BFW Squared

Big Fun Weekend in Balmy Fort Worth

And a good time was had by all.

(Shoutout to our in absentia members.

We missed you, but we'll see you on Facebook.)

Highlights:

*Homemade pizza and breadsticks. Always a hit with this crowd.

*Chloe wowed "The Aunties" with her sunny disposition, superhuman leg strength and drooling capacity.

*Sophie filled in as entertainer, reading, singing, and constantly asking Kel to take off her glasses (apparently Soph doesn't think they suit).

*Getting significantly lost on the way to Dallas Love Field, driving on the tollway with no cash and writing four, yes four, separate checks to the North Texas Tollway Authority. Oh yeah, and

forgetting to sign one--I'm totally going to jail for that.

*Milkshakes at 1am.

*Certain people hijacking certain other people's computers and signing them up for social networking sites (Facebook, anyone?).

*Flair.

*Lazing about for an entire day, catching up and gazing adoringly at the children.

*Not getting significantly lost the second time around to Dallas Love Field.

*The food court at Hulen Mall.

In summary:

Six tolls and gas for five trips to the airport: $92

Middle-of-the-night Milkshakes: $10.50

Making new memories with old friends: Priceless

Kelly's Blog Dump 7/14/08

Okay, so I finally caved in and got a facebook. I swear I spent 8 hours on it today. Sad. Sick. Fun. But it has brought up a dilemma for me- what to do about students- current and former? I've had a couple of friend requests and am not sure what to do.

Along the lines of technology, I also finally played my first games of wii. I am an excellent virtual bowler, which just shows you how inaccurate the game really is. I worked up quite a sweat boxing my sister. My mom couldn't figure out how to time the shots in tennis so she just would frantically wave her controller back and forth in a frenzy hoping to hit the ball. Surprisingly, she often would.

Bravo is giving me a great birthday gift this year.

Also here is the promised haircut shot. I don't know why it's so fuzzy.


Here are just a few Nashville shots.








Besides sight seeing I had a really great time with all my relatives. Last time we got together I posted a picture of my then 1 year old second cousin Jack smoking a cigarette. Well, he has developed a new vice now that he's in his "terrible twos"

Add it to the Map

Now I have to add another city to my map. We decided to go to the Atlanta area to see my grandma for a couple of days before we fly out of Nashville. All I can say is humidity and mosquitos. Although my bites are not as bad as the chigger epidimic of 2007 (AKA Jo's luau) it is still pretty itchy. And I am reminded of why I moved out of my parents' house- my mother's snoring kept me up most of the night last night. Sometimes vacations help me appreciate my "real" life!

On the Road Again

I'm leaving again tomorrow for a family reunion in Nashville. I'm travelling a lot in July, every weekend in fact. After Nashville is a conference in Colorado, followed by a Big Fun Weekend in Dallas to meet the newest addition to the family, Chloe, and wrapping up with a weekend in Sedona. Just for a fun, I made a map of my travels this summer, not including Europe.


View Larger Map

By request, more from Florida...

Check out our Florida pictures on our Flickr gallery.

Also, Megan, to answer your question on behalf of Kelly, she's in Europe. If she gets a chance, she said she'd try to post sometime during her trip.

Where I Am...

Megan, to answer the question posed in your post title, I am in FLORIDA! We're enjoying our annual trip to St. George Island.


Here's our house. It's called Starry Night.

Here's the view from the back of our house facing the bay.

Dinner Saturday night at Harry A's. Not sure of the purpose of the giant menus.

Base camp. This is the view from the front our house facing the gulf.

More later, but for now I have to go enjoy my vacation! Jeremy & Shannon, I hope this is enticing you to join us tomorrow. Show these to the doctor and explain how relaxing it is and I'm sure she'll say a dose of St. George is just what Sparky needs.

Walking In Memphis

Apparenly our blog doesn't have good timing. I've been told recently (and it has been referenced in another blog's comments) that we tend to have little eruptions of posts and then we go dormant for a while. We can't help it that the interesting things in our separate lives all seem to happen at the same time. So, while I hate to push Kelly's fantabulous new prom post out of the top spot, I do want to share some highlights of our trip to Memphis this weekend for Jon's cousin's wedding.

