An Evening with Sam and Dave!

Last weekend, we loaded up the land yacht and headed for those wonderful hills of WV. We decided to meet Tiffy's family for dinner. We were talking to Chucky (Tif's brother) via the telephone and I made the suggestion of meeting in Huntington at the mall at the Outback. Being Chucky who is as much of a steak lover as me, he thought this was a good idea. He spoke to Marlena (his boss) and it became a date. We even wrangled Karen (Tif's mom) into making the trip. We were all about to spend the evening togther with Sammy and David Lee (that would be Dutton and Meadows, not Hagar and Roth!!)
We chose Huntington because there is a decent-sized mall there and plenty of eating spots. Also, Huntington is only about a 2-3 hour drive for us and is basically half-way between Rancho Duttonero and Beckley (Tif's hometown.) We (the Duttons) arrived first and decided to stroll through the mall to take a look at the sights. We were hoping to find a kiddy play area so that Sir Hugh of Dutton could stretch his legs. We had no such luck, but we did find the kiddy version of Las Vegas...well at least it had lots of bright lights. Here we see Sammy and Tiffy enjoying the carousel.
Tif was almost too short to hold Sam on the horse once the whole thing got going. It was comical to watch. Sammy thought that this brightly lit spinning thing was made just for his enjoyment and enjoy it he did. He took several rides and smiled the entire time. From here we did some more window shopping until we wound up at the Disney Store. Again, Sam thought this place was just plain awesome. He refused to be held or hoisted onto my shoulders. Instead, he insisted on walking through the store occasionally stopping to handle the brightly colored merchandise. I am shocked that they didn't ask us to leave, but I suppose that it is the Disney Store and they are sort of use to it. After all, Sammy is in their targeted age group.
We were just about to check out the other side of the mall when Chucky called to say that the other half of our act had arrived. We raced over to the Outback to meet the family. It was cool seeing everyone again. The only person missing was Tif's Dad who was at work. Of course, since he converted to Vegetarianism, the Outback isn't quite his cup of tea. I made sure to eat an extra large hunk of beef...just for him. We had fun, the food was good, the company was inviting, but I think that Karen was the one who enjoyed the visit the most because of moments like this...

After dinner, we all decided to take a stroll around the mall together. We spent the evening just having a good time and enjoying the boys. It was a great time and I figure that we will be meeting in Huntington very soon so that we can all have another evening with Sam and Dave.

SuperSam Returns!

Look up in the air! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's SuperSam! He's back after a lengthy absence. An absence caused by the evil villain, the Time Thief who uses his diabolical weapon of school starting to capture teachers like SuperSam's earth father and steal their blogging time.
We find our hero coming to the rescue of his earth mother in the living room of Rancho Duttonero. He swoops in with his red cape waving to save the day. Never fear, mom! SuperSam is here!

It seems that someone had disorganized all of the toys in the living room. Strange that mild mannered toddler (yes, note the bipedalism on that kid) Samuel Hugh isn't around to see SuperSam. I wonder.....no, it couldn't be.

SuperSam quickly makes use of his super speed to arrange all of the toys where they should be according to his super decorative skills. Whewww! That was close! But with this crisis averted, he is off to the next adventure!