Break's over.

Hokayyy then, so I took a slightly longer break than I had intended, but I'm cute so you'll let it slide. And we're back! Today's picture is me about to study at my favorite spot on campus, a courtyard with a lot of benches and trees. Yes, that's my pet guinea pig Terwilliger, isn't he cute? Sometimes he does the cutest thing where he turns black and a bunch of white dots shoot toward me like stars. He's great with perspective.

21,198

One of the questions I keep getting is, "So.......how much DO you guys travel?" So I decided I'd calculate the miles from this Summer and find out exactly how much we traveled this Summer. I am only counting trips that at least half the family (2 or more members) were involved in. How many miles, you ask? The round trip total is the subject line. Yup. I didn't believe it myself so I recalculated, and it is accurate. Wowza! Today marked the 'official' end of Summer with the girls' first day of school. Yes, I already had mine, but I marked the beginning of Summer with their last day, so it works out. Brianna's first day of kindergarten, wow. We took the girls to the school and she sat down at her desk and immediately took out a pencil as if she was ready to jump in by writing a novel. Too cute. All she wanted to talk about when she got home were the rules and who broke them and how. They had a good day. Jason's mom flew out to Anchorage to see Bob this past week and she left her car at our house so she didn't have to pay for the parking fees. She came back in tonight so she took us all out to dinner and asked the girls all about their days. That was nice. After she left I went to the auditions for the fall shows at my school. I doubt I'll get a callback for either, I really didn't do well at all. It's been a while since I've done a real theatrical audition with the 'prepare a monologue and 32 bars of music' and whatnot. Oh well, there's always the Spring!

Zoom camera under this arch

Sketchy Thoughts rehearsal today. Our show is next week so today we met and did a full tech with partial props and costumes. The heels and gun are props/costuming from two different sketches, but I really like them together. Maybe if I get bored I'll just throw in a surprise sketch in which I'm a lady spy or something. Either way I walked around really tall and threatening people with the (blue, plastic, toy) gun. Aw yeah. I'm dangerous! Grr!

Tomorrow is the girl's first day of school, therefore the last day of this 'one photo a day every day this summer' portion of the blog. I might just observe one day with no photo then keep doing the photo a day thing. Who am I trying to kid? I like to too much!

A bit off center......

The Kansas City Improv Festival is three weeks away and things are starting to sew themselves up pretty well for the most part. A few details are less clear than we had thought, but these things happen. We'll nail them down shortly. Either way we had a meeting this morning. This is a plate and handbill mock up of the stage, seats, and backstage of the space we are holding the festival at this year. Jen did it to show people where the backstage area was and how the stage sits, and I think there was a lighting reason for this as well but I don't recall what it was. Either way I found it amusing. As far as the rest of the day goes, I spent it catching up on schoolwork. You know what sucks? Trying to read incomplete texts from 6,000 year old manuscripts. Yup. Can't wait to get to the middle ages in Western Civ.

I would, I would pay you so much money!

After German today there was a Theater Department meeting/party (note: It was an informative meeting marketed as a party {free food} to get the drama kids to come. Smart smart smart!) It wasn't immediately after my class, though, so I had some time to kill. Not unusual, after all, I've had random time spots between classes when the teacher was just DONE talking and let us out early throughout the week, but today I decided to take a picture of it. Today I was on some stairs near the theater area, catching up on reading for my Western Civ. class. I have two bags for school, a Mon/Wed/Fri bag (which is German class) and a Tues/Thurs bag (everything else.) since today was German you can see the bag I'm using for that class, which was ironically procured in Rothenburg ob der Tauber this February. Also, there's my foot, left hand, skirt, and purse. Just tiny snippets of what it's like to look through the window of my life. Enjoy. I had corned beef simmering in the crock pot and Jen had to smell it for four hours while she watched the girls, so what else could I do but invite her and Hans over for dinner? Shucks. She aired some concerns about upcoming events, we had ice cream, and we all watched Flight of the Conchords. Not at all a bad day.

Is this the little girl who's rotten?