Highlights:

- an earthquake. This was actually Friday morning before we left - I slept through it but it woke Jon up. I did feel the aftershock though.

- apparently the gas pumps in Arkansas have not been upgraded with the automatic shut-off feature so we lost a little gas and polluted the environment. It coudn't be just a broken gas pump - we're totally blaming it on Arkansas.

- Jon (accidentally?) setting the bread basket on fire at the rehearsal dinner. Too bad we didn't get a picture but we were busy putting it out. The food at the rehearsal dinner was fan-tas-tic, though.

- the d.j. at the reception introducing a song by Michael Bubble. Who?

- eating yummy Ethiopian food at Abyssnia.

- eating Jon's favorite empanadas at On The Border.

- a hotel with complementary chocolate chip cookies, the most comfortable king-sized beds, and real cable.

- my first visit to Lambert's, home of the "throwed rolls."

- driving past Graceland - it wasn't what I expected. I always pictured it in a more rural setting. I also couldn't believe that people would pay $30-70 to walk through the house.

- the Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma Outlets. Good thing we were on a schedule - I didn't have time to do any damage. This trip at least.

- meeting the Memphis half of Jon's family. It was good to finally meet everyone and put faces to names and images to places. Everyone was super nice.

It's interesting that so many of these highlights focus on food...

The I sisters-in-law: Rachel, Johanna, Amie, and Shannon

Going Places Near And Far

Today we’re coming to you from the open road. We’re on the way to Columbia to see Jon’s goddaughter and to pass the time, I’m typing this on the drive. Laptops are cool. But unless we stop at a gas station with wi-fi, we’ll have to wait to actually post this until we get there. Jon, do you want to say anything to our readers?

Um……I don’t know. I don’t like rain and I don’t like traffic.

Don’t I know it. Before we were even married I adopted a personal rule of never telling Jon anything I wanted him to remember while he is driving. I have two words for you…road rage.

What?!?! I don’t have rage. I have frustration sometimes. But not rage.

Uh huh. Whatever. Okay, so really what I want to talk about today is something that happened to Jon earlier today. You have heard me rant about the strange system that our local St. Louis Bread Company (Panera, to you out-of-towners) has of telling people their order is ready. Actually, the system is not so much strange as nonexistent. Today, Jon ordered a You Pick Two (he says: it was very good) and he was given a pager and asked for his name. When his order was up, they actually called the pager number. Does that make any sense? No. Last time I was there, I asked the poor schlub behind the counter what was up. It was really just out of curiosity, I wasn’t upset or anything, but the kid got all flustered and apologetic and didn’t say anything that would help us solve this mystery. Now, I know that just about all of the other contributors at Apartment Five B are Panera fans. Do you all have the same issues at your local stores?

We bought our plane tickets for Costa Rica a couple of nights ago. I’m super excited. It’s my first trip that necessitates a passport. Jon and I are both sans passports right now. I just got one for the first time last year but, still devoid of stamps, I had to send it off for a name change. That was about 2 months ago and our trip isn’t until November so I’m not worried about getting it back in time…yet. Jon just sent his last week – his was actually full of stamps and about to expire – but his is expedited so it will likely be back before mine. We’re going to Costa Rica for a wedding – Jon is even a groomsman – and we’re going to be there for about a week. This wedding is going to be super fun – the reception will feature two bands and two meals. It might be even cooler than the luau. (I'm kidding - of course! it will be cooler than the luau - it was about 105 degrees! Ha ha!)

After I finished the first part of this post, we ran into some traffic problems. Turns out it was because of this. A truck had lost it's hitch, releasing the trailer holding the boat. Somehow the boat ended up completely upside down in the left lane. The poor guy standing next to the side of the road on his cell phone when we drove by looked profoundly sad. We must not have been too far away when this happened - the police hadn't even shown up yet. Despite the delay, we still got to Chris and Marianne's house in plenty of time to enjoy some Shakespeare's Pizza. Yum yum.

An Attempt At Catching Up

We are almost recovered from the craziness that was the luau. Crazy fun, that is! Thank you all so much for coming. I just wish we would have had more time together. We still haven't done any major grocery shopping, but due to beverage leftovers our fridge could be mistaken for something you might see on "Cribs." So sorry about the bug bites. Jon and I were largely unaffected. But as far as I know, none of you rolled around in the grass - where did you find chiggers?

