Festivus 2006

My brother Chris is the king of throwing parties for no reason other than he's got a new costume or a theme and needs a party to go with it. So a few years ago, when his freezer got unplugged and he was left with a bunch of thawed-out meat, he chose to go with the cup half full approach and started the Seinfeld-esque tradition of a Festivus party. The only rules are that anything you bring to eat has to have meat in it. He sends out a "Festivus letter" which is a parody on the traditional Christmas letter, and challenges us that if our Christmas starts to look too much like Festivus (made up, foolish, etc.) we might want to re-think things.



Here's the spread of food, most for eating, some for fun (the vienna sausage plate ... yikes!)


Also enjoyed the friends who were creative enough to come up with the idea of meat jewelry - maybe that will be a new tradition!


And these two cute kids ... in matching shirts! We (Christa and I) convinced J that it was part of the "deal" that everyone had to wear matching shirts, since he is violently opposed to matching in any way shape or form, and didn't tell him it was a joke on him until we were half-way to Lawrence. VERY FUNNY!

Wasted week

Literally. I'm not kidding. My back went out Tuesday morning, and I have been in a drug-induced haze, going from one nap to the next in my recliner, sitting on either a cornbag or an ice bag, ever since. The good news is I'm feeling better this morning, so I'm hopeful for the weekend.

Took a "short" walk with Lexi recently - although since she was walking instead of riding in the stroller there was nothing short about it. She'd run four steps, zoom off into the grass to pick a dandelion (she likes both the yellow ones and the "white ones"), then run a few more steps - after we both had as many dandelions, alive and dead, as she thought we needed, she said, "It's time to run Nini." So we ran. And ran. And ran. We stopped and she looked at her "white" dandelions, and cried, "What HAPPENED to my flowers?!" Of course the wind had blown the seeds away, so all that was left were these droopy little stubby stems. She was very sad. For a minute. Then it was time to run again. So we ran. (Is this reminiscent of Forrest Gump? I just had a flashback to that movie.) When she stopped, she was panting, and she said, "Lexi's tired, it's time to slow down. The light is yellow." Cracked me up! The rest of the walk was more of the same, she walked backwards for awhile, skipped for awhile, long story short, it took 30 minutes to walk a block and a half. I might consider the stroller next time.

Hmmm ... no new pictures of the kids so here's a few of the house. I know, not very exciting, but I wanted to prove that we removed the worst of the offenders!


The wallpaper wall! We also painted one wall in the living room this same green.


The floor in the dining area now - it was carpet but we replaced it with this parquet. Better to spill stuff on.


And the chandelier replacement! Although I must say I'm having a hard time parting with the chandelier ... it's still in my garage, I'm waiting for an inspiration for how best to use it. :) I know it will involve Brenda somehow ...


And, last but not least, this lovely pumpkin that was left behind for us by the previous owners. Don't even ask me why I took a picture of this, I have no idea.

Pics of the day

Mason in mid-whine ...


Lexi concentrating on getting glue stick on every possible surface except the paper ...


Lexi super-concentrating (you can tell by the tongue) on getting paint on her shirt and the table instead of the paper ...


My calendar after Lexi dismantled it and I made her put it back together. Hmmm .. me thinks this proves that time has no meaning for a toddler. As if I didn't already know that!

Obviously, I'm quite proud of myself for figuring out how to take black and white and sepia tone pictures ... look out now!!

Turbo move

I had the most amazing help moving last weekend and the whole week before!


From left - Julie (my high school friend from Nebraska - came down Tuesday and stayed until Saturday!), me (duh), Christa (don't we look like Thing 1 and Thing 2?) and Brenda (she helped every day, all day, all week).


This is my friend Kim, who helped Tuesday ... she was especially helpful in removing Mike and Joan's big, new, BORROWED truck from the tree it was wedged against ... ouch. Thankfully Mike and Joan love us more than stuff and weren't even upset - still waiting to hear about the outcome of getting it fixed.

My mother-in-law Pat also helped a ton - don't know how I didn't get a picture of her, but she was here for three days.


So now you have the set-up - a bunch of women, all in turbo overdrive mode (except for me), for most of a week ... by the time we quit on Friday, Greg was able to downgrade the 26 foot U-Haul he'd reserved to a 14-footer!! We were covered with bruises, exhausted, but had a blast.


Did I mention exhausted? I was having a little blood pressure issue by the end of the week but it's all good now. :)


This was Lexi's contribution to the unpacking - helpful AND useful, don't you think?

Seriously, what an incredible blessing it was to have all these dear friends and family helping - we had tons more help Friday night and Saturday - it was the easiest move I've ever made!

