Here she is......

I hosted a 'welcome back Tiffany' party tonight. I put the event on Facebook and pretty much let her invite whoever, but I asked if people would bring an 'American' item to give her. This evening when she got to my place I put a tiara on her head, gave her a sceptre, a boquet of flowers, and a sash I made that said, 'Tiff America.' Awesome. She had a blast with that. Almost everyone we invited came, we watched the videos of my trip to Germany from February, Denton played his ukulele, and much fun was had. Welcome back, Tiffany! America has missed you.

Ow, my Shins!

Ugh......this picture has made me realize that my hair has gotten to it's awkward 'triangulation' stage. Must do something about that. Women everywhere who whine about wanting thick and/or curly hair..........you don't know what you're saying. Seriously, it's a lot more work than you might think, and there's very little fun you can actually have with it when you spend all that time simply trying to not look stupid. Oh yeah, hey, guess what? I did stuff today, yay! I got up this morning to discover the cat had found the catnip, which was in a high cabinet on a shelf (Yeah, how exactly.......? My money's on the 'tiny stepladder' theory.) and he had gone on a bender. It was all over the stovetop and kitchen floor, the bag was completely empty and there were marks all over that made it look like he had rolled around in it. Oh to have been a fly on the wall............... I found him curled up asleep in the bathroom, covered in green flecks. It took a lot to wake him, too. The rotten punk. Tonight we had an Anomaly Orange rehearsal so we could practice with our monologist for this Saturday's show. It was fun and we all went to Uno's afterward and had some deep dish pizza. Here's us looking cute, except for my hair. Must do something about that.

Voll nuss

The girls had physicals today to make sure they're physically healthy for back to school. Judging by this picture it's a good thing they don't require psychological exams as well. My favorite part of the whole thing is their completely deadpan facial expressions. FYI, this was shot without their knowledge. 100% candid. As in THIS is what they DOOOOO. The girls are getting quite big, Bri has shot up five inches in the past year (five!) Leigha came in at a respectable four. Brianna had to get four shots today, poor thing, but they both got lollipops and stickers for their trouble. The doctor's orders for her 'recovery' were, 'Make sure you play hard this afternoon.' And that's just what she did. Leigha helped. She's a good big sister like that.

Oh what a happy time we'll spend!

We only have one full day with Lynette so we decided to do....everything. We started out by going to a Brittish tea shop I've been dying to take her to. I'm sure she could have happily spent all day in there if it wasn't for Brianna's grabby little hands. Poor thing, it's just so hard not to touch when everything is so shiny and smells good. We went from there to Union Station so Lynette could check out the Narnia exhibit. It's rather expensive so I decided not to go a second time myself, but Jason hadn't seen it so it all worked out. I walked around Union Station while they went through. We met back up again and headed to Jerusalem Cafe for some fantastic Mediterranian food, then we went to the Starlight Theater for the opening night of the Kansas City run of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I'd say ninety percent of ticketholders could care less about the rest of the show beyond the 'Ah, it's a flying car!!!! And it's right there in front of me!!!!' part. I loved the whole thing, except for the fact that it felt like they seriously rushed the second half. It was like, 'great, great, great, FLYING CAR!!, intermission, great, FLYING CAR!!!, wait, it's over???' Also, the guy who played the dad dissapointed me during the part where he's supposed to be the Baron's birthday present and do that dance with Truly Scrumptious. I truly believed he was a man in a costume. He didn't even try to act like a toy, which is what he was supposed to be at that time. I know it's a children's show, but come on man, you're still representing Broadway! Anyhow.............yeah. It was really fun and cute, and since it was at The Starlight, we got to see lightning bugs responding to the light cues, which is always amusing.

That Guffman.........such a slow dude.

