Exceptional Days

What a great weekend it was; it started like like mostly all of my weekends have in the past 8 months with my Saturday morning Gamblers Anonymous meeting which I have the honor of being a Co-Secretary. This week was my turn to administer the meeting and I chose a somewhat new member to help chair the meeting. It is so nice to get people involved in the Program because I know it has helped me tremendously over these past 8 months. My term of being a Co-Secretary is coming to end at the end of December because we rotate the position every 6 months. I have been very blessed by Gamblers Anonymous and although I won't be a Co-Secretary in January I will still attend the meeting because the Program has been a Godsend for me.

I have to say this again and I will continue to say this over and over again; my fellow members in GA are fantastic people and I am so grateful to have them as part of my life. Each member has given me such strength and hope. I know there is life after gambling and it is a beautiful life with a strong sense of purpose.

Saturday evening we had friends over for dinner. These friends do represent my new life and I truly consider them good friends. I would also like to add they are friends with my wife as well. I met them through the GA Program and we share a great many common interests. Of course the one main interest was gambling and although our gambling "types" were different we still could not control it which led us to seek help. My friend has been in the program one year longer than I and I am so thankful to have met this person.

I made lasagna topped with my father's homemade spaghetti sauce. Of course me being the "picky" eater that I am I had to make two trays of lasagna; one for me and one for everyone else! My lasagna had only mozzarella cheese in it while the other tray had ricotta and mozzarella cheese in it. As most of you know I am a vegetarian and eat very little in the way of dairy products. The only dairy products I consume are mozzarella cheese and yogurt so I couldn't add the ricotta cheese to my lasagna. The dinner went very well, the lasagnas and sauce came out great. Everyone enjoyed themselves and the evening went very quickly. It was a lovely way to spend a Saturday evening.

On Sunday other friends of ours were kind enough to invite our family to Knottsberry Farm which is an amusement park about an hour away from our home. The park had a promotion for Armed Forces Veterans and our friends were gracious enough to ask if we wanted to join them. We said yes and the 8 of us had a great time. They have children the same ages as ours and everyone usually gets along very well. Sunday was no exception; the girls and especially even the boys got along great.

This particular amusement park has lots of roller coasters and most of them my son did not meet the minimum height requirement but he was okay with it. My daughter who is seven LOVES roller coasters and she was in Heaven on Sunday. We went on a category 5 (which is the highest "thrill" level) roller coaster together. She had a blast and wanted to go on it again. This roller coaster was of the design of the "older" wooden type roller coasters which did not go up side down but it had serious drops and serious turns at high speeds. I would rate this roller coaster as "violent" but this did not deter my daughter from loving the ride. Yes, she was screaming the whole time but this scream was done with a smile from ear to ear. What an amazing child she is.

I was also able to go on an "adult" roller coaster with my friend which went upside down several times and it also had many many twists and turns while dangling from the seat on the roller coaster. The ride was very quick but I thought it was great because I never experienced gravity forces (G-forces) before. I thought it to be quite "cool" to have my face and legs compressed as we were twisting, looping and turning through the ride. I think my daughter will love this ride when she gets tall enough to ride it.

We had packed a picnic lunch so we were not subjected to the $80 lunch tab!! There wasn't any episodes or incidents with anyone and it was a fabulous day. This was great way to spend a Sunday with the family as my son said; "it was a GREAT family day".