the fairy has under all kids pillows and how she wouldn't know that he lost his tooth if it wasn't under the pillow. The next night he put it under the pillow and received a piece of pirates gold and a dollar bill along with a warning that if he didn't continue to brush his teeth they would end up looking like those silly teeth that he had won at the arcade.

Well there was a lot about Dax this week. The others are doing well, Dayna is auditioning for the Sound of Music play that they do at an outdoor theater in Leavenworth every summer. She has been practicing for awhile now and the time has finally come to try out. She was very excited. It is neat to see her embrace those moments that would scare me away. She likes the spotlight and being on stage, so we'll find out in the next couple weeks if she got the part. She is a very talented and smart young girl and I hope she continues to develop her love and talent for the stage. Lani and Avery have been great supporters of their brother. Avery is potty training and Lani stays busy at preschool and having play dates with her preschool friends.