Gift 25 ~ Manly Movie / Animal Pencil Toppers

It's Saturday, April 12th. Cami and her husband Mark decide to spend time together today as their gift to each other. Mark has been very busy with work and they haven't had time to connect for days at a time. They debate on what to do, and Cami offers her gift to let Mark choose what they do. She is usually pretty stubborn and controlling especially with things like what movie they watch and who gets the remote control. So she let's him pick the movie ~ he picks Leatherheads with George Clooney and Renee Zellweger ~ and they head out to Grauman's Chinese Theater to see it. Later at home, she gives him complete control of the TV remote as well, and he selects The Daily Show to watch. Cami sits there quietly an half watches while she relishes the feeling of letting someone else be in control and not always digging in her heels.

My gift today is to take my youngest son Aaron and his friend Jason to the mall. Aaron asked me last night if he could go, and given how hectic it has been lately I thought that spending time with him would be a great gift. The boys are on a mission, which I'm told would not cost a lot of money. So, we head over to the pet store, and the boys ask for 8 quarters to put in the gumball machine (as I find out, that's just for starters:). Inside are all these animal pencil toppers, which is the "thing" in their third grade class these days. We end up with about 10 toppers per boy ~ not too bad! We also stop at Auntie Anne's for a couple pretzels and lounge on some nearby sofas while the boys compare their pencil topper animals and negotiate deals to trade this for that. We try to catch a movie too, but we miss the start time for The Blind Side by 10 minutes. Not a big deal, we can try again tomorrow!