My sister Lynette flew in to Kansas City today with Leigha in tow after her two week stay in Nevada. Boy how I wish that sentance was the whole of it. They left from Sacramento (a two hour drive from Reno, since we can't get Lynette tickets out of Reno. The arline doesn't go there anymore. DUMB.) early early in the morning to make the 6am flight to Denver. The flights from Denver into Kansas City were full all day so we wanted to get them as many chances to make it in as possible. For good measure we also sent Jason out there because 1. he has an employee discount to all the shops and restaurants in airports, 2. Lynette could use an extra set of hands dealing with Leigha and carrying their stuff, 3. When the employee flies with the pass riders they have a better chance of getting on and 4. He wouldn't even take up an extra seat since he's allowed to fly jumpseat IN THE COCKPIT. (Rethinking your desk job now, huh? Mua ha ha!) So Bri and I were the only ones at home today, waiting for word that they got on a flight. Unfortunately, they got bumped, and bumped, and bumped. They keep saying on the news that airline travel is down and flights are empty........I want you all to know what a load of baloney that is. Blah blah, airlines dropping flights, blah blah.....our airline hasn't lost a single route or dropped any flights from the roster and our flights are full, full, people clinging to the wings full. Jason and I have had to use other airlines when flying this Summer because of it! Unfortunately, as I said before, we couldn't get Lynette passes on other airlines or else they could have flown out of Reno. Back to the story at hand now, Bri and I waited for the 'we got on a flight!' call and it never came. At one point Jason said, 'Nine people didn't show up so they're going to release their seats.' Unfortunately, those nine people came running up in a group at the last second. Lame. Board when you're supposed to, people, you're holding up everybody else. It got later, Bri and I had dinner together, Jason made plans to stay with some friends of ours in Denver overnight, and there was one last flight of the day that was full up but they decided to try for it anyhow. It delayed for an hour because of weather (naturally) but lo and behold, they all got seats on that plane! Jason called while they were walking down the jetway and I said, "What??? Really???? Awesome!" They made it to the house about midnight. Oh, yeah, the picture. I told Bri to make sad faces with me so we could post a picture of us looking sad if they got bumped and the sad face turned into a full on crazy face war. You're welcome.

Dilophosaurus, rawr!!!

Busy day, lots of doings. We had a 'worship team workshop' this afternoon. Eric got a bunch of music theory dvd's specifically designed for churches. They were super helpful! I also had a Sketchy Thoughts rehearsal. Here's Aaron, Clay, Nick, and Mandy listening as Matt describes his vision for the 50's sci fi movie we're writing by improvising it out. So far it's coming along very nicely. I'd tell you how it ends, but like all good 50's sci fi movies, you'll have to just come and watch as it plays out as predictably as a train rolling down the tracks. The good news is I can promise you it's about a thousand times more entertaining as that train. (The train was carrying corn and nobody was fighting on top of it. See? Boring! We're more fun.) We have a Sam's Club box of Otter Pops at our house at the moment. Jason and I have devised a great system to make Bri ask permission to have one: She must first say her ABC's. Today he decided she's getting too good at that, and made her also count 1-20. She'll be speaking in Latin by the time she starts Kindergarten at this rate.

Back to creepy

I had another KC improv festival meeting this morning. We've come to the point where there is less descision making and more action in implementing descisions we've made. I can't believe how close it is! I'm excited for it. After the meeting I came home and Chelsea babysat Bri for a couple hours while I took an improv class. When Jason got home we had dinner then began the long and dreaded process of back to school shopping. Yup. Somewhere there's a creepy mountain path leading to a rain drenched ill constructed castle that is consistently backlit by lightning and permanently permeated by the sounds of thunder and mad scientist cackling. Somewhere. We can't do it all tonight because Leigha is still in Nevada and they haven't put out the fourth grade supply list yet, but we needed to get a jump start on things and we had the kindergarten list, so we decided to go ahead and tackle the bulk of that list before they ran out of necessities and we were forced to buy the weird colored markers because Target never stocks more than three of the colors they ask for on EVERYBODY'S list and the parents who scramble at the last minute are forced to buy their kids markers like 'tropical magenta' instead of 'red' like all the other kids have. We also got some extras of things that run out quickly that we just know will be on Leigha's list. I can't believe school is just around the corner!

Rites of passage

When Leigha turned five we celebrated the milestone birthday by getting her ears pierced and taking her to her first Broadway musical. Since Brianna turned five in June, it's her turn! We decided not to get her pierced right away, though, since she was going with my parents and I didn't want to say, 'Okay, it's on you to keep her from getting infected. Here's a q-tip.' So we waited until she was back and we were sufficiently between trips so that we can allow for healing time and whatnot. We took her to Claire's this evening (Leigha got to go to Club Libby Lu, but since it closed, I couldn't very well take Bri there, and there's nowhere else in the KC metro I found that's even close that does piercing. Lame!) and she got to sit in the special chair and hold the special bear that doesn't seem to have any kind of special name (perhaps 'Stabby' was taken?) and she barely made a wincing face. Seriously, she didn't even say 'Ouch.' Good girl! We asked her where she wanted to have dinner after and she said, 'Mc Donalds!' So we subjected ourselves to the kids who scream in the play area because their parents never let them out of the house and figure it's okay to allow them to act like b horror movie extras in public when they do let them out of the house. *twitch* That's how much we love you, kid.

