Since Aaron and Edward had already displayed their dominance of all things Pokemon in Oregon, the next logical step was to take their act on the road and see how they perform in Pokemon's own backyard: Seattle, Washington. Meg also positioned the trip as a gift for the April birthday boys, Edward and Ian. We drove up late Friday evening, hoping to avoid rush-hour traffic, and made good time to our hotel a few blocks away from the Washington State Convention Center. We retired to bed as soon as we could.
The alarms went off just as early as a school morning so we could eat breakfast and so the family could watch how many push-ups I do with my studly body, but mostly because the boys needed to register for the card game tournament. All three boys wanted to play (and they didn't have to pay a cent to play--they charge only those 16 and older (I really hope we're not still doing this when Aaron is 16)). Aaron is pretty good and likes the game and puts lots of thoughts into which cards he puts into his battle deck; Edward lets Aaron build him a deck, and he seems to have fun playing; even though Ian cannot read the Pokemon cards, he has enough familiarity with the cards in his deck to play (it helps that his opponents usually help him--it's in their best interest, as I don't think he has much chance of winning). Ian failed to win a single match, but his older brothers won a few. Edward placed high enough to win a bunch of prize packs of, you guessed it, more Pokemon cards.
After the day-long tournament, we walked to a hole-in-the-wall hamburger joint for dinner. Good thing I did my exercises in the morning, as Ian failed to sink his teeth into his burger. After dinner we retreated to the hotel, and the boys changed into their swimming attire. I supervised them at the outdoor pool on the fourth floor, while Meg met up with her friend who lives in Seattle. Adjacent to the pool was a game room with pool table, TV for watching the Final Four, and a couple of arcade machines--all free of charge for hotel guests to use. Aaron was the first to give up swimming and played a few games of pool with me, while Edward swam for a couple of hours until it was well past our bed time.
The tournament continued the next day with the video game portion. Aaron and Edward both have 2DS's and a compatible video game, so they were able to enter, while Ian--happy fifth birthday!--hung out with Meg and I and went on an adventure in the city to hunt for cupcakes (I ended up eating five of the six cakes captured, I believe). Both kids lost their first few matches but finished the day strong and with winning records, which was good enough for Edward to place again and win a prize. On the drive home in the late afternoon, which included one of Aaron's friends who lives in Sellwood and had taken the train up earlier on his own, all of the kids fell asleep--it was magical. When we stopped an hour or so later at Burgerville (Ian's birthday request), they were wide awake and noisy the rest of the ride home.
Comments
Post a Comment