Classes were great today! I had to drive all over town before and after school, though, so I ended up being pretty stressed out. I drove up to the babysitter du jour (thanks, Alanna!!!!!!) then down to the school, then back to Alanna's, then home just long enough to grab the school supplies for the girls, then to their school for 'Meet the Teacher' night. Here's Brianna sitting at her desk. She looks so little, how can she be big enough for kindergarten already? It just doesn't seem possible! She'll do great. Her teacher seems really nice. We dropped off her supplies then took Leigha to her classroom and met her (also nice-seeming) teacher. It's going to be a good academic year, I think.

Simon and Hecubus and Garfunkle

Today was Jason's work Monday, so for the rest of the week I have to find helpers for the kids so I can go to my classes. Can't wait 'till they start school, it will be so much easier on me! Luckilly, I have amazing friends, like Jen! She came over this afternoon to watch the girls while I went to German. (Sehr gut!) I came back to find her playing fishing on the Wii with the kiddos and freshly baked snickerdoodles on the counter. Jen, can you babysit me sometime? She grabbed her laptop to show me the ad she's designing for the upcoming Kansas City Improv Festival (starts 09/09/09 because comedy is repetition. Comedy is repetition.) We lay down on the floor together giggling and pretending we were at a sleepover while she pulled up the program she's designing the ad on, and I took the opportunity to snap this 'we are in our awkward phase' picture. I showed it to Jen and she said, "Wow............there is nothing about this picture that I don't like."

Benkommen!

Today I had three classes, Western Civilization, Public Speaking, and Voice and Speech. The last is a theater course. While I am excited and have thoroughly enjoyed my brief experiences with the other three classes and the teachers are all cool and stuff, the theater class is the one I am MOST excited about. Like, seriously. The class is held in a small performance space and I arrived and sat my stuff down after looking around and visually confirming that I was the only one there. I heard a massive commotion in the corridor immediately adjacent to the theater, and suddenly a crowd of theater kids burst in. One girl was carrying her alpha female friend in her arms as they walked in, and 'alpha' screeched, "Allright! New blood!!!" I immediately felt like I had come home. I came home and took a nap because I'm not used to having to get up and think that early in the morning just yet (*sigh* I'll get there again.) then went to 'rehearsal' with AO. We decided collectively that it would be in our best interest to check out the Improv-Abilities/Trip 5's show this evening in lieu of regularly scheduled rehearsal. I feel we made a good descision. The show was just great!

How Cavalier.........

A look inside my head:

..............Ooh, yeah. I have to answer that e-mail. And....status is updated...heh heh, bacon....What time is it anyhow? One? Wow. I can't believe I'm going to school now. I'm a 27 year old college freshmen, nice. Wait........did I get a notebook? Or...........a pen? Or a bag? Crap. I gotta go!! *kiss kiss, picture snap, vroom!* Get gas. Get notebook. Ooh, a penny! *vroom!* Tallyho!!! Oh, wait.......what classroom is my classroom? I know what college I'm going to and what time class starts but that's it apparently. I suck. Call home. That's my room number? Thanks, sweetie, love you too! *smash into parking space, run inside building......slow mo style* Okay.....don't panic, get a mocha. Don't panic, third floor now. PleasepleasePLEASE don't be the oldest one in the room! Okay, nope, he looks twice my age. *whew!* Wait, what? Class is over? How did that happen? Huh.....I can do this. Right? If I write the word 'German' on my calendar does that mean I'm organized? I'm going to count it. Ooh, I'm home! *kiss kiss* ............bacon!

Lake Addison

Tom found some tickets to the Pitch Music Awards show tonight on a coffeeshop bulletin board recently. There were four of them so he decided to invite some folks to accompany him. Somehow or other I made the cut, and Tom, Scott, Jamie and I made our way to the Uptown tonight to soak in the VIP treatment. Oh yeah, did I mention they were the VIP tickets? 'Cause they totally were. We had dinner and drinks free before the show, which was just super, and the four of us had a great time. I heard a few local bands that I need to take Jason to see now, including a jazz group called The Wild Women of Kansas City. They won best jazz group and the lead singer went up to accept the award. The woman is 92! She was absolutely adorable, by the way. I hope to be just as rad when I'm her age.