I'm not really sure how to say this next thing that I want to tell you. I scored (for lack of a better word) some free tickets at work for the American Idol Live tour and my mom and I went to the show last week. I am only a casual viewer but my mom watches religiously and has a special gift for picking the top three each season. As soon as Hollywood Week begins she posts her favorites in a central spot in the house so everyone knows her choices and she can't make casual revisions. She has been spot on everytime. Except I don't think she predicated a 3rd place finish for Melinda - that girl was robbed. I digress. The concert, I must grudgingly admit, was quite good. I was really only going for my mom's sake and started to regret my decision when even she was worried that we would "run into someone we know." Not that that would really be an issue because they would probably be just as embarrassed and both parties would either ignore each other completely or sheepishly wave and roll our eyes with a silent understanding to never mention this again. The audience at the Scottrade/Savvis/Kiel/Whatever Center was made up off a lot of families, especially mother/daughter or father/daughter dates. We got 3 hours of solid entertainment - even Sanjaya was decent. I said decent, not good. All of the top 10 finalists seemed much more confident and relaxed and they all seemed to be having a good time, even though I suspect in Gina's case it was more condescending amusement (and her recent engagement) that kept her smiling.

Jon is sporting a new look, or rather an old look revisited. Since the wedding and luau are finished he has cut his hair again. I like it a lot, but now I'm married to a thug.

We traveled from one St. Charles to another over the weekend for a family picnic. St. Charles, MO, was about 105 degrees and dry when we left and St. Charles, IL, was 72 degrees and rainy. Despite the weather, the diehards still went out on the boats for some wakeboarding and tubing. So far, I've brought rain with me to every family event in Chicago. All of my memories so far are of us huddling under tarps and umbrellas. Don't get me wrong, we always have a great time, but it's always a soggy, muddy, chilly kind of fun. On the way home last night we stopped at Ikea and got a few small items for our apartment, including a TV stand. I spent the day today building furniture and we should get our couch by the weekend (finally!).

I'm trying a new thing for keeping up with the many blogs I enjoy reading. Instead of just accessing them from the links on the righthand side of this page, I'm using Google Reader. If you have a Blogger account you can use that to login to Google and do this also. You just tell Google which sites you're looking for and it creates a list which automatically updates. When you login, it will tell you which sites have new posts. You can also create folders and tags to keep them all organized. I've got friends in one (the most important), funny stuff in another (Planet Dan and Improv Everywhere, for example), etc. There are lots of feed readers out there, but I tend to like what Google does and I didn't have to create a new account. I tried the Yahoo reader, both from within Mail and My Yahoo! - and found it to be lacking.

Has anyone seen Becoming Janet yet? I got a new book this weekend called Lost In Austen, by Emma Campbell Webster. It is essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure for adults, based on the Jane Austen novels. I haven't had much time to start it yet so I can't give a review, but I thought the premise at least to be very clever.

In other news, I've already started Christmas shopping and making. The only beneficiary so far is Sophie - I couldn't help myself. *** Christa's blog is now linked in Kristy's list on the right. For creating such an entertaining and informative blog, Christa gets 2 thumbs up! *** I took zero pictures the weekend of the luau except for a few of the kids at Cracker Barrel, so girls, if you'll send them to me, I'll post them all together. *** Kelly, I read some interesting news on Miss Monkey's blog. Or maybe you told me and I wasn't paying attention through the hairspray fumes and pins poking in my head. Tell us more about the triathalon, please!

California Dreamin'

I'm having a great time in LA. Here are some quick highlights.

1) Saw Chris Pierce in concert. He has a great soul voice. You can hear some of his stuff on myspace. His song She's Trying to Kill Me is hilarious.

2) Saw the movie Once. It is a very simple, sweet movie. The music is AMAZING. You can even get a free download of my favorite song from the movie at this site. Warning: you might drive your household crazy with repeated listenings because it is totally addictive. This is the insane part (yes, this is a "country girl going to the big city" story) the movie ticket cost $14 and had ASSIGNED SEATS. Insane.

