Independence Day [weekend] 2011

This reduced blogging schedule already has me forgetting what we've done in the past few days!  We had an interesting weekend - Mom, Alan, and Papa joined Sean and Matt's families at Sean's lakehouse to celebrate Connor's birthday and the 4th of July.  Ashley couldn't go because of work and Eric & I couldn't go because of his work and church.  So Ashley watched M&A's and Sean's pets, while Eric and I watched Papa & Matt's dogs.

Saturday - Eric went to work and I took the dogs for a walk to practice for our upcoming 5k in August.  After he got off of work, we watched Date Night at Mom & Alan's house with Ashley.

Sunday - We truly couldn't tell if today was good or bad, haha.  We both woke up in grumpy moods, which was only intensified when we had to clean up the messes made by the dogs at Papa's house, and were running late for church.  The service was nice and we felt much better afterward.  We enjoyed a picnic at St. Thomas with Ashley and a new family that we met at the St. Thomas "New Members Dinner" last week.  We stopped back at Papa's house again before proceeding with our afternoon plans.

Fox 4 was sponsoring free entry into the KC Riverfest between 1-3pm, so we planned to take advantage of that to save $10 each on a great fireworks show.  We got down again because it looked like Steven and Leslie were dropping out of joining us...boo...  To pass some time because it would just be us all day, we used my season pass to the zoo.  We were happy to be walking around and seeing the animals, and we rode the new sky ride to the far side of Africa.  Then there was lightning in the sky, a downpour of rain, and the ride back to the front of the zoo was closed - this soaked our clothes and shoes all the way through and almost made us late to the Riverfest's free admission time frame.  Between driving, parking, and busing, we made it in the gate at 2:50 - just in the nick of time!

Happy to be there, and interested in the record high Missouri river, we were quickly bummed out again because there was truly nothing to be seen (without paying out the wazoo!).  But, spirits were high again because Steven and Leslie changed their minds and were going to spend the rest of the afternoon with us.  I hatched a scheming plan to get them in for free too - you just ask for a readmission bracelet when you exit the park...so I removed our bracelets after we left and came back in, then we got another set of bracelets when we left the second time.  BAM!  Four bracelets!

We were once again pissed off and disappointed when we planned to meet Steven and Leslie at a Waffle House on I-35 & Antioch...apparently this same intersection exists in Kansas and Missouri.  We had driven about 15 minutes south to find that they were in Missouri and we were in Kansas...so we wasted over 30 minutes trying to meet up with them.  

The rest of Sunday went great - Eric, Steven, and Leslie shot off fireworks while I napped, and then we all got into the Riverfest and found THE best seats on the river - directly across from where they were being fired.  Eric and I shared a carnival burger and fries for dinner, and the fireworks show was coordinated to some really fantastic patriotic music.  A very good end to a very back and forth day!

Monday - Eric worked (time and a half, yea!) and I slept most of the day.  But I did get some chores done!  After he got off of work, we rode the motorcycle over to the local fireworks stand and then out to Smithville.  Eric is a great rider, and I'm totally comfortable riding with him.  We shot off a ton of daytime fireworks, and then Edie served an excellent dinner of BBQ chicken, corn, salad, bread, watermelon, potato salad, baked beans, and excellent brownie sundaes for dessert!  Once it got dark, everyone (Me, Eric, occasions, Leslie, Grant, Phil, Edie, Pete, Paul, Deb, Shannon, and Taylor) went to the golf course to shoot off nighttime fireworks!  We had neighbors on either side with much more impressive stashes, so there was a good show!  We had a few mishaps with a firework called "That's Your Problem", it tipped over (on 4 separate occassions) and shot mortars toward neighbor houses and at our crowd.  

Happy Independence Day!

The lioness's were cuddling!  And celebrating their 6th birthday! 

Completely soaked, in front of the Wacky Worm roller coaster at Riverfest! 

The 4 of us on the shuttle bus. 

Red, white, and blue! 

A very cool finale with an obscene amount of sonic booms! 

Us at the KC Riverfest! 

Leslie and I pet the ponies!  This one sniffed my foot and scared me when he exhaled hot air on me. 

Eric's awesome parking job - it was the last "spot" in the parking lot - this is just the driving lane, not actual spots, but we didn't get a ticket! 