Phenomanomaly

Tonight AO had a show at a new venue in Lawrence. We had SO MUCH fun! It was totally worth the drive. In the pouring rain. We debuted a new format (based on the Harold) that went over amazingly well (more so than our go-to format, the Armando, which is a huge crowd pleaser. And this is a mostly first-time improv audience!) If you really want to know what the fudgecakes I'm talking about, sorry, you'll have to google Armando and Harold, I'm just too tired to go into detail about those at the moment. At any rate, we got accused of having a plant in the audience giving us our suggestions and several members of the audience told Denton they were amazed that we could all memorize so many lines. They thought it was scripted. That is literally the highest complement you can recieve as an improviser. To know that the audience has been told that you're going to make stuff up off the top of your head and to hear them say, 'No, we don't believe that could have been spur of the moment, it was too good!' Is just huge. Well done, all, we are amazing (I say without ego) and it was a huge blast!!!

A little off the top

In case you're wondering, yes. That is a t-rex, Melificent, a dragon, a headless My Little Pony and Santa. I went to take a picture of this strange meeting because I thought it looked, well, strange! Leigha saw me take the camera outside and when I came back in she explained, 'Santa is their slave. Those are all the bad guys.' Ah.........perfectly logical. Who knew that good ponies could go so bad when they lose their head?

Pow.

Rehearsal tonight was back at our old stomping grounds, the Peace Room at Unity Temple on the Plaza. It was strange being back there. A lot had changed (no carpet? What?) some of the members of the group had never been in the room (Brandon: Ooh, toys!) and there was still a residual negative energy in the room from the dying supernova that was Hype 7. There were several reasons we changed the name and overhauled the cast list, and the last time we were in that space was when things were seriously going south. At the beginning of rehearsal we were very aware of the ghosts of the past, but as the evening went on things picked up speed and it ended up being a really fun, incredibly productive evening.

Yavol!!!

This is Robert Herbert. He's my pet butterfly. I trained him to hold perfectly still while this picture was taken so that you could enjoy his two dimensionalism. ENJOY IT I SAY!!!

Keep your reality, I already have mine.

We finished packing up things and drove home this afternoon. We had to be back in town so I could get to rehearsal tonight, but by luck and happenstance we got to KC sooner than we thought. Since we had planned to go by my school tomorrow to finish with financial aid and whatnot, Jason said, 'Hey, we have time, wanna just go now? It's right there.' so we did. I got to the school only to find out that my financial aid stuff was cleared up and that today was the deadline for book vouchers and stuff. Ahhh!!!! So we scrambled around getting my school ID, financial aid voucher, and then my books. The two (HEAVY) bags I'm holding up oh so unattractively contain about $500 worth of books. Yowch. Yay for pell grants and student loans! The first half of rehearsal was great, the second lukewarmish. Oh well, can't win 'em all I suppose.

A purse on a person

This is probably the very first time I've taken my daily picture before 7am. *nguh....* Jason, Janina and I got up at 2:00 this morning and left for Tulsa. KC's flights were all full and from Jason's mom's it's about the same distance to either airport, so since we were coming to Sheila's anyhow we decided to take Nina to the airport with a better chance of getting on a plane. We dropped her off, said goodbye, then turned right around and left. In Vinita, Oklahoma there is a McDonalds that spans a bridge over I-44. This was the first time we had ever driven this way so we decided to stop and have breakfast on the way back. We got back to Sheila's before 10am and took a nap. When we got up we began helping with the sorting and packing of Jason's grandma's stuff. They sold the modular home she used to live in and the people are moving it on to their property, so we have less time than we thought we did to get everything out. Jason's aunt Rita came in to get what she wanted from the estate and ship it back to her place in LA. We had a great time laughing over old pictures and telling stories as we divided up cherished family heirlooms from things we'd rather just sell. Good times.

Whinny come around

After church today I had rehearsal for Sketchy Thoughts, so Jason and Nina packed up at the house then went to the Great Wolf Lodge so Nina could get some pictures and souveniers for her boyfriend. Apparently he's into wolves and when I took her to Cabelas the other day she said, 'Oh, we HAVE to go in there before I leave!' but we didn't have time right then, so Jason got to do the honors. They met me at the theater after that and we drove down to Sheila's. We spent time with the girls and they showed off 'their' horses, Nina gave them treats and she got to see the last lonely lightning bug of the Summer.