We are pretty well settled in - yesterday we finished up the garage and Greg installed a new dishwasher for me. I am so excited about this dishwasher - goofy, I know, but really - you don't even have the rinse the dishes at all because it has a "hard food disposer", I can wash just the top rack (handy for the days when I have the kids or if we eat out). OK enough of the commercial, but as you can tell I am very happy about the dishwasher.

Prank war goes to a new level

Remember this? This was the lovely fixture in our dining room before we moved in. (The wallpaper's gone too, for those of you losing sleep over that horrible stuff.)


Naturally, it got replaced quickly. However, our friends Brenda and Kirk admired it and another one so much, we attached them to the front of their garage as a gift. They returned the favor by hanging said lovely fixture from a tree in front of our house in Hobbit Hollow.


Much fun followed with the repeated exchange of some (not all, believe me, I have more) of the gold cabinet knobs that we also replaced. We again gifted our good friends with many of these pretties, in their landscaping, in their kitchen drawers, etc. They retaliated by hanging them all from strings from the tree in front of our new house. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that, it was very festive!

Our turn. We saved this pretty brass and faux wood fan for them.


And rammed it into their front yard, blades up, with the words "We are your biggest fans" written on the blades. We thought we were ahead in this game, until today. Check out their blog with the link below - no need to show you my pictures when they took pictures of their own crime scene!

The Heart Tells All

Amazing what they did to this fan!! They completely disassembled it and turned it into a TURKEY!! And then did a hit-and-run by dumping it on our front porch, ringing the doorbell, and running away like CHICKENS!! (I think they spent a cumulative 4-6 hours on this thing by the way ... I told Brenda she might want to consider a family hobby.)



Here are the other three chickens ... Kirk isn't in this picture, but he is the one running up our front stairs on their blog. These three are Brenda, Eric, and Kevin (with his head on his chest - he's going through a shy stage - but BOY OH BOY could I tell you some stories about this kid!)

Seriously, we love this family dearly ... and paybacks will be FUN!

Christa caves to peer pressure

... and it only took three comments! Thanks Emily for playing to her weakness. :) See my sidebar for the link to her blog ... also my friend Brenda started one this week, and I discovered all of J's sisters blogs (also links to all on my sidebar) ... it's a blog happy week for me.

Off to do something productive ... I'm don't know what but surely something will come to me if I get OFF MY BUTT!

CHRISTA AND J NEED A BLOG!!

Calling all family, friends, and anyone else who might be lurking - join me in insisting that Christa needs to start her own blog! She tried to tell me that I tell all her good stories, but that is totally not true - for example, I haven't said anything about Mason eating poop, or why J received pregnancy tests as a birthday gift. SO I want hundreds of comments agreeing with me that she needs to start one of her own, instead of hiding behind her mommy's blog! :)

Catch up time!

Finally I'm back in action on the blog. It's been a long week of moving and settling in but we are feeling so comfortable and at home here already!! It's so great to be close enough to Christa that she can e-mail me at 6:30 a.m., tell me she needs blueberries to make something special since today is J's birthday, and show up at my house 3 minutes after I call her. :) Speaking of J's birthday, Lexi was heard singing during her non-nap: "Happy Birthday to Lexi - NOT Daddy - Lexi, Happy Birthday to Lexi, - NOT Daddy!" We've got the kids overnight tonight while Christa and J are out and about - here's a few pictures and a video from this evening.





Toddlers and a laundry basket - what's the deal? Fun stuff.




Lexi's art work from tonight ... ok not much to brag about, she's definitely got my genes when it comes to creativity, but she had fun and made a HUGE mess so it definitely wasn't a waste of time!








And finally ... we got this in the mail, along with a winning scratch off card! Anyone need a job as a translater/proofreader? These folks might could use your help!

Last post for awhile

The computer's coming down tonight, and I don't know when we'll be up and running again at the new house, so I'll leave you with a few more fun vacation pictures. Believe me, there will be lots of moving stories to share as soon as I recover. :)



This is one of MANY lovely camper homes parked at the beach - apparently people live in these things, and just move them around from one lot to another every day or two to keep from getting kicked out. I'm diggin' the sunroof!


This picture was on the inside of the elevator that we frequented going back and forth from our hotel room ... SOMEONE just couldn't leave this poor girl alone, and she was finally so hideous the whole picture disappeared the last day we were there.


These are two women that B.J. works with, Tammy (on the left) and Jen. We think Tammy is the spittin' image of our friend Joan Vieux!!


Darah and B.J. making nice.