3)Ate pinkberry yogurt. Never had anything like it. Again, totally addictive. Their tag lines are "swirly goodness" and "chilly bliss." It even has its own theme song called (rather obviously I think) "The Pinkberry Song" by Lady Tigra.

4) Went to Grauman's Theater for the first time. Saw Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Matt Damon's hand and footprints. So cool. Lots of characters around. I saw a Mad Eye Moody, several pirates, a seriel killer of some sort, a man with wings and 6 inch patent red platforms and a leather thong. I insulted Tom Cruise's handprint because it looked like he misspelled his own name and was chastised by a bystander because "he's actually a very intelligent man who has overcome many things, including dyslexia." Oops.

5) Tonight on tap is the Spazmatics. They are an 80's cover band and they dress up like the Revenge of the Nerds. I have even purchased an outfit for the evening. It includes gigantic pink hoop earrings.

A Picture Timeline And A New Place

So many things to catch up, so little time. Where do I start? Here's a quick timeline of the last few weeks.

June 7-13 - Hawaii. We got married.

June 17 - Father's Day. My sister-in-law's father died.

June 18 - Dinner with Matt & Vicki. A night in the emergency room. And these two events are actually totally unrelated to each other.

June 21-23 - In Chicago for Chrissy's wedding. Driving through the night is not fun.

June 29 - Jon got bit by a brown recluse spider. Another couple of hours at urgent care. We found the culprit dead in our bed. The circle on Jon's leg indicates how big the bite was when he first noticed it, probably a couple of hours after being bitten. This picture was taken Friday night. The bite continued to get bigger through the first part of the week until it covered most of the inside of Jon's thigh and knee.

June 30 - The Big Move. The pictures below are, sadly, before and after shots of the same room.

July 2 - We bought furniture. This means that in a few days we will have somewhere to sit other than our bed or the floor.
A New Town

Jon and I moved into our first apartment on Saturday. We're living in a very strange place, a kind of city within a city. It's a planned community based on the concept of Seaside, FL, which you'll recognize as the filming location for the movie The Truman Show. I feel like I live on a college campus. I'm sitting outside the supermarket picking up on the wi-fi signal from the cafe across the street and a group of people just rode by on Segways. (By the way, the market closes at 8. As my preferred time to grocery shop is after 10 p.m., I expect to have an empty refrigerator from now on.) Everyone says hi and waves. You have to walk to a post office (much like CPO) to get your mail. I think the intent was to encourage residents to walk there but almost everyone stops by in their cars on their way to or from somewhere else. It's a neat little area even if it is a bit Stepfordish, and to someone accustomed to urban living, I appreciate being able to walk down the street to get a sandwich or a cup of coffee or to wander through a neighborhood festival. I just have to remember to do it before 8.

By the way, we've decided on a place for the luau. It will be right here in New Town, just a block from our apartment and across the street from where we had our first date just 50 short weeks ago.

I Love the Beach OR Why It Took Me So Long to Get on Board

Since Sarah opened the door, I feel it is confession time for me now.

I have never liked the beach.

I know, I know, sacrilege. I have been to beaches literally all over the world, including even Hawaii (I can hear Jo's wrath now) and just never really enjoyed myself.

Reasons Why I Used to Dislike the Beach:

1) The bathing suit issue. I know very few women who feel like they look great in a suit, even if they do, in fact, look great in a suit. I have a fairly good understanding of how I look in a suit and the thought of parading myself in one, does not thrill. Unfortunately, the beach requires such a suit unless you go to a nude beach (shudder).

2) Closely related to #1 is the "sandy butt issue." I don't know how you feel about the mass of sand that accumulates in certain bodily regions, but I for one, do not enjoy it. I can not wait to get out of the suit after I've been in the water.

3) The hair factor. Some of you have a great beach hair. You know what I mean, looks great wet, dry, in between. I have the antithesis of great beach hair. I frankly have hair that should never be exposed to the out of doors. The combination of sand, humidity and water turns my hair into dreads in minutes. And not cool dreads (like the one the random girl in Texas had who Jo took a picture of), but frizzy hair in front sticking straight up and in impossible to get out dreads in the back.

