Ernest Goes to Richmond

My laughing muscles are sore this morning, the permagrin remains. Our friend Erica flew into town yesterday for business, so I kidnapped her from the airport and brought her to the house so she could play with us for the afternoon before she had to start focusing on work the following day. With it being the first official football Sunday, Holly had her football food menu ready and pilsners chilled. We had four years' worth of laughing and catching up to do.

The only other time Erica has seen the kids in real life is when Evyn was two and Reed was fifteen months old - both extremely shy back then except for Evyn trying to run Erica over a few times in her Barbie Jeep. Not this time. The minute Erica started playing with them, they were full on, "do me, it's my turn, me next"! This went on until Erica was panting and on her knees and Troy was in trouble for chasing down the ruckus and nibbling on the children.

Right before putting the kids to bed, they just had to show Erica their crazy spin outs on their green machines and then they moved on to practice hitting baseballs. As Evyn was tossing a ball up in the air and then attempting to hit it with a large (thankfully) plastic bat, I decided she was not lined up appropriately and turned her a little to the right. This lined up the perfect opportunity for her to toss the ball up, swing the bat and hit Reed square in the side of the head. It made this sound that still makes me laugh a little. Ok, I actually laughed so hard (and so quietly so as not to upset my little man even more) that I almost dropped him while trying to comfort and escort him into the house for an ice pack. It was one of those moments where you start laughing before you realize if the person is really hurt or not and then you cannot stop once you realize they are not terribly injured. I very quietly laughed my butt off when my son got nailed in the head with a plastic baseball bat - how wrong is that? (He was fine, by the way) We all came inside for one more throw-Reed-around moment that nearly ended with more head trauma. Bedtime followed... his luck was running out.

My children went to bed in tears because Erica would not be here when they awoke the next day. They fell in love with our super crazy, smart, fun blond friend from Florida who used to have a dark brown mullet and would have lightening bolts shaved in the sides of said mullet before big flag football tournaments. Those were the days when Holly and I would casually drop a "dude, you are never gonna get laid with that haircut" comment every once in a while. If I look hard enough, I could probably find some pictures from back then. Come to think of it, I could probably start a whole new blog dedicated to the life of our friendship with Erica. It would span years and would be full of interesting facts, memories and pictures. Too bad we don't have a picture of the time Erica and I went bar hopping in Key West and then drove drunk on a moped to find Holly some cold medicine - another act of true friendship. It never ends, but we have gotten a wee bit smarter since then.