OK this was weird. These two goofballs were walking down the beach on Coronado Island in their wedding clothes (obviously) ... but the girl had this look of horror and embarrassment on her face the whole time. It was like this was something she thought would be so cool when she was dreaming of her wedding when she was five, but the reality wasn't so cool. And THEN someone asked, "Did you just get married?" I'm thinking, DUH, but she answered, "Yeah, on Saturday!" We were there on MONDAY!! I can't even speculate what that was all about.


BIG shark jaws.


Probably overstepping someone's boundaries here, but we couldn't resist. :)


Icky slimy mess of eels. Gave me the creeps.



Looking forward to getting back with you, and sharing pictures of our new house. Leave me some comments while I'm off-line!!

SHAMU!!

This killer whale was definitely the highlight of Sea World - had to give him his own entry. Unfortunately my camera memory card filled up in the middle of the video, so I only got what I got. Still good stuff.

Sea World

Whew. I have a little time and a little energy so I'll share some more vacation pictures. We closed on the house Friday, and worked there all weekend - this week is moving boxes and we'll do the big furniture move on Friday and Saturday. Can't wait for it to be over at this point! :)



We also went on this roller coaster/get-soaked-at-the-bottom - they take pictures of you while you're one it and try to get you to buy them at the bottom ... well I look like a COMPLETE IDIOT in this picture, screaming like a little girl, white knuckles hanging on for dear life ... and Darah bought the picture. Why do I have this feeling this is coming back to haunt me somehow???



Stingray - I heard these things can kill you.


Cute little seal.


BUTT UGLY MANATEE! What in the world was God thinking of when He created this thing? Tell me He doesn't have a sense of humor!!
And another - love the hairy chin.




Dolphins are cute too!


But sharks are scary - especially the next one with the ginormous teeth! Dude was moving too fast to get a more centered picture, but you get the idea!

Marathon medal

B.J. couldn't get a picture actually running the marathon, so I had him pose for me. Son, are you sure this wasn't the special olympics????

Bob

I have to interrupt the vacation posts to tell you a story. Yesterday, during one of our many trips to an un-named big (orange) home improvement store, I went to the return desk while Greg went to pick up some other stuff. I was in line behind a man and his two crazed pre-teen boys, whom he was oblivious to as they were yelling and pretend sword-fighting and flicking some sort of cards at each other. He had a whole cart full of black plastic tubing, and another cart half full of hundreds of little tiny pieces and boxes. When the poor guy behind the register (Jason I think) finally got it all scanned in ($337.00 and some change worth of stuff!) he asked the guy for his credit card to make the return, and naturally the guy had to go back out to his car to get it. And he left the hooligans in the store with us of course.



As I was dodging imaginary swords and pokemon (?) cards flying through the air, I said to Jason, "I don't think I'd want your job." He grinned sarcastically and said, "Why? It's a great job. It even includes babysitting today, apparently." I laughed, said customer came back with the credit card and it was finally my turn.



Jason quickly gets on the intercom and asks for someone from plumbing to come up and get a return. As I was completing my transaction (with receipt and my debit card in hand, thank you very much), this hunched over, tiny, 97-year-old man in an orange apron comes shuffling around me. Jason says "Hi Bob." Bob looks at the first cart, then the second, then back to the first, slowly looks up and Jason and says, "What the hell is this??"



Jason said, "Well this guy needed one inch stuff and he bought all 3/4" so he had to bring it all back." Again Bob does a very slow survey of the carts, slumps over even more, and says, dry as can be, "Well, if he's too damn STUPID to get a measuring tape out before he buys this much stuff you should have charged him a restocking fee!!!"



I watched poor Bob shuffle off pushing one cart and pulling the other one, VERY slowly I might add, and after I stopped laughing I went to find Greg to tell him the story. When we were done shopping (probably a half hour later) I told him we had to go by the plumbing aisle so he could see Bob, and sure enough, he was posted up in the aisle still putting returns out of that cart back on the shelf (at the speed of light as you can imagine). We're guessing it took Bob the rest of the day to empty that cart!

Darah and B.J., Father and Son

We closed on our house in Olathe this morning and have been working over there ever since! So I'm TOO TIRED to do much more than post a few pictures - you've been waiting for these anyway, right? More soon - many fun photos left to share!







Darah and B.J.'s feet - so cute! Note: B.J. wanted to be sure you noticed his big big toe.





The Boys in front of a mirror that makes you look short and FAT! They wanted to take a picture of Darah and I in front of it - ARE YOU CRAZY?!!!!!!





Hangin' out at the pool - cool shades Beej.





Hangin' out at the beach ...





Hangin' out at Sea World ...