they just left. they’re actually heading west an hour or so to drop their boy off with friends and then they’ll head back home. sadly, it seemed like a very short visit. but we had a great time. saturday we had a fun time at the beach and pool with boogie boards and my duckie. my duckie was a huge hit amongst all of the chilluns. there was then some afternoon nappage followed by a nice evening of walking around our favorite shopping plaza and dinner at a place we had not yet tried. there was even some late night rock band jamming.

sunday was a more adventurous day that started out with sissy and the chilluns flying around.

the boys thoroughly enjoyed taking a dip or three.

the girls were happy hanging out together.

it was then time for maiden voyage – the sequel. our new kayaks with their matching life vests were anxious to prove they were better than the other ‘yaks.

the whole family got in on the action after hubby and i had our fun. bro-n-law was a fierce paddler.

he even tried to t-bone his son.
nephew² enjoyed surfing.

sissy braved the deeper waters a bit.

and even niece caught a wave.

after buying the new ‘yaks home friday at lunch, we left one (mine) in the car so that we could take it on a quick trial run after work (before returning the other kayak and paddle). the surf was up (for this part of the world) that afternoon and we were tremendously pleased with how the new ‘yak surfs.

and sleep in all day long! oh, to be fifteen again, without a care in the world! (wait, no, i had a job at fifteen and had to work when i wasn’t at school)

in one weekend wii have already unlocked 45 of the 63 songs. clearly, wii are going to need more songs.

it’s been a great way to pass the time.

last night we tried out the concert in the park gig. i was a bit disappointed. it was a great venue filled with groups of people picnicking and having a good social time. it was terrific people-watching. but the band was pretty awful. it was supposed to be classic rock but it was just a bunch of tone-deaf geriatric guys. seriously, it was sad. even the couple of songs that i knew were barely recognizable after being butchered by a tone-deaf singer. of course, the girls were bored out of their minds a quarter of the way through the first song. they immediately asked for the iphone and stared myspacing. we stayed for about an hour, until a break, and then left before they could come back and butcher some more. i’m sure hubby and i will try it again because it really could have been much more fun with slightly better musicians. and a picnic. we should have picnicked. i’m not sure if we’ll be doing the cinema under the stars tonight or not. they’re doing bee movie which i never really cared much for seeing but i love outside movies and i think we could have a good time if we picnic and do it right. anyhow, after the first set, we put our chairs back in the car and walked around the mall a bit. i ended up getting a new outfit that i was coveting the other day when we were there. i love the shirt. and i love the idea of the shorts but they are outside of my comfort zone so i’m not completely sure yet. i don’t think my hubby likes the shorts but they are what all the “kids” are wearing these days and i’m trying to stop looking like the curmudgeonly old woman around here. stop judging me! anyhow, after stopping in a few shops, the girls wanted to go to target so while they were shopping around in there, we headed to the electronics department. kids, i cannot tell you how pained my husband was when he saw rock band for wii sitting right there, just as pretty as could be. he paced back and forth in front of it for a good two minutes. then he put his head in his hands and walked up and down a couple of aisles. then he picked it up – just in case – since it was the only one there. he found a cart to put it in and walked around the store asking what was wrong with him. finally, he ended up at the register with it and told me to do the deed while he went to retrieve the car from the other end of the plaza (honestly, i think he just couldn’t bear to witness the purchasing). it was quite amusing. he has been dying to have this game though, so i was glad that he decided to go ahead and get it. it’s only money, right? the girls were pretty happy about the purchase, even if a little disappointed that we deemed it far too late on a work night to be opening the box to set it up and play. hey, i said we’re trying to be young, i didn’t say we were succeeding. so, regardless of whether we make it to a movie in the park tonight or go walking down the strip, there will definitely be some rocking going on around our house!

well half the family got in a little after lunch and the other half arrived a little after dinner time. unfortunately, my sis-n-law, who got here in the first bunch, is already just about home. not long after getting here, she got a call from her husband (the only family member that was not able to come) stating that he had broken his leg and was on his way to the emergency room. she fretted about it and fretted about it and finally got in the car and headed back north. please think happy thoughts in dw’s direction. in the meantime, the rest of us have had a very nice time. we didn’t end up going to the concert in the park gig but we did spend some time on the beach and at the pool. this is our youngest (two year old) niece’s first time at the beach so it was a momentous occasion. she isn’t taking to it quite as quickly as her sister did but she did seem to enjoy digging in the sand (as long as it didn’t get on her – ewww). i think she had a better time at the pool though. she laughed and splashed and had a great time. tomorrow should be fun for her. the mushroom fountain will be on for them to play in (it was too late this evening when we were down there). we came back up around sunset and broke out the wii. so far, the nephew, niece, and sis-n-law have created their miis and played around. i boxed the nephew and came close to beating him but alas, ran out of steam. i didn’t feel too bad though since hubby got ko’d by him in the first round. i at least made it most of the way through the second round. this is the most fun we’ve had with the wii yet. it’s great for us old folks to be able to play with the youngsters, on the same level, and have a good time.

