Just Think Publix.

Our monthly incentive for school is long overdue. As a matter of fact, it's 4 months overdue. We were supposed to go to our Chuck-E-Cheese trip and then I was put on bed rest. The boys have been very patient. I figured I might as well load up all the offspring and head to Athens to play. We took our buy 40 tokens get 40 free coupon (we only spent $10 total) and our surplus tickets from the last couple trips and hit the road... in the morning, of course, so there would be no one there.

As we got closer, Asa and Addison became so excited they couldn't stand it. When we waited to turn into the shopping center, they could see the sign. Addison couldn't take it anymore. He kept saying he was "just to excited!". Asa explained to him that he should just "think about the grocery store. That always works." As it turned out, Publix was in the same shopping center, so Asa pointed out that Addison needed to keep his eyes on Publix! Thanks to Asa's wonderful coaching, Addison indeed made it to Chuck-E-Cheese without exploding from the excitement.

The trip was a success. Olive stayed asleep the entire time. Ivey ran around and clapped her hands and was fascinated by all the machines and the big huge singing mouse. No fear. Asa and Addison spent an hour and a half figuring out which machines yielded the most tickets for their tokens. They added them to their previous total and saved most of them for next time. Add in some Happy Meals on the way home and it was a pretty good trip.