Twinkies - More fun to say than to eat

Before starting each weekend Brandon's unit does a safety briefing where everyone is warned of the dangers of driving/boating/dating under the influence of alcohol.  Brandon always wishes there was some sort of "I don't drink - EVER" box he could check to get out of the briefing each week, but there's not, so he has to listen to it.  

Brandon also has to tell his team leader what his plans for the weekend include.  He's earned quite the reputation for being a pretty boring guy.  Usually his weekend plans are something along the lines of "hang out in town with the family."  This weekend he was very excited that his plans included, "Go to the park and eat Twinkies." Oh the adventures of a father with young kids.  

The whole eating Twinkies thing came about because of the movie Wall-E.  My Dad brought Wall-E out for movie night when he came to visit.  He left it with us and it has quickly become one of the kids' favorite movies.  I'm in love with it too because Andrew Stanton wrote and directed it - which means it's brilliant.  We watch it about once a day.  

Anyway, in case you haven't seen Wall-E, it's about a robot who is cleaning up trash on earth while all the people are waiting in space for the planet to be hospitable to life again.  It's been 700 years and Wall-E is still doing his job.  The beginning of the movie shows him all alone except for a cockroach.  At one point Wall-E opens up a Twinkie for the cockroach - which is a subtle joke about how Twinkies are still preserved even after 700 years.

The girls are super curious about everything they see so naturally they started asking me what the Twinkie was.  I told them it was a cookie which only made them more interested.  Then I remembered that Hostess is back in business and so we could actually HAVE Twinkies.  So I promised the girls that we would buy some Twinkies one day.

Charlotte loved the sound of the word Twinkie so she made sure we talked about Twinkies a lot so she could have the chance to say it over and over again.  She'd say, "TWINK-EE" and then laugh.    

Friday ended up being a day off for Brandon so we decided that we'd make time to go to the park and eat Twinkies.  This was our ONLY plan for the weekend which is an example of how draining the last few days of a pregnancy can be.  I mean our camping trip 6 or so weeks ago didn't seem as hard this trip felt.  Packing a picnic lunch, putting the picnic blanket in the car, and driving to the park all seemed like so much work.   (It didn't help that the kids had all been up at annoying times during the night and that Brandon had basically been up since 3:00 am because Lydia wouldn't go back to sleep.)

Anyway, we made it to the park and tried to get the kids to eat something healthy first.  The girl's had fallen asleep in the car and so they were pretty groggy.  Charlotte just laid on the bench and kept saying that she didn't feel very well.

But then we got out the Twinkies and she sat up for that.

I'm not sure what the girls were expecting Twinkies to be like, but they seemed a little underwhelmed by them.  Charlotte took maybe 2 bites of hers and then licked out some of the filling.  Lydia took a long time to eat hers.

Derrick didn't even notice we were eating Twinkies at first.  He was having enough fun with all the rocks and dirt.

Lydia moved over by Brandon and kept working on her Twinkie.

Derrick eventually noticed the food and came over to get some.  He loved the Twinkies and ate his two really fast.

Brandon and I remarked that the Twinkies didn't taste as good as we remember.  We decided that was because we were also eating apples and nectarines which were A LOT sweeter and more full of flavor than the Twinkies.

That was basically it for the "adventure."  No one complained when we got back in the car and drove home.  It was worth it though.  Later Charlotte, who'd only had two bites of her Twinkie, kept telling me, "I like Twinkies."  (I think she just likes to say the word.)