Oh, and she chose the pink studs. We were shocked she didn't get the pink flower shaped ones, but she said, 'I want the crystals!' 'They're all crystals, Bri.' 'Yeah, that's what I want. I want the crystals!' 'What color?' 'Crystals!' 'The pink ones?' 'Yeah. Pink. Pink crystals!' *sigh.......*

I (literally) feel your pain

Could you all do me a favor and talk to me about kittens, rainbows, unicorns and faeries for the next few days? It's really hard to be an empathetic person when all your friends are going through stages of depression, anger, and heartache. Don't get me wrong, I love being to 'heart to heart go-to gal,' but when it piles up all at once, it can really wear on me. My stomach hurts right now due to other's stresses. *sigh* So basically, if you all started feeling awesome it would really help me at the moment. *projects out kittens and rainbows* That ought to getcha started. Hey, good news! Tiffany is back in America! Yay! We met up today and had some coffee (incidentally, my favorite coffee shop is closed now. Just when I got a full punch card, too! Booooo!) then window shopped in Westport. Fun stuff! It was great seeing her again, I haven't seen her since I went out to Germany in February. The phone is a wonderful invention, but it's just not the same. This afternoon when I came home I made myself a cup off coffee....bacon flavored coffee! (*waits for the squeamish weenies to go cry somewhere*) I found it online and it was cheap enough that if it was completely disgusting I wouldn't care too much, so how could I not order some? It's really good, but it smells more like bacon than it tastes and it doesn't smell that much like bacon. For the most part, it's just super tasty regular coffee flavored coffee. It does have a hint of the, 'huh.......what's that?' in it, but for the most part, yup. Regular flavored. That's okay. Just saying I have bacon coffee at my house is enough for me.

A mild show of incredulity

Jen and I got together and had coffee today. She talked about her life, I talked about mine, and we both talked about improv and our troupe. It's great to have her in my life. Jen, if you're reading this, I appreciate the crap out of you. I feel incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends in my life, both near and far. You know who you are. I am beginning to feel old man change hanging out nearby again. I don't know if it has to do with me going back to school this fall or something else, but something big is about to happen. Let's see where this road takes us. Tonight my church premiered the Veggie Tales movie, 'Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella.' I've always been a fan of Veggie Tales, even before I had kids. I would have come tonight without my kids! (and technically speaking, I did, if you count the fact that with Leigha in Nevada I'm down to 'kid' as opposed to 'kids' at the moment.) Here is a picture of Eric proudly wearing his Larry Boy shirt. I used to have a Larry Boy shirt. I need to get a new one.

Talking Heads

We drove home today, arriving just in time for me to get to rehearsals. My brain being as inactive as it was today, I felt pretty blah about my personal performance tonight. After rehearsal, food was had while I waited for Jason to come get me. Here is a flattering picture of Jen, Hans, and Tom, and one where I look awful, due to my exhaustion and dissapointment regaurding afforementioned personal performance.

Contraband chicken nuggets

We went to see the house Jacob and Carla are buying this morning. It's so huge! I hope it all works out for them, the place would be sooooo good for them! We went to the park this afternoon with all the kids and saw a friend from way back in the day, mostly we just hung out and caught up on things. This evening we all went to the Picketwire Theater and Jason, Bri and I sat in on the second to last dress rehearsal for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! The production is being directed by my pottery teacher from high school. Weird. Here's a picture of Jacob and Carla and their three oldest (of five) Jacob is playing Mr. Bucket (Charlie's father), Carla is an extra, basically (she has the cutest dance with a giant soup pot), and the kids (Nathan, Melody and Destiny) are Oompa Loompas. In the middle is Chad, a great friend of mine (We go way back) who is playing Willie Wonka. He isn't wearing the big red coat in this picture, but his costume is just fantabulous. Click on the image and check out all the detail, it's great. And then, of course, there's Jason, Bri and I, and we played audience members. After the rehearsal we all went to Village Inn for late night crepes and theater chat. Good times, good times. Oh, and I think I've finally convinced everyone of how very cool it would be to come visit us in Kansas City! *Squee!*