I get nervous in social situations

Lovely day. Nina and I slept in because we were quite tired, so we got a late start to it, but it was pretty solid, nonetheless. I drove her to a couple places so she could see them then we went to the Plaza. Nina took tons of pictures and gushed about how much she loves the KC. Sweet. I also took her by River Market, downtown, and then Westport. Jason met up with us after he got off work and we went to Jerusalem Cafe. It's just where you go when you're here and you've already had BBQ. We then walked to Streetside Records and World Market before heading to the Westport Coffehouse Theater for Improv Thunderdome!!!! I didn't have any shows while she was here, so this was the next best thing. Plus it was fun to vote objectively since I wasn't on any of the teams. (next month. Vote for me.) It was a blast! We sat next to Tom and Jen. After the show we went to McCoys and hung out with everyone. I love the group. Super fun, amazingly funny, and incredibly accepting people. Janina commented on it, saying, "I feel I could just be really weird and everyone would be totally okay with it." Nina, not only would they be okay, they'd join in whatever you're doing and add to it.

We hate the stupid thing, we wanna paint it green.

Janina made it in this morning, yay!!! I took her to Culver's then back to the house for a little coffee and recuperation time. She said she didn't need a nap or anything so we started the sightseeing right after that. I took her to Legends so she could see the yellow brick road and we ended up shopping for a while. Then I felt like traumatizing her a bit so I took her to Cabelas. I still can't decide if she was in more a state of disbelief that such a place could exist, or if it was more of a horror that such a place DID exist. Check her facial expression. You be the judge. When Jason got off work we went to Arthur Bryants then I rounded up some friends to go karaoke-ing. I don't know any good places here so I asked for a recommendation from a friend and it ended up being a bit of a bust. Smoky, loud, and the DJ guy who picks the people that go up and in what order was not that great. We sat for a good two hours wondering when our next turn was going to be. Finally we threw in the towel and went to Tom's place to hang out and get the bad taste of the evening out of our mouths. While we were in his living room I saw what I thought was a piece of trash on the floor.......until it moved. It was a little bitty frog! Tom lives in an apartment building with no direct access to the out of doors, except his windows. How did that guy get in there??? So we formed an odd processional to set him free, since there's not a ton of green space near his apartment. We got home later than intended and I know poor Nina is wiped, but it was so worth it.

Because he's cuter than my feet.

Jason's mom picked up the girls today to take them to her place for a few days so they can practice riding the horses before a couple shows. 1. I can't believe she's going to get back on the horse (literally) so soon! She's not riding in this one, but still! 2. Woo hoooooooo!!!! My little sister is currently sitting at the Denver airport. She was supposed to make it into KC tonight but her flight to Denver from Orange County was delayed by a few hours, so she gets to spend the night at the airport. (boo!) The good news is the early flight is at 6:45 am so she doesn't have to spend THAT much time dozing off in an akward position in an armrest laden row of airport seats. Whose brilliant idea was THAT? At any rate, here is the young gentleman who was being such a cutie this evening. In case you're wondering, the bowl is taped down because he likes to fling it across the kitchen. Yeah.

Princess Bubblegum

We drove home today. That's pretty much the extent of it. This is Jason's gadgetry cluttered dashboard. Next to the radio you see his 'XM' radio reciever, and on the windshield is his radar detecter and GPS. Ironically, my dad gave him the first thing, his dad gave him the latter two things. Jason also carries a phone and iPod touch around with him at all times. This is what happens when your Tonka trucks just don't cut it any more. One thing I don't understand is how all those devices look nearly identical. Couldn't the companies have been a little more creative than gray, black, or gray and black square?

Our home and native land

This is a picture of Leigha, Libby, and Brianna literally standing with one foot in Canada and one foot in America. Check it: The towers behind them mark the border, as does the white line of rocks, and the bricks on the pavement they were on had a marked border as well. How are we allowed to flaunt our blatent disreguard for borders and customs and the like? I'm glad I asked (I know you didn't, nurr, I just asked for you!) This is the 'International Peace Garden.' It sits on the border of North Dakota and Manitoba. In case you're wondering, the left side of the picture is America, the right is Canada. We drove up this afternoon, and just as you pass the American border patrol stand and right before you hit the Canadian one, there was a small turnoff that led into the garden. You do have to take a passport for you and a birth certificate for your kid into the garden so you can pass back into your country of origin (or on to the other if you so desire) but once in the garden's borders you can freely walk between the two countries. Very cool! We went into the souvenir shop and I got some Canadian 'Reese' peanut butter cups. Why are these so special? Well, I'm glad I asked (ooh, gotcha again!) I came across these on a trip to Toronto when I was in high school. First of all, it's 'Reese' not 'Reeses' pb cups. Second, it's Canada so it's in French and English. Third (and I chose this one to be number three on purpose) there are THREE cups in each package. Not two, and no king sized four, but three. Rather an orangish anomaly one might say. (ba hahahahaha!!!) We got back to the house and had some dinner then put the kids to bed. Sam and I decided to spend our last evening together watching 'Confessions of a Shopaholic.' We read the books together when we lived in Denver. Not a good book adaptation, but still a really cute movie.

