wheels

I debated titling this post 'survivor' but decided to go with the obvious and talk about the less obvious. First of all happy Friday to everyone and TGIF to one and all! At least here in southern California it was a glorious week spring weather-wise - even verging on too hot - and a very busy week to say the least otherwise!

Being forced to clean his room under great duress, the Mouse closed himself in his private quarters for a very lengthly period of time, and as he was 'cleaning', he took out his old bin of Hot Wheels. Or, it should be stated, the bin of surviving Hot Wheels. I gotta tell ya... those Hot Wheels bring back a ton of memories.

Over the years, my 3 boys have been through literally thousands of Hot Wheels cars. Including the sacred few John happened to save from when he was a boy. I believe they have set the record for everything that could be done with and to a Hot Wheels car. Set up an elaborate network of tracks encompassing two floors of the house - duct taped to every surface. Organized neighborhood races/trading events. Whipped each other with the old orange plastic track. Set up tables and sold their cars on street corners. Tied cars to the cat's tail. Organized every car by color, or category, or by fastest to what a joke. Played Criss-Cross-Crash for hours. And hours. And hours. Oh, the batteries we went through! Decorated all the VW Bugs with Sharpies. Okay - that was me. Smashed them to smithereens with hammers. Doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. After the latter two activities, we put the survivors in the bin and moved on to less juvenile hall prone hobbies.

But I must say, the only reason I put up with all their Hot Wheels shenanigans for so many years - and even encouraged it - was because I am the biggest Hot Wheels lover of them all. It's true. I absolutely LOVE them. A super cool, smooth and fast, shiny new car for 99 cents? How can you not love that? Biggest bang for your buck. And Hot Wheels came out with new models all the time - as well as reissuing my favorite classic models from time to time too. Although I must confess I was slightly horrified when they came out with that toilet model. 

I miss Hot Wheels. I really do. It's one of the things I miss most about my kids growing up and not playing with anymore. I don't miss stepping on them or finding them in the washing machine, but I miss everything else about them. Especially my kids laughter as they played with them.  

I was always a fan of the Bug models of course :)

A few surviving drag racers still looking pretty scary

I think this may be the one and only "old time" survivor

the heavy duty 4-WD trucks - the Mouse said his favorite was always the big truck with the flames :)

HAVE AN AWESOME WEEKEND EVERYONE!!!