Schvim and Vigour

After church we laundered and re packed our clothing, then went to Grayson's birthday party. He's the son of some friends of ours (from church) and he's turning six! Here's a cute picture of all the kids watching him open presents. It looks like he's about to be eaten. After the cake and presents there was swimming. Fun fun! We left a little early because we were headed somewhere (hence the packing) so we hopped in the car and drove for eight hours, until we arrived in Southeastern Colorado in the little town Jason and I used to live in. Yup. We are staying with our awesome friends Jacob and Carla. Oh yeah, and Jason ran over a poor innocent bunny rabbit on the way here.

Sad day.

Last day of the festival. *sniffle sniffle* I took three workshops today, Jill Bernard's 'Truth and Beauty,' Joe Bill's 'Power Scenework' and Tyler Bryce's 'Musical Improv.' I feel ready to just go out and rock the improv world right at this moment, seriously. Great stuff. That is my notebook that I made last Summer for the Annoyance Intensive that I took. In case you're asking why there's a fire hydrant on the cover, the simple answer is 'it just goes there.' That notebook is swiftly becoming one of my best friends, I swear. I get a little bit excited every time I see the cover, seriously. We had to get home due to obligations on Sunday, so unfortunately I was unable to stay for the shows tonight, but that's okay. I made a ton of new friends and connection and we all had a blast. Brianna enjoyed some quality one on one time with her daddy, and Jason said, "That was fun, we should do it again next year." I hope we do too.

Electric boogie-loo

Wow. This is such a blast! I mean, seriously! I went to three workshops today, Jill Bernard's 'Fireball Theory,' Joe Bill's 'Improv Toolkit' and my friend Clint Vrazil's workshop, 'Improv Rapping.' Yup, I learned how to rap today. Aw yeah. I took a ton of notes. The shows tonight were great, I befriended all the groups, the locals and the guys from Atlanta, Austin, and a group from Denver called 'Fork.' This is me with Jon Jon of Fork and Jill Bernard of everything awesome that has ever been done. (She's from Minneapolis and she's an improv legend, seriously.) Oh, and in case you're wondering, Jason and Bri went to the zoo today, it just happened to be the free day. They also went to the capital. and Bricktown. We've both decided it would pretty much rock to come back here at some other time, Oklahoma City is great!

Karaoke Superstars

This morning we did what we do best: We packed for a trip! We loaded up the car, I did a kid's improv workshop at a library, then we drove down to Oklahoma City for their first ever improv festival! We checked into our hotel then went across the street to a restaurant that served as the kickoff point for the festival. Oh yeah, and it was karaoke night. Yay! This is a picture of Joe Bill (famous in the improv scene) singing 'I want it that way' while a group of Oklahoma 'provers danced in synch (ha ha, I get it.) and sang with him. The first 'dancer' on the right hand side is a guy named Clint. He was in my class last year at The Annoyance and he happens to live in OKC. It's great seeing him again, and I got to introduce everyone to Jason and Bri. Can't wait for tomorrow's workshops!

Pointed remarks

Attention: We bought a laser pointer with which to drive Spartacus crazy. It works. Thank you, that is all.

Coughie

I went out to lunch today with Aimee Scott. Yay!! She's awesome! We go to church together and she keeps trying to convince me that Brianna was no trouble at all in her Sunday school class. I don't believe that for a second. Who would? We walked around after lunch, popping into various stores and lingering over cute aprons at a kitchen shop neither of us had been to. It was fun, we must get together again in the future. I had an amazing rehearsal tonight with AO. I love how connected we've become. It makes all the difference in the quality of scenes you produce. We did heavy scenework and discussed business then practiced the Armando longform. Massive awesome sugar coated goodness. Oh, and I am in one of my moods. Yup, yup. No telling why. Just am. Puppies!

