Deconstructing Jen

google reader

do you use google reader? if you read more than about 2 blogs you should. I LOVE it. Such a time saver and instant gratification all at the same time - what more can you ask for?

the book thingy

so the fabulous 60Piggies tagged me to do a book meme. yay...book memes! I'm not usually a meme person but a meme about books has to be okay doesn't it?

So here goes:

THE BOOK MEME
the rules....there must always be rules for this sort of thing. I wonder who sits around thinking up these rules?
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.**

Well, unfortunately for you guys the nearest book was a stack of three so you are gonna get all of 'em, cause you know rule breaking and me, we're tight. Alright, not really but it sounded fun.

    "Trust me. Your transmission will go out. Your kid will need braces." 
(The Total Money Makeover, Dave Ramsey) This reminds me I haven't been spending enough quality time with Dave.

    "Wasn't it just as telling a mark of motherhood to see how, from this awful moment on, she behaved?
    She reached across the red line until she could embrace Peter. She didn't care if it was allowed or not." (Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult)

    "No, she had tried to imagine it thousands of times, drawing on her ideas of all the villains she had ever read about in books: Captain Hook, crooked-nosed and thin; Long John Silver, a false smile always on his lips; Injun Joe, who had haunted so many of her bad dreams with his knife and his greasy black hair...
    But Capricorn looked quite different.
    Meggie soon gave up counting the doors they passed before Basta finally stopped outside one."
(Inkheart, Cornelia Funke)

Now I tag (whew, I actually know 5 people with blogs who read that I can tag, that's a relief):

1. Not Just Any Jen
2. Kathryn
3. Stephanie
4. Kris
5. Javidan

time flies...

Man. I forgot how busy life is when I'm in stay at home mom mode. It's busy when I work but the routine of that makes it manageable. When it's summer and I'm left to my own devices I don't really do the schedule thing well. Thank goodness for Google Reader or I would be soooo out of the loop. So here's what we've been up to...

School ended last Tuesday and by a hairs width I made it out before teacher check out was over. For the most part I'm DONE until August 14th or 15th when teacher workshops start again. I have a few meetings sprinkled in but not too many.

Wednesday we started summer with a bang by taking Ben and Evey to Paradise Park with some friends. I opted to get a year pass so we'll be heading there a lot this summer. Three hours and some happily face painted children later we had a nice lunch and headed home. It was a great day....except I completely forgot about Mario's speech appointment, opps. It's summer who needs a schedule, right?

Thursday we hung out with my Mom and shopped and stuff.

Saturday we did typical weekend stuff...mow, clean, etc. We had a great dinner with friends and their kids. We pulled out the fun sprinkler for the kids to run around in.

Sunday was the first dress rehearsal for the Evey's dance recital. Next Saturday is the first performance. I have to say I'm so proud of her. Not only does she look super cute, she really like it AND the girls got skillz. (Yes with a Z.) Don't know where she got them from cause I certainly can't dance and Chris sorta looks like Elaine on that Seinfeld episode...

Taking a side track...if you are looking for cute, not going to make you pound your head on the wall till your ears bleed, kid music check out Singin' in the Bathtub by John Lithgow...yeah the dude from Third Rock From the Sun...who knew? (they have 'em on iTunes.) They are dancing to At the Cod Fish Ball for the Peach's recital and it's SUPER cute!

Today it's rainy and thundery so we are hanging with some library books and we are going to head to the craft store for a messy Father's Day surprise for Chris. And Ben has his 18 month check up today, that should be fun since he's starting to have big time doctor phobia...but I give him credit...he's definitely got his reasons.

Ah, how I love the slow pace of summer.

just silliness, really

This is kind a sad really. Elementary? Really?

I'd like to see how they are testing that. Maybe I need to increase my vocabulary. Maybe I'll just take it as a compliment seeing as I bet it would be kinda boring and dry if it was a college reading level. I don't remember college text books being all the entertaining. But those elementary books - those were nice. Lots of pictures.

the photographic evidence

So I was brutally called out about photos from our Branson trip. Sadly we were having so much fun we didn't stop to take too many pics but here are a few highlights. :D (Please forgive my more than lacking photography skills.)

The drive down

Outside Butterfly Palace

One of the mammoth butterflies (I'll take credit for this shot, lol)

Not particularly happy about the butterflies...

The consequences of putting bubble bath in the jacuzzi tub and likewise the consequences of running on a stone path. OUCH. Thank goodness a huge tub full of bubbles and a Nemo Band Aid make EVERYTHING better.

Pillow beds ROCK!

butterflies the size of bats

Branson trip part deux.

After running out of Pizza Hut as fast as we could we hopped back in the car, made a quick stop at a Wal-Mart for hand sanitizer (see the Pizza Hut incident for why) and batteries for Princess Peach's GameBoy and we were off again. The rest of the drive was uneventful. We stopped at a Tourism Information Center looking for brochures on a couple of shows/events in Branson. Unfortunately the place could be more aptly named Jimbo’s Scam O’Rama Ticket Outlet and we didn’t get the info we wanted. We made a second stop at a much more reputable Scam O’Rama Ticket Outlet got the info we wanted as well as advanced tickets to one of the stops we wanted to make on our trip. Next stop, Big Cedar.