4) The sun. If you've seen me, you know of which I speak. Skin like mine again, should not be exposed to the out of doors. If I lived in a pre-sunscreen world I think I would probably not have survived to this advanced age as all my skin would have fallen off thus making people uncomfortable to see me, turning me into a lonely social pariah who would have eventually died of sadness (or my internal organs falling out might have caused some significant problems as well). Closely related to the sun burn issue is the heat issue. One thing I like to do on the beach is to read. But, much like my dislike for bubble baths, I find myself too hot and uncomfortable to enjoy the reading and the whole time I'm fantasizing about a couch in the AC.

5) The water. I know, I know, I am hard to please. A lot of the beaches I have been to, especially in California, the water is so cold! I don't know about you, but I like my water like a bathtub. The water is cold and kind of scary (sharks, anyone?) and I would much rather be in the pool.

6) The BIG production. This is really the heart of the matter for me. You get all your gear together, trying to make sure you won't forget something. You make a pb and j sandwich because you know you're going to get hungry, but that you probably won't eat it anyway because it is going to get sandy. You have to remember the sunscreen that must be reapplied every fifteen seconds (not on a boat deck!) or you will turn into a lobster (after being cooked of course, a pre-cooked lobster is actually sort of tan looking). You drive a long way, search for parking, finally park, lug all your stuff, try to fight the crowds to find your little free square of sand and then finally you're there. And then you've got to watch the stuff too, gotta worry about someone stealing your keys, cell phone or sandy sandwich. With all that production, when I'm hot, tired, bored, etc. you can't leave!! You have to stay to "make it worthwhile." This clearly translates to at least three hours. By then I'm ready to kill myself and I'm mentally making a list called 100 Things I'd Rather Clean Than Be at the Beach (#75 is my belly button).

I know this list is pretty comprehensive. How could an unrepentent beach loather such as myself be converted?

Why I Now Love the Beach

1) The bathing suit issue. I bought a three piece suit. A halter tankini, bottom, and little skirt covers a multitude of sins. Rachel a few years ago bought me a swim suit cover up that helps with any other wobbly bits. If things got really bad, I could always consider this.

2) The sandy butt issue. This year we stayed in a gorgeous house in North Carolina that was right on the beach. Now I realize I was a bit slow to realize this, but the beach house is a fabulous invention. Now when I got sandy butt, I got up, walked home and showered. Radical concept, I know.

3) The hair issue. Here's where the Dazzle headband once again swooped in and saved me. The headband held back the party in the front of my scalp. It still wasn't what I would call attractive, but it did help. Also when things got desperate I put on the giant straw hat. My hair could have been on fire and no one would have been the wiser!

4) The sun. I still don't have a great solution for this, although I've gotten a lot smarter. I use SPF 50 and reapply often. I don't enjoy this process, but at least I don't get burned. (My sister and I have designed a new service, instead of spray on tan, you can go and get spray on sunscreen, I would pay for such a service). But for the heat, once again, the beach house plays a pivotal role. When I'd get hot, now pay attention here because it gets a little complicated- I go inside.

5) The water. People, people, people. Have you heard of the Atlantic Ocean???? If everyone felt as strongly as I did, the California beaches would be absolutely empty. Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina- all of them have gorgeous warm water. Have you ever heard of such a thing? It's like being in a pool, but slightly more wavey. I'm still a little scared of sharks, but was reassured by the man at the aquarium that the sharks have plenty to eat in the water so they probably won't eat me. It's probably his job to reassure people like me, but I'm choosing to believe him. But, just in case, I always make sure I am in the water with someone I'm pretty sure I can outswim.

6) The big production. With the beach house, there's no production. Roll out of bed, put on the suit, walk outside, enjoy the beach for as long as you want, and then go inside, shower, eat and enjoy the airconditioning. Repeat over and over. I could totally get used to this.

So I just got back from a fabulous, relaxing beach vacation with my family and my mom's relatives. I won't disclose our exact location because one of the reasons it was so fun was that there weren't too many people on the beach and I don't want to be the one who lets the cat out of the bag. I am just going to keep it my little secret.