Quantity is Job #1

Leigha and I flew out to Reno today. It's her turn to spend a couple weeks with my parents all by herself. I had a few hours on the ground so we enjoyed a nice lunch at Chevy's (remember them? They make fresh tortillas right in front of you. Shame on anyone who prefers On The Border!) then went to a fabric store to find a pattern and material for Leigha. She's going to make her own first day of school outfit while there. Fun! I flew home in the afternoon and when we landed in Kansas City, we were on the runway slowing down and we were almost at taxiing speed when there was a tremendous bumping jolt that shocked the plane. Every passenger went, "Whoa!" It felt like we hit a speed bump or a deer or something. That was incredibly bizarre. What's more strange is that as I was coming off the plane I asked the pilot what we hit and he said, "Oh, we're not sure, we think it was the brakes." I described the situation to Jason and he said, "Well, yeah, sometimes brakes seize up when they get too hot, but that's weird." I wonder what actually happened.

Pack mule

We had a lot going on today. Luckilly it was all stuff Jason was able to pretty much sit down and enjoy without having the hassle of moving a whole lot. Church this morning (I had to drive through a scary rainstorm to get there and we lost power twice) a rehearsal in the afternoon, then a barbeque at Denton's in the evening. One of his friends loves to make balloon animals and the girls got really excited about that. Leigha even made a pretty decent giraffe! In this picture Bri is blowing up a balloon with an air pump. I'm pretty sure it never got properly tied off or made into anything, but I could be wrong.

Now back to our sporadically scheduled life

Today was the first day Jason and I had things going on that weren't just 'Do you feel like it?' things. We were ready to drop anything and everything for as long as we needed to, so today was kind of a trial run. I had a short meeting this morning so I helped Jason get fed, cleaned up, dressed, and downstairs to his hidey hole (thank goodness our kids are old enough to get their own cereal and stuff!) then ran out to my meeting. This is a cool picture I snapped while there, I thought it was funny how three of us were using laptops to take notes, and I love the way it captures the feeling of a meeting without actually showing people. Plus the color contrasts of the black computers and white cup is really neat, not to mention the light playing off the tabletop. I rushed home to find that everything was just fine, so I got everyone saddled up and Jason and I were off to music practice. I carried his bass over my shoulder as he hobbled up to the stage. It's amazing the kind of sympathy he can attain. "Oh, that poor guy. He's wearing shorts so you can clearly see an ankle to knee medical dressing on one leg and a prosthetic where the other one should be, AND he's on crutches? This guy can't catch a break!" I made a joke today along the lines of 'Jason has four legs and none of them work right.' We got a few essentials at Wal Mart after that, then treated ourselves to some icy beverages at Sonic. When we got home I managed to get all the dishes done, cook a meal, AND make a heaping bowl of potato salad for a friend's barbeque tomorrow, all while running up and down the stairs to get Jason water or icepacks or whatever. You soccer mom's thing you're so hot, you ain't got nothing on me! Oh, you volunteer for greenpeace and you're on the PTA? That's nice. I take care of my poor crippled husband and two kids while being able to almost keep up with the dishes today. Booya!

Jailbreak!

We are a flighty little flock, by nature, and don't stay well whecooped up in a cage for long periods of time. This evening we made our escape! We put an icepack on Jason's knee and went out for some drive through cuisine. Poor guy was just dying to be anywhere other than downstairs. We took our dinner to a local park and enjoyed our freedom, with just enough guilt to feel like we were doing something slightly naughty. You look at fast food differently when you haven't gone anywhere but your basement for the past two days. We also figured out something rather magical: Jason can scoot up the stairs on his butt! Why didn't we think of this before? So I allowed him to come upstairs to sleep in bed rather than on the couch. (hey, back off, I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor next to the couch.) It's amazing the things you can take for granted when everything in your life is cruising along normally.

P.S.-If you look just over my right shoulder you can see Leigha's eye. I'm curious to know what the rest of her face was doing.

.......And sweet.

Jason had knee surgery this morning. He had a tear in one of the ligaments on the knee in his complete leg. They wanted to get it fixed quick because he doesn't have a backup at all, so today was the day. The good news is it was a laproscopic procedure and the healing time is minimal. The bad news is he doesn't really have a way to get around. We have stairs. We got home after the surgery and I confined him to the couch downstairs. (it's where the action is, really.) This is a picture I took just after he came home. I like to think that he's smiling because he's dreaming about kittens.

