Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Weekend with the boys: Svengoolie and Johnny English

Well, it was a busy weekend enjoying some time with my boys and a couple of their favorite characters. Last Friday, I took two of the boys to see Svengoolie at an appearance in Orland Park. Each year at Halloween, he makes several public appearances. This year he's been at a theatre, the zoo, a racetrack, a haunted house and a few other places. On Friday, he was scheduled to be at Party City from 7 - 9 p.m. For those of you who aren't familiar with Svengoolie, he is a character who has appearing on television in Chicagoland since before I was born. He hosts a show where he does some narration and entertaining between scenes of horror classics and B-movies, mostly those from the 40's, 50's, 60's...such classics as the Blob, Dracula and Frankenstein.

Anyway, last year my son took the boys to see Sven at the same Party City location, but the line had gotten so long that they were turning people away. So, this year we set out early, arriving around 6:20 to get in line. I figured we'd be near the front of the line and be out of there in about an hour. Well, three hours later we were still in line. The closer we got, the more I thought "We can't back out now," even though my 6-year-old and 8-year-old were driving me completely insane with their bickering, bathroom humor and hyperactive hands that had to touch everything on the shelves in front of us as the line wound around through five aisles. Finally, we made out way up to where we could actually see Svengoolie and my 8-year-old was absolutely giddy. They were so excited to finally meet him in person and get a picture. Once I saw the smiles on their faces, the three hours of misery while waiting in line for him to autograph a rubber chicken melted away.


We got home about 10:00 and I looked at the mail that was delivered that day and found passes I'd won to an advance screening of Johnny English Reborn. My kids are HUGE fans of Rowan Atkinson. We all have seen every Mr. Bean television show. We've seen Mr. Bean's Holiday and Johnny English dozens of times. I knew we'd have to go see his new movie in theatres when it came out and so I was thrilled that we'd gotten free tickets. The catch was -- it was the NEXT DAY!!!!!!!!!!! And 10 a.m.!!!!!!!!! Downtown!!!!!!!! But, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to see it before it was released in theatres. There are 7 of us, but there were only tickets for 6. We had to decide who would have to forego seeing it. It wasn't an easy decision and I figured we might have to flip a coin for it in the morning.

Then at 2:18 a.m. I hear someone calling from the other room. "Mmmmooooommmmm!!!!!!!!! I'm throwing up!" I followed the voice and turned on the light and yep...there was my 8-year-old vomiting everywhere. My youngest had passed out on the sofa shortly after returning. So, I decided to just let him stay where he was (which only happens maybe two or three times in a year) and tucked in my 8-year-old. The two share a room. And they sleep in bunk beds. And my 8-year-old is on top. All I can say is that it's a very good thing my youngest was asleep downstairs on the sofa. Had he been in his bed that night, he would have been awakened by a very icky shower. I'll spare you the rest of the details about what a mess it was and how hard it was to clean up. Anyway, we had a sick kid. That ruled out him going to the theatre. I'd have to see how he was in the morning and see if our trip would still go as planned. I'd called Grandpa before bed to see if he could come by to babysit someone, so he was already lined up. At 3 a.m., there was more barfing. And then again at 6 a.m. By the time we were up at 8 to get ready for the movie, he was feeling a little better. I settled him into my bed with a bowl by his side and a stack of movies to watch while we were gone. I felt a bit guilty, but Grandpa was there to take care of him and the rest of us set off to see the movie.

Getting into the city always pretty much sucks. Traffic sucks, finding your way to your destination among all the one-way streets while dodging the crazy cab drivers sucks, finding parking sucks, paying for parking ($30 for 3 hours) sucks.

Anyway, we had a blast. The move was sooooo funny. Everyone gave it a thumbs up and proclaimed it better than the first. Rowan Atkinson makes me laugh just looking at him. Before we even left, one of the boys was asking if we could see it again. We explained that it wouldn't be in theatres for another week, so there was no way to see it again, but we assured him that we'd get a copy once it came out on DVD...so they could memorize yet another Rowan Atkinson movie. :)

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