the kid's pad

Sorry for the hiatus in the blogging.  I have been working on the West Point Women’s Club annual fundraiser, Viva Las Vegas!  Viva is a casino night with table games, bingo, a poker tournament, silent and live auctions as well as entertainment.  I was doing all the publicity for the event.  Between the meetings, emails, phone calls, documents and more meetings, it has taken up almost all of my “free” time over the last month.  After the event last Friday, I took this last week just to veg out after the event.  The West Point Women’s Club raises money, mainly through Viva Las Vegas, for our grant and scholarship programs.  Last year we gave away over $47,000! 

Andy and I had a great time at the event.  He played in the poker tournament and came in 2^nd place.  This was a $300 prize!  I spent almost all of this money on groceries last week alone.  We did buy him a pair of ice skates so he could skate with the kids during open skate at the ice rink.  The kids are thrilled that he is going to start skating with them and I am happy I did not have to spend money on groceries. 

I played craps almost the entire night.  Going into the event I had a game plan that included socializing, a round of bingo, some card games and the silent auction.  Well, I went to the craps table and never left.  Literally I think I went to the bathroom 1 time and the rest of the time was spent at the table.  It ended up paying off in the end because I won a brand new Kindle Fire.  This was one of the most coveted prizes of the night.  I was really excited to win.  When they called my number I was in disbelief for a moment but then jumped around a little bit before claiming my prize. 

The next morning Andy and I were discussing what to do with the Kindle Fire.  I already have a regular Kindle and an iPad.  Do we keep it, sell it, what?  We ultimately decided to give it to the kids.  They play a lot of games on our iPad and we decided that since the Kindle is really an iPad ‘light’ that it was the best decision.  That way if they break it, it was a free kindle, instead of a $500 iPad.  I had an internal debate with myself over giving such an expensive item to our kids.  Is this the right thing to do?  Are we spoiling them?  Is it a smart decision?  This is the 21^st century and most kids have tech gadgets.  Andy and I just decided that these gadgets are the way of the future and our kids would have one eventually, why not a free one?  They were thrilled.  They started calling it “the kids pad”.  We never even had to explain to them how to use it.  They figured it out all on their own.  I downloaded most of their apps and they jumped in with both feet.  We have to make sure they are sharing it and only using it for their allotted amount of time.  If not I think they would use it all day long. 

A few days ago I checked my email and there were some Amazon.com purchases on there; a 2 year Kindle Fire warrantee and a “Cars” DVD that we already had.  I called Andy at work to see if he ordered them.  We came to the consensus that the kids ordered them on ‘the kids pad’.  We also think it was unintentional.  There is an Amazon link on the main page of the Kindle and if you tap it the website comes up with a ‘deal of the day’.  The warrantee was one of these deals.  I am not sure about the ‘Cars” DVD but I am sure we will never really know.  I had to delete all of the links, apps and books, except for the few kid’s apps from the kindle and cancel the DVD order.  Now it is truly a ‘kid’s pad’ because the only thing that is on it are kids games.  I did keep the warrantee just in case they do decide to throw it at each other and it ends up broken.  I think Drew may have been onto something there.  In the end, we are all happy and I am happy to have my ‘free’ time back