Deeyenvewr

A little while ago my good friend Sam sent me a message on Facebook. "Hey, I'll be in Denver visiting my parents from the 1st through the 15th. You should try to come out!" I checked my schedule, and, well, gosh darn it all if it wasn't full up busy. Except for one itty bitty day, sandwiched directly between one trip and Jason having knee surgery, with who knows how long of a recovery time. I said, "Okay.........I can come, but only on the 8th and not for very long." The 8th it was....er.........is...was? *confoozled* So the girls and I set out this morning for Denver. We got in about 8:40 this morning, Sam picked us up and we went to Starbucks. Mmmm. I took this picture there and showed it to her. She said, "Oh......my eyes are closed. Oh well, I look better that way." So we didn't retake it. Hoekay then. We went from there to Cherry Creek, our favorite mall of shopping trips past when we both lived in Denver. We spent some time reminiscing, catching up, but mostly cruising the mall and laughing at bad outfits and cooing over cute shoes. All too soon our time was over, and at 2 I found myself back at the airport coming home. It was good seeing her, even if it was incredibly brief. I got home and Jason and I put the kids to bed a little early and chilled in front of the TV. Yeah, we need a little of that. We are both slightly exhausted!

Wicked Casio, Jason......

We packed up early this morning and headed out, reluctant to leave but eager to return to our own lives........with internet access. We stopped off at Sheila's briefly to pick up some things, including a piano that belonged to Jason's grandmother. He wants to learn keyboard and it was willed to him. *shrug* Yeah, so we got home late this afternoon and made sammiches for dinner. I had a great rehearsal this evening and Jason and the kids went to the airport to say goodbye to John and Emily, who are flying home to San Fransisco. It was so great seeing everyone! I called Jason on the way home from rehearsal to let him know I was on my way and I heard a strange noise. It took me a second to process that it was the keyboard. I laughed so hard! When I got home he said, 'Wait a minute, wait a minute, I gotta show you this!' He started playing a badly synthesized beat on the keyboard. "Aw yeah. We're cruisin' now!" I started singing 'Tainted Love,' since the beat was perfect for it, and he tapped a 'bzzt bzzt' key at the appropriate minutes. Jason, I know you read this, and I want you to know that that does NOT count as 'learning to play the keyboard.' Nerd-o.

I Need a Boat

Our last day here! We had a great breakfast this morning, monkey bread and cantaloupe. Mmm! Then we changed into our suits, went out to the boat, hooked up the awesome floaty tubey thingy we got, and went tubein'! (there's no 'g.' If you say 'tubeing' you're wrong. I don't care who you are or where you live.) We all took turns on the floaty with Tim at the wheel doing his darndest to shake us off. He got pretty upset when he was unsuccessful. I screamed my poor throat raw! *sniffle sniffle* When everyone had had their fill we went back in the cove by the dock and went swimming. Leigha and Bri are getting really good at jumping off the back deck of the boat! Leigha is doing cannonballs and Bri is......well, actually jumping! She's been too scared before today. We swam for a good long while and then everyone piled onto the boat and we went across the lake to a marina to gas up and get some ice cream. Every marina out here has fish food that you can toss off the side to feed the carp that hang out just waiting for tourist season. They are so cool! They mass on top of each other trying to get the food until they literally come out of the water they're so piled up! The girls loved it! We took a different route back to the cove.

Evening was coming on, the sun was setting. Jason and I sat in the very front with Bri. The temperature was just perfect and the wind from the motion of the boat was so nice. The water was almost glassy! I love it here. It's almost magic...or maybe 'almost' hasn't got a place in this sentance. We had dinner out on the deck just as a full moon rose and reflected across the water, making a white wavy path that seemed to stretch from our side of the lake all the way to the horizon.

Coulda Been a Horse

Pretty much the first thing we did today was go out on the boat. I sat in the front as we zipped

through the water waving to the other boaters and jet skiiers enjoying the beautiful day. We found a nice quiet cove and settled in for some swimming and an epic game of marco polo. When we got what we felt was the exact right amount of sunburn, we decided to pack it in. We came back to the house to discover that it was nearly three (wow?!) So we put the brisket in the oven and the ladies all went to the grocery store to snag a few things. While we were there, Emily grabbed brownie mix and marshmallow fluff and said, "okay, so here's what I'm thinking. We make brownies, and in the middle we put crushed graham crackers mixed with marshmallow fluff. Oh, I'm so on board with that! We came back and ate our lunch/dinner then everyone chilled for a bit. I was tired so I opted out of swimming again and took a nap instead. I needed that, the sun really takes it out of you! We lit off the rest of the fireworks as dark settled in, and Brianna decided not to be scared this time, which was a major bonus. Oh, and FYI......those brownies were delicious!