Here are some pics:

On the left: from the front- my step grandma Sonnie, Lindsay, Mom, cousin Charlie, Uncle Chuck's girlfriend Chris, Uncle Chuck. One the right: Aunt Lisa, cousin Katie (wearing the fabulous Dazzle headband), me, Aunt Barb, cousin Alison, cousin Jen. And little Jack is at the end, but alas he is too short. So I'll add another one of him:

This is Jack, my cousin Jen's almost one year old. That would make him my second cousin or first cousin twice removed (I have no idea!! Does anyone?). He has unfortunately picked up some vices on this trip.*

*Should anyone be offended, it was a candy cigarette. Although it would probably still be toxic if lit.

Big Fun Wedding In Hawaii Days 5 & 6

Sadly, this is our last update from Hawaii. We are sitting in the gate area at the Honolulu airport waiting to board our flight.

^ In the walkway outside our hotel, leading to Kalakaua Avenue and the beach.

^ Lunch today at Ono Hawaiian Foods. Front row: rice, kalua pork, pipikaula (Hawaiian beef jerky, oh so yummy). Second row: onions and lomi salmon (sort of like salsa with salmon). Third row: the only new item is the one on the far right. It's a coconut dessert called haupia. We also tried poi.

^ At Ono.

^ With another random dog friend, this one was on the pool deck at our hotel. I don't think his owners liked the fact that he seemed to like us so much.

^ Me in front of the Duke Kahanamoku statue.

^ Yummy snack right before we left for the airport. POG (passion fruit/orange/guava juice) and spam musubi (don't knock it until you try it - it's really pretty tasty).

^ At the Honolulu airport waiting to board our flight.

Big Fun Wedding In Hawaii Days 4 & 5

I'm supposed to be getting in the shower, not blogging, so I'll keep this short and just tell you about the pictures.

^ Hula dancers in the Pan-Pacific Matsuri Parade, the second parade to march past our hotel in as many days.

^ After dinner #2 at Roy's. Both times they hooked us up with complimentary congratulatory desserts. And once again, the food did not disappoint. This is the original location but there are several others including one in Chicago. Definitely check it out if you get the chance.

^ Jon getting ready to snorkel at Shark's Cove. Thanks for the recommendash, Matt.

^ Me at Shark's Cove.

^ Shark's Cove. By the way, after we went to Shark's Cove we went back to Ehukai and our random dog friend was there again.

^ The name of this business means "Wet Butt." At first I thought it might be a bar or something, but it's much more clever than that. They sell waterproof seat covers.

^ Harry Potter (and Borders) is everywhere, apparently.

Big Fun Wedding In Hawaii Days 2, 3, & 4

Let's see, where did I leave off in my last post? Oh yeah. So...we got married. And it was wonderful - just what we wanted. I'm needing food and the hunger is keeping me from being particularly clever so I'll just throw up a bunch of pictures for now.

^ Pastor Matt Dirks from Harbor Church Hawaii Kai officiated. He is a friend of a friend of friend. The beach is Waialae Beach Park in Kahala.

^ The rings.

^ The Kiss. It's official. As Jon just said, the good part.

^ At Halona Blowhole and Cove.

^ Dinner at Roy's afterwards with Jon's friend Jake who was nice enough to come and be our photographer and videographer. Literally, he had a camera in each hand. Thank you, Jake! Roy's was so good that we are going back there for dinner tonight.

^ Beautiful flowers sent by Neal and Angie. Thank you! What a wonderful surprise!

^ Me in my "Just Married" tank, courtesy of one of my brand new sisters-in-law Rachel. I did wear it out briefly.

^ This is our random dog friend on Ehukai Beach on the North Shore. He just trotted up to us, friendly as could be, and presented his rear end for me to scratch. When he was done with us, he trotted off to the next family.

^ At Ehukai Beach, location of the famous Banzai Pipeline.

^ Our somewhat trusty Tracker. Notice there are no back windows. Jon conveniently forgot his glasses so I have been the primary driver.

^ After church this morning at Kawaiaha'o Church. Today's service honored King Kamehameha the Great. Tomorrow is actually a state holiday honoring Kamehameha - no school, no banks, etc.

^ That's Jon paddling out on his surfboard in the light blue boardshorts in the middle of the picture. He said, "It was really crowded but I caught a couple of waves and it was really fun."

^ Kuhio Beach in Waikiki, directly in front of our hotel.