In Which the Gentlemen Meet the Usual Suspects

Yesterday, my precious girls turned 17.  Seventeen!

To celebrate, we had a history class meeting at our house.  Because I'm just that mean.

Actually, we invited Capt. Brock and Sgt. Lawless over to meet the Usual Suspects, and yes, to talk with them a bit about the Civil War.

Captain J.D. Brock

Sergeant Rufus Lawless

I asked my girls if they were going to "dress" for the evening.  Hailey replied that she'd wear a nice sweater.  Claire laughed, because she knew I meant this:

Things started out well.

But then, Capt. Brock and Rufus got into a terrible argument in front of the whole history class.

                            

They brought out guns!

Things did not end well for poor Rufus.

But the gentlemen made up and things improved.   (It looks like Rufus was still a little mad about the whole shooting thing, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't.)

Rufus told the infamous story of the dread "Stumpleg."  I pity you if you have never heard "Stumpleg."

Then the kids took turns telling a bunch of stories.  Most of the stories were scary.  The parents may never forgive me.  I have lots of lovely pictures of happy kids, but if I put them all over the internet, the parents really might never forgive me.  So just imagine a large group of splendid-looking teens and pre-teens, rolling on the floor laughing.

And because it was, after all, a birthday, cake was involved.  A 4-layer chocolate cake - that's one up on Mrs. Cheever!  (*See my last blog post.)

What a great evening!  What a great bunch of people.  Thank you all for being part of Hailey's and Claire's birthday, and for bringing to much to our lives every day.  See?  Celebrating your birthday with a history class isn't actually so bad after all.