Just Plain Chips

This is a message to all of my friends of leaden feet. To my friends who love the exhilaration of high speed. To my friends who don’t know the meaning of the words “Speed Limit”.

Have you seen the cops out there this week? I don’t know about your towns but in Eden Prairie they are out in force. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been seeing EP police on Valley View Road on my way home. But this last week there have been lots and lots out on 212 and Hwy 5. My dad saw a speed trap on Shady Oak and 212 and I saw about 3 squad cars on short drives this morning.

Oh, and on our way home from Apple Valley last night there were 5 squad cars on Cedar/77 just south of the Mall of America. The funny thing was that there were Minnapolis and Airport squad cars. I’m not sure how the whole “jurisdiction” thing works, but it didn’t seem quite right.

I’m not saying they’re everywhere. I’m just saying be on the lookout.

So the family went to Luke’s program last night. Before hand we had a dinner off of the grill at Matt’s house. A burger and hotdog for dinner is never a bad thing.

So we headed to the church and saw where Luke’s class had been and then we all filed into the sanctuary. Holy cow! There were hundreds of people there. I then remembered Jenny saying something about “a hundred kids or so” but it wasn’t until I had walked in when it hit me. We found a spot and after a couple of announcements they started calling the kids up to the front. First the 1st through 5th graders went up on the risers. There were tons of them up there. For some reason I had been expecting some little thing. I suppose it was because since this wasn’t my old church, which was gigantor, I figured it must be tiny and there would be no kids there. I was wrong. It turns out that even a “normal” sized church can be pretty big and have lots of families.

So then they called up the kindergarten and pre-kindergarten kids to stand in front. Which left all the youngest kids to stay in their seats for a while. Which is where Luke stayed.

Here is the happy Johnson family before the show.

After a couple of very happy sounding churchish songs, which is just as fun to listen to as you might expect if your kid isn’t actually up there, they finally called up the little ones. So Jenny started walking up there with Luke. I had Matt’s video camera going to capture the moment and let them watch without having to worry about it. As soon as Jenny set Luke down and told him to go stand with the other kids the entertainment began. I’m pretty sure anyone watching the video I took will get sick because the picture will be shaking from me laughing so much.

Luke was not really into being up there with the other kids. Jenny sat down in the front row and tried to encourage him to go up there and sing (which he had been doing a little at the dinner table). But he was having none of it. This was the scene:

He ran to his mom and pretty much just stood there with a pout on his face. He went to his dad for a while and sat in his lap and after that he went to his aunt Melissa and stood behind her for a bit.

So that was the performance. Pretty much what I was expecting, but still worth a number of laughs actually seeing it play out.

As soon as the songs were done and Luke was out of there, he perked right up. There was an ice cream social afterwards and as soon as Luke heard the words “ice cream” that’s pretty much all he thought about. We made our way out and all had a bowl. I had mine with butterscotch topping. Mmmm.

After some ice cream and some running around, we all had smiles on our faces.

You ever have a few of those days?

Nothing major happens, just lots of little things that grate on you just the “right” way. I don’t know what it is (well, I kind of know, but like I said, nothing big) but I’ve just been more and more frustrated and perturbed the last few days. I’m hoping this weekend will be nice and relaxing and fun. I’m just glad I don’t have to work at all this weekend like some people.