Monday, July 20, 2009

Slip N Slide

We were sitting around the table talking about summer time, and orange push pops were mentioned. You may remember them... the Schwann man would deliver them, they were wrapped in a cardboard tube, and had a little stick that you would push the orange popsicle up with. Yummy. My youngest sister has not had the benefit of growing up with a Schwann man, so she has missed out on this delicious piece of summer time. So I have been looking for them in the store. No luck yet, but if anyone has seen them, let me know.

Another key part of summer was the slip n slide in the front yard. A sheet of yellow plastic that you ran the hose over, and then you would run and do a belly-flop and slide down it, and end up in the puddle of grass at the end. This was much fancier than just running through a sprinkler.

Summer demands some creativity in the FHE activities, but I couldn't find a slip n slide. So we decided to water balloon volley ball. It ended up being more like water balloon tag, which was also fun, but I think everyone got more wet trying to fill up the water balloons. And this just reminded me of the Red Balloon movie....

Monday, July 13, 2009

Independence Day in Independence, MO

So I was waiting until I got my pictures off my camera.... then I realized they weren't good blog pictures. I need to get better at photography.

I went to visit my sister for the fourth of July. She lives in Independence, which is just funny. Ok, technically she just moved to a new town. But it is near Independence, and we watched the Independence fireworks. Ha!

I arrived on Wednesday, and we headed out to the huge furniture store to shop. We sat on every couch they had, but had more luck finding comfortable chairs. We are short people, so huge couches are not very comfortable because our feet don't hit the floor. In this store I think people work on commission, because one sales guy was stalking us. So we kept dodging into other furniture aisles to avoid him. We did look at dining tables, but they were all too big. The first couch we sat on was actually the one we ended up getting, and then we matched it to some chairs with custom fabric. It was a very successful shopping trip. Then we ate steak to celebrate. Then because it was a gorgeous day, and my sister had planned the weather perfectly, we went to see Legally Blonde at an outdoor theater (Starlight Theater). It had great music and was fun to watch. Whew! I am tired.
Thursday we got up and hit the gym. Yea, I can't keep up with my sister. But that is ok, it was good triathlon training. The perk of a gym is the machine tells you how far you have run, instead of just guessing how far in the neighborhood. Then we went to work... well, she went to work, I sat in her office and read. Nice. Then we got Thai food for lunch, our favorite. Then we went to Union Station. Back in the day, all the railroads decided to cross the Missouri at Kansas City. If they hadn't, it would probably just be a corn field today. The floor of the station is wavy where people shuffled their feet for 50 years. They also had a special exhibit on the Chronicles of Narnia, complete with snow. Then we walked to another building in downtown KC and saw a lego exhibit. An artist had done sculptures in legos, which were cool. Then my sister had to go back to work, so I watched Bones and took apart a nightstand with hideous molding. Demo!
Friday was rainy, so instead of going to the garden, we went shopping at the outlets. I love outlets, and I got an extra 20% off! We also got a dining room table. Then we went and saw XMen Origins.
Saturday, we went to Powell Gardens.
It is a botanical garden and a food garden out in the middle of nowhere. They had a quilt garden, where all the plants were planted to look like a quilt. We walked around and saw the fountains and lillies and other pretty things. Then we headed to the boss' bbq, where kids set off tank fireworks. This cracked me up, especially the fireworks that were parachuters! We had brought some hotdogs, and I had insisted we get real beef ones, and my sister said, wow, these taste really good! Then we went and saw the Independence fireworks. They had some really spectacular ones. We also put together the dining table, which was pretty hysterical. It has a leaf built in, so the top is really heavy, so we were having a tough time flipping it over.
Then Sunday we got to eat pancakes on the new table, and we went to church, and brought breakfast enchiladas to break the fast, and then we saw a jazz concert. It was once again gorgeous weather, so the outdoor concert was fabulous. It was also in a pretty ritzy part of town.
Monday was again a work day, but I stayed home this time to do laundry and pack. Then we went to an old house and toured the inside. They spent a ton of time restoring it! It looked pretty amazing, except where the dogs had peed all over the floor.... then it was time to fly home. Sad. And my planes were all delayed.


Thursday, July 9, 2009

The Dark Side

A super wal-mart and sam's club just opened 5 minutes from my house in Morrisville. I have got to say, Morrisville is now the most awesome place to live. I know wal-mart has a reputation for serving the unwashed masses but these stores are clean, sparkling, new and cheap! I got Breyers vanilla ice cream for $2. Gas is $1.47. Good-bye to Harris Teeter, hello to "save money, live better".