At this point I should stop and say that driving in Branson is not for the faint of heart. It appears that at the time they built many of the roads in Branson that guard rails and shoulders were optional on the edges of 75 foot vertical drops and that a 40 percent grade was preferable to leveling the land just a tad. There’s nothing quite like driving your own car through a roller coaster track.

Big Cedar is beautiful beyond description. It has been landscaped to combine the rustic feel of wilderness and outdoors with the luxury feel of a resort. We stayed in the Falls Lodge. We had a fantastic view and a patio that led right out into the grassy walking trails that wander through the grounds.

So on to the highlights of our trip. Our first stop in Branson was Butterfly Palace. Such a name indicates you will be entering a wondrous beauty of architectural engineering filled with butterflies. Not so much. This ‘palace’ turned out to be ¾’s butterfly gift shop and ¼ butterfly observatory. Princess Peach still loved it and we were able to see butterfly’s the size of small bats, many of which enjoy diving down to swoop by our unsuspecting heads as we walk through the green house. It was fun but not worth the money.

One of the coolest things we saw was the New Shanghai Acrobats of China. They were amazing. The show was two hours long and both kids were entertained the entire time. The show was a mix of acts of strength, dexterity, contortion and pure insanity. One of the coolest acts was a girl who could bend herself in half and stuff herself into increasingly longer tubes that were no more than about 16 inches in diameter. Definitely worth seeing.

We tried to keep the trip relaxing so a lot of our time was spent exploring and just hanging out together. We hit the arcade, we saw Horton Hears a Who, we went to a museum, we rode go-carts, we walked the grounds at Big Cedar, we rented movies, we had a Ninetendo DS tournament – well as much of one as you can have with two adults and a 3 year old.

There are two stories left to be told and I shall leave them for my Branson finale – dinner at the best Mexican restaurant I have ever eaten at and our trip to Silver Dollar City. Stay tuned.

are we there yet?

And so begins the tale of our Adventure to Branson. I should begin our tale by explaining what kind of travelers Chris and I are. We are mellow. We don’t stress. And truth be told we don’t really like to plan – actually scheduling the vacation sucks up most of our ability to plan before we even leave. If it takes an extra hour or two to get there – so be it, there will obviously be a good story to tell afterwards.

We spent Friday packing, cleaning, laundering, bickering a little – the standard pre-vacation stress ritual. We went to bed with the intention of getting up insanely early. Night time Chris and Jen should really have a conversation with morning Chris and Jen about how lazy they are. We were up at 7 am and on the road by 10 am. Apparently we hadn’t packed as thoroughly as we thought we had.

With GPS in hand we were off. The kids were excited and happy to be playing with a new Elmo doll and a new Barbie. Chris and I each armed with a beverage of choice were pumped to be on the road. We knocked out 3 hours of the drive before we stopped for lunch. We decided to give Lamberts a try. It’s a quaint little place that declares itself to be “Home of the Throwed Rolls.” Interesting. Well apparently we were not the only ones to find it interesting. A 1 ½ hour wait at 1:45 pm on a Saturday, thanks but we’ll find something else. The trusty GPS pointed us in the direction of a Pizza Hut.

That poor Pizza Hut didn’t know what hit them. Ah, a cute couple with an adorable little girl and a handsome little blue eyed baby boy, what damage could they do. Muahahaha. Yes indeed, what damage could they do? We ordered a pizza. Our drinks came. Evey needed bathroom trip number one. Our pizza came. Ben needed bathroom trip number two. Uh-ho. No baby changing station in the broom closet sized bathroom. I head to the car to change his diaper. I get back to the table to take my first bite of now warm pizza as Evey spills her drink. Onto my pants. I make bathroom trip number 3. As I sit back down to eat my now rather cool pizza I notice Ben gumming up one of the Buzz Word cards that they had sitting on the table. I had a momentary flash that maybe I should take that card away from him but quickly thought nah, he’ll scream his head off. I should have listened to that original thought because within about two minutes I hear the tell tale sound of gagging which is immediately followed by the sound of Ben emptying his stomach onto his lap, the high chair, the floor, and my shoe. Chris and I exchange a horrified glance and burst into hysteric giggles. Bathroom trip number 4. Check please.

So it seems this may be something of a long vacation tale and as I don’t want to bore everyone to tears right up front I think I will pause for now. Stay tuned for part 2.

can I get a yee-haw?

So we made it back from the land of Hillbillies and country folk with only one near riotous moment caused by my dear husband. It was a GREAT trip. We all had a blast. I'll update more on that tomorrow. I just wanted to check in now that I'm sure all my faithful readers have gone the way of the dodo.