Tick tick BOOM!

Happy 4th! This morning we got up and drove the rest of the way to our destination, Greer's Ferry Lake, a really huge, amazing lake in Arkansas that the family has been going to for years now. Long before I met Jason, even! It used to be that Jason's grandfather lived there, but now he lives in Memphis with Pete and Eva, so the house we used to have available to us is no longer able for us to use. The lake is really special to us, however, so Jason's mom rented a house for us all for the weekend! We arrived early this morning. Jason's mom, Tim, John and his girlfriend Emily and now Jason, the girls and I are here. The first thing we did was run into town. Sheila said she had to check on a boat. We had talked about renting a boat, so this didn't come as a shock to anyone...........the fact that she meant she had to check on a boat because SHE WAS BUYING ONE did. Yup, a boat. A beatiful speedboat. We got lifevests and drove the boat (John and Sheila drove the cars) to the dock at the rented house, to the envious looks of the other boaters on the lake. We got into the house and got changed into our swimsuits........when it started to rain. Bummer. We decided to stow the boating adventure for the moment, but we still went swimming. As long as we were getting wet, we might as well have fun. When we got tired of swimming we grilled up burgers and hot dogs and had dinner, while waiting for the rain to stop. When it finally did we grabbed the fireworks and began to light them off. It began to threaten rain again and Sheila said, "Well, if it starts pouring we'll just pack it in and finish this tomorrow." The second the words were out of her mouth the heavens opened up and pelted us with a heavy downpour! We laughed as we grabbed the fireworks and scrambled for the house. We cozied up with a board game instead. Good, good times.

And we're off...again

I slept in pretty late today, go figure. When I got up I ran around, packing stuff and getting things in order. Jason came home and dropped me off at the theater for my show at 7 (I got to play a rejected James Bond villain! Yay!) and pretty much the second it was over we were on the road, heading South. We only drove as far as Jason's mom's house tonight, Jason had to work today and he's tired. Where are we going? Oooh......I love a little mystery. You'll just have to wait for tomorrow's entry! (Unless there's not internet connectivity, in which case......mua ha hhahahahhahaaaaaa!)

Touchdown Turnaround

Crazy crazyness..........oy, ugh, and bleh. Today was the day I flew out to get Bri from Nevada. We started out at 4am with the getting up and hygenicness and whatnot, then we all set out for the airport, Jason, Leigha and I. Jason got clearance from his boss to allow Leigha to stay with him at work all day so that I could go out and get Bri a little easier. (full flights and whatnot) So I got on a flight to Vegas at 7am, arriving at 8am, had some 'Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf' coffee (awesome coffeeshop chain in California/Nevada/I dunno where else, but West of here. Wish we had them) and went for a power walk around MacCarren. (Bleh.) I boarded my flight to Reno at 9:00 am and landed in Reno at 10am. I walked around the corner to the unsecured area and Bri flung herself at me, clinging to my neck like velcro. She had fun, but she was ready to come home, sweet thing that she is. My parents took me to In-N-Out Burger for lunch, my mom and I did some car maneuvering, and then we went to Legends at Sparks. Yup, they have one too! I believe theirs is the second of several planned 'Legends' malls. We went to Scheels and rode the giant ferris wheel (yeah, I'm afraid of heights, have I ever mentioned that? 'Cause it's crazy bad.) then walked around the mall for a bit before going to my dad's work to pick him up. Long story short, Uncle David and Aunt Wanda bought a house that had a nice spa in it, but they already had one they liked, so my parents are getting it. Why is this important? Because my dad was going out to pick it up today, by flying to Denver. Through Vegas. The same Reno-Vegas flight we were going to take! So yeah, my mom dropped us off at the airport, we went through security, then got a row of seats and partied all the way down the state of Nevada. We had dinner together in Vegas before we parted ways for our different destinations. That was really fun, I like that we got to do that. We finally arrived in Kansas City this evening at midnight, exhausted and travel worn, but with our little family back together again. The girls are so excited to see each other, and I'm just glad to have my feet on solid ground again.

The true meaning of Summer.

Okay........yeah. Best. Picture. Ever!