remember thanksgiving?

it turns out that blogging for me is mostly about what funny pictures we've taken lately, and so instead of telling you the details of our lovely thanksgiving dinners or the movie we saw that night (August Rush - loved it), today's belated blog is all about thanksgiving bowling. I thought that thanksgiving bowling was kind of an obscure tradition until we tried to just walk on to a couple of lanes up at Olympus Hills bowling on Thanksgiving morning, and they said, "we might be able to squeeze you in in about three hours." they weren't joking! the place was packed. not to give up our hopes of bowling so easily (none of us had dinner to prepare - what else were we going to do?) we drove and called around town, in search of other open and available bowling alleys. at long last, we settled on possibly the nastiest, most ghetto bowling alley in the valley which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. but yuck.

you may not know, but jim descends from a bowling dynasty. don't mess.

laine is a die-hard. wanted to do it all herself, so she'd heft up those heavy balls with her little bird arms and hoist it up to the top of that thing and let 'er rip. she only dropped the ball and almost crushed her foot twice. very close. could have been ugly.
due to the children among us, they gave us one alley with bumpers and one alley without. I'm taking kids with me from now on when I bowl. I'm converted to bumpers. Lainey, Jim, and I all bowled strikes on our first frame - no ricocheting off the sides either (although the bumpers are really handy on those times too.) some of us only wished they had bumpers.

some of us legitimately don't need bumpers. this is ben doing the I'm-so-awesome-I-just-bowled-a-thanksgiving-turkey walk.

some of us were barely even aware that we were bowling. are they perfect together, or what? (I will note that ben scored higher just goofing around than I did. figures.)

some of us actually care what their score is, and manage to remain very focused on their scores despite all of the other shenanigans going on.
jane actually took most of these photos, but it was with my camera! so...sorry they're on my blog instead of yours janie! love your form, though.
Rom is working on his rock-star hair and went bowling mostly just hoping to see and be seen.


and me? I'm just grateful to have left my old bowling nickname from college behind. (Thunder, referring to the very loud thunk a bowling ball makes if you throw it more than roll it. not that I'd know, of course.)