Jury Duty on Eli's 12th Birthday!

Birthdays are pretty special...maybe if you're lucky, you get 100 in your life time. So, Eli wanted me to go to his school for lunch, but instead... I went to the courthouse, got frisked, took off my belt (and shoes), let someone I don't know go through my purse (sorry about all the damp Kleenex's, it is allergy season!), and went through the jury selection process...all on Eli's 12th birthday. I spent the day explaining to His Honor why having 6 young children makes it pretty hard to be gone from 10am-5pm every day...especially child care. The judge was really kind, he even told the bailiff to give me some sort of imaginary gold star for having a 13 year old girl. I didn't dare tell him how perfect she is...I'd like to take credit for that, but she is really more like Christ than she is like me. But my mom assures me, I haven't missed out on teenage hood, yet! Back to Eli's birthday. We got up before the sun to make him crepes with cream filling and blackberry compote, crepes with bananas and chocolate, and powdered sugar, eggs with stuff in it, and orange juice. An awesome sleeping bag was his present from us and for dinner I made carne assada (guacamole, chopped tomatoes, shredded lettuce, all wrapped in wax paper and aluminum foil...to go) in the 30 minutes between court and the first baseball game of the night. Then back home for a quick family German chocolate cake and candles and birthday song and back to the fields where the whole family stayed to watch Eli play an awesome game. (Since his games start at 8pm every night, he was probably most excited about his birthday present that included the whole family coming out to see him play and cheer him on, and sing him happy birthday a few times...well, maybe he didn't really like the singing part, but I think I might get a little punch drunk when it passes the 9 o'clock hour...do you agree mom?) Eli entertained us with an impressive line drive hit down the first baseline that flew past the first baseman and hit the back fence and got Eli a triple! Eli did some awesome pitching, played a great first baseman, getting a lot of outs, and was easily the MVP of the game on his 12th birthday! Happy Birthday Big Boy! (His coach calls him "Big Boy" and I like it, he is still a boy, but he is big!)