Monday, June 29, 2009

End of June Already?

2 coats of primer 
3 friends 
4 gallons of paint
14 days

A newly painted living room: Priceless

The original living room color was here when I bought the house.  It was a dark gold brown that was really glossy.  With my dark furniture, it was just overwhelmingly dark.  The picture on the left doesn't really show how dark it was.  I was scared to paint the living room because it is big, and it would mean unplugging the computer.  But I finally had gotten tired enough of the paint to take on the challenge.  Shout outs to my friend, roommate, and home teacher for their help, without them, the room would still be a work in progress.  As it was, it took two weeks of coming home after work to get in 3 hours of work on the walls, and a solid weekend.  I had to paint everything 4 times, which just made it feel like de ja vu.  Cutting in was the most annoying part, because I couldn't skimp on that and have the lighter color come out even.  But now, I have a lovely, neutral beige on the walls.  It makes the room look bigger and brighter.  I didn't take the same picture, because looking into the kitchen from the new living room wall color makes the kitchen look a lot more olive.... That will probably be the next paint job..... after I have had a good long rest, and my friends have recovered enough to volunteer again.  

A word about the computer.... I took it apart, and then put it back together, and I have a stack of cords that I have no idea what they go to..... This would be the one benefit of redoing your computer set up every couple of years.  Clean out the wires and get rid of the ones you don't need!

I also volunteered at the Komen Race for the Cure in Raleigh.  I enjoyed Avon's more.  

My college roommate and friend and I got together for a weekend of fun.  Since my friends have children, I am not sure if the weekend was relaxing for them, but it was nice to see them, and visit.  Because it was so hot, we went to the Children's Museum.  I had a tough time being fast enough to get good pictures of the kids.  I admire other blogs that have cute kid pictures.

In other news, training for the triathlon is going.  I am no good at swimming freestyle anymore, but I did combine swimming and running back to back once last week, so that is pretty good progress.  

And for all of these reasons, June has flown by. 

Monday, June 15, 2009

Manic Monday

1. I am going to do a triathlon with my mom and sister, and I am publicly announcing this so that I stick to a training program. Today was the first ride the bike day.
2. We played laser tag for FHE... if you haven't ever done that, go do it. It is a b-awesome (Bolt) way to spend 15 minutes of your life.
3. $3 movies at Target.... need I say more

Yea, short blog. I gotta go to bed so that I can continue training tomorrow.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Yes Man

My roommate and I rented Yes Man from the redbox the other night. It was pretty funny, and the best part was this week I got to eat Mexican food at a gas station because I said yes. Who knows, maybe yes will change your life.


If you give a mouse a cookie, adult style.....
My home teacher cooked dinner last month, which was an awesome home teaching thing to do. The conversation turned to movies, and my roommate and I said we should rent a movie and have everyone over to watch it. And then I remembered, I have a 24 inch monitor, and several of the people in the room have bigger TVs. So I was thinking I should upgrade my TV so we can do a proper movie night, instead of always going to someone else's house. But if I get a TV, then I need a stand to put it on. And if I get a stand, then that means rearranging the furniture. And if I am going to rearrange the furniture, I should sell the dining room table because I don't have a dining room. This would free up more space for a new TV. And as long as I am making space for the new TV, I should take this time to take down the angled shelf that is attached to the wall and paint the walls because I don't like the color. With newly painted walls, a new furniture arrangement, and a new TV, I should really get cable. Because what good is a TV without something to watch on it? And now that I have something to watch, I should get Tivo, because I don't want to watch it on the network's schedule, only when I have free time.

And thus we see how a casual conversation among friends can spin wildly out of control :)

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Anchors Away


For Memorial Day I went to the beach.  It was alot of fun.  I enjoy sitting on the beach and reading.  The first night we were there, we went for a walk along the beach.  Out in the water was a black thing that wasn't moving.  So we were guessing what it was.  A long ways away it looked like a stick, but since it wasn't moving, we were thinking maybe part of a pier.  As we got closer, there was no other evidence of a pier, and it looked rounder, so we thought an outboard motor.  As we got closer, we thought.... what is this?  So some friends decided to swim out to check it out.  I thought the water was too cold for that, so I just watched.  They came back with the news that it was a ship's anchor!  So we spent the rest of the weekend plotting how to sell it on e-bay.