 I'm still on the line drying bandwagon!  It definitely made an impact on our electric bill last month, and it makes me feel happy when I'm hanging it, double whammy!

Steven and Leslie's firework stash!

I caught a parachute!

Discussing strategy at the golf course!

Day 351: Grandma Betty's 80th Birthday Party

This is sort of part two continued from yesterday. It's been a long fun weekend, and continues to be. This morning we hung out at Steven and Leslie's; I played Mass Effect 2 and had too much fun with the character creator while Jess, Steven, and Leslie all gave input and advice to make my character extra creepy. Then Jess and I took the bike and followed Steven and Leslie to Smithville Lake for Grandma Betty's 80th birthday party. We had grilled cheeseburgers again (you can never have too many), and cake and ice cream while Grandma opened her presents. The four of us and Grant tossed around a couple of those hollow disc frisbees for a while, and then Jess accidentally threw one on the roof of the shelter. She got it stuck so we decided she had to get it down,  my dad and I had to give her a boost up onto the roof. The tricky part was getting her back down. That afternoon we left with Steven and Leslie and went swimming at their place again, and then watched the movie "Adam" with them, a movie about boy meets girl, boy has Asperger's Syndrome, it's complicated. After the movie it was time to ride home in the dark. It was Jess' first night ride as my passenger, but everything went perfectly. It was a good end to a great weekend.

My super creepy Mass Effect 2 character.

Ready to roll.

Steven and Leslie nommed grilled veggie burgers.

The lovely birthday girl!

"Got it...how do I get down?"

Whit wanted to play with us; a cross between frisbee and horseshoes.

Day 181: Nerf Wars

Last weekend we got a pair of Maverick Nerf Guns in a White Elephant gift exchange.  Now the cats are learning to dodge darts and I am being ambushed while working on homework!  Speaking of homework, I forgot to mention on Tuesday that Eric is totally done with his fall semester.  He only has 4 more credit hours before he graduates!  Talk about an easy spring semester!  I finished my two classes tonight.  I could have finished my Master's between the spring and summer semesters, but my sanity is worth more than a degree, so I'll only take one class in the spring.

 I slowly saw his head popping through the door horizontally...I noticed the Nerf guns too late to react!
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Day 52: Rushing Around

Eric spent the morning and afternoon zooming around Lawrence putting in applications and places, hoping he can land a day job so we have more than an hour or two of time together each day.

I was all over my school today - in and out of meetings, setting up an auxiliary classroom for one of my kids, and preparing materials for the first day of school.

Now we're home for the evening and I'm about to cook some delicious pasta, yum! 

P.S. I found this sign in the staff bathroom at work today... I have already submitted it to Monday through Friday

It's nice to know that the staff bathroom needs this reminder!

Day 12: Money, Money, Money!

Blah!  Even when we actually have money, I hate to spend it.  We're leaving for our honeymoon tonight and we'll be driving in my car.  The sticker in my car says it should have been serviced at 42,000 miles...I'm at 44,600, oops!  So I planned on getting it changed this afternoon - this was $25 at Jiffy Lube, upped to a total of $100 when they told me that I was 15k miles overdue on a radiator service.  They also pointed out giant cracks in one of my tires and said that 3/4 tires had these problems.

My new Jiffy Lube tag recommends an oil change at 47,621 miles, and for me to smile regularly.

The ripple under the H on the tire is the tire cracking - they said I was at major risk for a blowout.

Eric hopped on the phone and found me a deal for tires and installation for $388 - and the service lady was incredibly rude to me when I brought the car in.  THEN THEY tell me that my back two wheels are bent and need to be replaced ASAP.

I went to Wal-Mart to blow time while they were installing the new tires and found these patriotic shirts... Hecho en Guatemala [Made in ...]  Nice.

On top of spending $500 on my car, I got Eric some new clothes and spent another $45.  Luckily, as emotional as it is to spend all of this money, we got through it without putting a thing on credit.  Eric and I are cash only spenders and we only pay interest on our stupid mistakes from the past.  For instance, when I reviewed the information about my car purchase a year and a half ago, I found that I spent $1600 on a service package with a $100 deductible.  STUPID - the only thing a new car should need in the 72 months that this is valid is oil changes.

While Mystic likes to glare at her Mommy.

P.S. Addy likes to cuddle with her Daddy's clothes.