Bounce Party

About a week ago, Mackinzie went to a birthday party for her friend, Ava, from ballet and gymnastics. Ava was turning 4 years old and her party was held at Bounce Party N' Play in White Marsh.
Here are Kinzie and Ava sitting together in the giant inflatable birthday throne.
The place was pretty incredible! It was basically a large warehouse, painted in bright colors and filled with all different kinds of inflatable moon-bounces.

The best part was that the parents were allowed to join in on the fun!

My favorite was the giant slide! It was so big that Kinzie and I were able to go down together.

Also for the adults (mostly) was a large boxing ring with oversized boxing gloves. Our good friend, Tom challenged me to a match.

It turned out to be a draw with each of us being knocked down once.... although I think I could have beaten him fair and square if he hadn't been giggling so much the entire time. (Tom and Laura's daughter, Sophia is good friends with Kinzie and Ava).

I know, it looks like I had more fun at this four year old birthday party than Kinzie...

The girls all had a blast and ended the evening with chicken nuggets and some Ariel cake. Here are Kinzie and Sophia posing for the camera before we headed home.
All in all it was a great time and it was really fun to spend that time climbing, jumping and bouncing with my daughter.

Poor Laura... Baby Maeby wouldn't let her enjoy the jumping and bouncing so much. She tried getting into one moon-bounce when we first arrived, but the motion made her pregnant belly upset.
And the party was held on the 22nd... her 27th birthday, of all days! At least she got her picture taken in the big birthday throne! :)
-Bert

White Martin Luther King Jr. Day

It didn't snow on December 25th, so we didn't have a "White Christmas". But it did snow on January 19th, so we had a "White Martin Luther King Jr. Day". (I just wanted to explain the blog title so as to avoid any racial confusion.)
Laura had the day off school for the holiday, so it was almost like a wasted snow day, but we all had fun anyway. I had to work all day, but around 4:30pm we went outside to take some pictures and have a little snow ball fight.

(.... I might have gotten into the snowball fight a little too much...)

Kinzie loved the snow!

After playing for a little while, we drove down to Pop-pop and Gigi's for dinner in Anne Arundel County... shocked to find that they didn't see a single snow flake all day!

Tuesday evening Kinzie had her weekly gymnastics class and this week the parents were invited to watch.

They started with some stretches.

They also did a few other mild exercises on the mats.

Then came the trampoline...

It is a long, rectangular trampoline that the girls jump on from one side to the other.

Then they moved over the balance beam, but it was hard to get photos because the instructor was guiding the girls away from the line and towards to the wall.

Mackinzie ended the evening by doing tumbles along the long floor mat.

.... I spent some time yesterday afternoon at Continental Arms unleashing hell on this target with my good friend Justin and his 40 caliber Glock 22.

... See, daddy can have fun too!

Festivus Maximus!

The Ravens came out victorious over the hated Tennessee Titans on Saturday. Now only the even more hated Pittsburgh Squealers stand in the way of the SuperBowl.Laura, Mackinzie, and I hosted 14 of our closest friends and family to watch the game. It was an "edge-of-your-seat, nail-biter" and there was much celebration when the clock hit 0:00.

It was great to get phone calls and text messages from our family and friends who made the trek to Nashville to go to the game. My dad sent picture messages of the Ravens fans swarming 2nd Avenue in downtown Nashville. My brother called after the game when only Ravens fans were left in the stands of an empty LP Field. What a wonderful feeling to repeat 2001!

I'd like to take a second to point something out here:
Back in October, when the Ravens first played the Titans here in Baltimore, my good friends (and Fraternity brothers) James and Ben, came to visit and go to that game with us. They noticed the Ravens schedule I had taped on my desk and remarked "You can already put an 'L' next to tomorrow's game". They were right that day. The Titans beat the Ravens 13-10.

I've kept that schedule going all season....
How does it look now guys?

Purple Friday

Just a quick post to acknowledge Purple Friday. Laura wore my personalized "RODE III" jersey to school this morning and I took this picture of Kinzie and me before I took her to school and went in the office. Tomorrow's the big day! Hopefully the Titans will be going down!
GO RAVENS!!!

Go Ravens!!

Its a playoff frenzy in the Rode home. We debuted our new 52" high-def flat-screen for the Ravens/Dolphins game yesterday. Mackinzie's musical instruments made great noise-makers for all the touchdowns and turnovers.

And Laura made all kinds of funny scribble drawing on her new Coolpix camera (ala: Ashton Kutcher)

Mike as Joe Flacco (uni-brow included...)

Will as head coach, John Harbaugh
.... and then as a Ravens cheerleader...

myself as... ? ... a white Ray Lewis??
It is off to Tennessee now to face the rival Titans on Saturday. Go Ravens!

After the game, Laura and I drove to Virginia to pick up Mackinzie. She had a good weekend, but was very happy to be coming home, as were Laura and I.

We were blessed with a safe ride home and we're looking forward to a great week.
-Bert