Lightly toasted

Sam took me to THE cutest little shop downtown today. It had vintage clothing and household items and for very very reasonable prices! I want to bring it home with me. We had coffee and walked around downtown for a bit before coming back to the house. We're staying on the Air Force base so we have to get visitor's passes, which they only issue for a maximum of 72 hours without some kind of managerial approval or something, so we had to get a day pass for yesterday then renew today for the rest of the time we're here. Sam had to explain like three times to the guy that between five pm Monday and 4am Wednesday there are less than 72 hours. It was kind of funny after a while, really. Reminded me of a trip to the DMV. That's the lowest tier of government workers for you. Sam hosted a get together this evening so all her friends could meet us. They're a good bunch, we had a lot of fun. Here's a picture of all the kids roasting marshmallows in the fire pit in the backyard. It took a lot to get that poor little fire lit and keep it lit. It's really windy here!

43!

We drove to Minot, ND early this morning. The trip up was pretty uneventful for a 13 hour endeavor, and we arrived just before 5pm. Sam and I used to live in Denver, but four years ago we moved to Kansas City, and last year she and Patrick moved to Minot. (Air force) What other reason do people have to visit North Dakota? So here we are. We visited this evening and the kids played in the yard until we stuck them in bed. As it got later I realized I hadn't gotten a picture yet, so I said, 'Sam, we need to get a picture!' After a few takes neither of us was happy with the result, so she said, 'Hey, why not just make lame faces and be done with it?' And that's exactly what we did.

Oh yeah, and North Dakota is the 43rd state I've been to. Ker-ching!

Wait...........isn't that a dinosaur?

Got up early and drove downtown only to find out that the meeting I was going to was cancelled. Nice. The good news is that Jen and Tom also showed up so we had coffee and hung out before leaving. Jen and I decided that since she was already in town (she lives 20 miles out of KC) we should go shopping before her improv class in the afternoon, which was also in town. She was following me in her car and we were planning on going straight to the store we both agreed should be shopped at, when my battery light came on. Yes, while I was driving the car. I called her and said, 'New plan. Meet me at my house real quick.' I pulled into the driveway and turned off my car, then immediately tried to turn it back on again just to see if it would. Nothing. Great. So I got into Jen's car and we went shopping, then came to an arrangement: I would tailor a pair of her jeans if she would give me a ride to the show. Nice. So I hemmed the pants, got dressed and ready, then Jen and I went to the theater. The show tonight featured four groups, Rubber Biscuit Brigade, Anomaly Orange (which I'm in), Kill the DJ, and Sketchy Thoughts (which I am in.) We were supposed to go in that order, but there was a snaffu with RBB so AO ended up going on first. We had a super solid set and had a lot of fun. We listened to our notes from Denton after our set, then went and sat down in the audience just in time for KTDJ. They are so funny, I love their format! When they left the stage Sketchy took over and played a really tight, funny set. I'm proud of us! The picture from today is of Clay in front of the audience. This was actually taken during the show, it's from a sketch in which the couple is walking through the Kansas City Zoo and at the end I come out as 'Dilophosaurus' and I eat Clay's character. (Mua ha ha!) Anyhow, in this picture he's pretending to pose next to a 'Golden Tamarin Lion Monkey.' I love this shot because it's about as close to showing you all what it's like to be on stage in front of an audience as I can get in this blog. There's just nothing like it in the whole world.

P.S.-The audience looks bored in this shot, but I promise they aren't. Tiffany saw this show and was literally crying with laughter at the end.