This weekend has been all about Alex's birthday. 12 years old, hardly seems possible. As desired, Alex had a sleepover Friday night, with 5 of his best friends over. I picked them all up after school (with the truck, which was pretty packed) and took them to our house, where they began the process of playing video games in earnest. Pausing just barely long enough to eat pizza and do cake and ice cream and presents in the evening. Not sure how long they were up, but it was pretty late. We did refuse to allow them to set an alarm clock for zero dark 30 this year, but they were up early enough as it was for pancakes and sausage before we all headed to SkyZone for an hour (Beth did not go, instead she took Missy to get pedicures). Alex hurt his back a bit but otherwise no injuries.We were back home before noon for all the boys to be picked up. Now, all Alex has really wanted for some time now is a Wii U, and with the Financial Peace University class Beth and I have been taking, we came up with an idea we liked. We decided to agree to match whatever Alex saved, dollar for dollar, towards the purchase. So, he asked everyone for money towards the Wii U instead of presents this year, and between what he's saved over the last couple of months and his birthday money, he had enough. So we went out to Wal-Mart Saturday and he bought one. Now that's a birthday present. Sunday, we had the family from Michigan visit (some of them anyway). Ric & Nickie and the kids and Marve all drove down here together to visit for the afternoon. We weren't sure anyone was coming because Nickie had been throwing up yesterday but now she seems just fine. Anyway, we had another cake and a nice visit, and between all the presents Alex got today (again, all cash) he was able to buy a new Wii U game he's wanted. However since we weren't willing to run straight over to Game Stop to get it, he bought it online for download. So far it's been downloading for around 4 hours and it says it has 20 hours to go.