I surprised him and picked him up from “Legos club” after school; he’s never seen my car waiting in the carpool lane at his school before, so I had to get out and wave at him before he’d walk my way.  He talked all about something he built that spun and caused the Lego person riding on it to fly off.  Meanwhile, I drove him past our street and instead pulled up to Teahouse Comics.

Him:  Why are we going this way, Daddy?
Me:  Remember when we were at Chipotle a few months ago–during the summer–and you said on your birthday, you’d like to visit this comic book store and pick out a book?  Well here we are!

He was excited and ran into the store.  The lady behind the counter asked how she could help, and I told her we wanted to get him his first comic book, and he’s 7 today.  I’d gotten some suggestions from my friend Trey, who is a bit of an aficionado.  I started asking about some of his suggestions, and she directed us to where they were on the shelves.

My boy decided on Transformers:  Robots in Disguise, a new comic based on the animated series he likes to watch on Netflix.  When we got home, his self-imposed birthday theme continued, as he opened the Optimus Prime transformer after his chosen dinner of rice and beans.  Then he opened my parents’ gift of Legos.

Speaking of Legos, last weekend we drove up to Northpoint Mall in Alpharetta to see the traveling Lego Americana Road Show…it was awesome!  Master builders had constructed replicas of historic sites, monuments, and memorials from Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York for display (and since the children have been to 3/4 of those cities, they recognized nearly all of them!)!

After seeing the sites, we went to a miniature golf place in Roswell, where a few of my boy’s friends joined him to play 36 holes.

Sunday, we smoked 6 racks of ribs and 4 pork shoulders (actually, this process began Saturday night) so that over 100 neighbors could come over for our neighborhood’s annual “back to school” party / meeting.  The meat turned out awesome, thanks to my assistant.

All in all, a great weekend and birthday for him (and the rest of the family).