i just got to use all seven letters on my opening move in scrabulous! i’ve never done that. very exciting to get 74 points right off the bat. i am pleased to say that the house is thoroughly cleaned. as in sanitized and straightened. the guest beds are all made up, the guest bath is fully loaded with towels, toiletries, and sunblocks. our room is presentable and our bathroom is ready for guest overflow use. i need to do a load or two of laundry but that doesn’t really matter. we need to have company more often. seems to be the only time that we really, really clean everything. it’s so nice to have an immaculate house. and, yes, i am fully aware that it will be a wreck again within five minutes of company arriving. but those five minutes will be glorious. i’m really just so proud of what we’ve done with this place. i was proud of our house in ga because of the work that we put into building it (built a yard by laying sod and creating landscaped “islands”, built a bonus room over the garage from nothing but framing, built a bathroom off the bonus room from scratch by taking in some of the attic space). this place we won’t be able to “build” in, but we’ve decorated everything from scratch which is something neither of us has really done before. i can now say that i fully understand why interior designers get paid big bucks; it is a lot of work. i think that everything has come together quite nicely though. now if i could just get the time and energy to paint the rest of the walls. the bad thing is that it’s now down to the bigger areas. our bedroom/bathroom, the living/dining/kitchen, and the entrance/hallway. i’ll probably tackle the laundry room next since it’s the only small space left and we already have paint for it (leftover from house in ga). maybe i’ll do that next month. it certainly won’t be over the next few weeks as we are going to have two teenage girls here for two weeks after the rest of the family leaves. God help us!

we decided to give my sissy and bro-n-law a day off so we asked my dad and his wife to get us and the chilluns into disney yesterday. we packed up the kids and left the house right before 10:00, met up with my dad, and were in the park by 11:00. we did the muppets at mgm (it will forever be mgm, i don’t care what they say) with the grandparents and that was enough for them so we parted ways back at the park exit and we five headed over to animal kingdom, which has become my favorite park. we immediately headed over to expedition everest to get our fast passes and were pleased to discover that the girl child is tall enough to ride. we did the asian jungle trail, ate lunch, watched the bug show (which was some welcome a/c and misting effects on such a bloody hot day), and then went to ride everest. the kids had a blast on it. next was the african safari and a parade before we left to go back to mgm. at mgm, we got our fast passes to tower of terror. while waiting for our time, we watched about half of the beauty and the beast stage show. when it was time for terror, the younger nephew was disinclined to do any dropping so hubby took him for a nap on the great movie ride while i took the oldest and youngest to the tower. though the girl child squeezed my hand ferociously throughout the line and during the ride, she proclaimed afterward that it was not even scary. we grabbed five fast passes for rockin’ rollercoaster before going to meet up with the other boys. we walked around a bit, did the backlot tour, and made our way back for our scheduled aerosmith limo ride. the was the first time for both younger children and they were both a bit dubious about wanting to ride something that went upside down. when it was all over, they both loved it. they didn’t even notice the upside down loop. *sob* my chilluns is all grown up *sob*. we had a snack outside the coaster and decided on the animation class to kill time before the big fantasmic show. we were only able to do the first little movie before making our way to the show to ensure we got seats so we figured we’d go back and do the actual drawing class after the show. fantasmic was fun and we headed back to draw as planned when a cast member stopped us and told us to go try out the not-yet-opened toy story ride. we did as told and i am so glad because it was the perfect end to the day. it is like the buzz lightyear ride/game at mk but much more fun, imho. of course, it does help that i totally whooped the kids and randal. both times through (since it’s not “open” yet, there was no line at all). the second time, i heard randal proudly proclaiming his score of 147,500 from his car, which was a significant increase over my first score (132,200) when i beat them all. however, he was not happy to hear that my score the second time around was 158,700. yep, i creamed them. i may have even gloated… just a smidgen, of course. throughout the day we took iphone pix of the kids in front of their various conquests and emailed them to the parents and gparents so that they knew could be jealous of what a fantastic time we were having. after toy story, we left the park and went in search of a quick, light dinner (yes, at 22:30 – the parents would kill us). we successfully made it home, ordered showers, allowed each child a two-minute visitation with the dog, and had them in bed by 23:30. it was a long, tiring day but worth it. i think the kids had a great time too. and they were absolutely wonderful the whole day, no attitude or sniping at each other. which i found impressive because as hot as it was, it could have been ugly; i can’t be the only person who’s temper increases with the temperature. in the meantime, my sissy didn’t get home until after 01:00. they had a nice day sans les enfants. and they used the blue man tickets we got them for Christmas. naturally, today is going to be a very lazy day for all of us.

last night was another late night jam session on rock band. maybe one of these days we’ll be good enough to play with the kids! so, of course, i’m dead tired again today. and it’s just been a very tiring work day anyhow. we found out yesterday that my boy is actually going to be leaving me for two weeks instead of one and then he’s got a conference at disney the week after that so, basically, that boils down to me being here for may. i feel a little like the baby in the basket on the doorstep. i really hope that my sissy and bro-n-law honestly don’t mind and aren’t just saying that. i know that it’s one of those situations where, really, what else are you gonna say? you can’t really say “no, go find a hotel.” oh well. in any case, though i don’t like being gone from my new home so long, i will get to do lots of visiting that i have been desperately missing. i should also be able to do plenty of weddinging with jenny, which i’ve felt bad about not being able to do. i already called and rescheduled our furniture delivery for the end of the month (making sure to give myself plenty of time to get home and get the room painted before it comes) and i need to call and reschedule our dental appointments. i guess going to the dentist with my hubby on our anniversary was a better plan than him being two thousand miles away on our anniversary. that’ll teach me to sarcastically complain. so who wants to take me out for my anniversary?

how dare my sissy and bro-n-law keep me up until 0100 playing rock band! didn’t they know i had to work today? sheesh. so we had a good visiting weekend. spent a nice afternoon with my dad saturday, relaxed saturday night, spent time with my brother and sis-n-law yesterday, and had dinner with my jenny last night. i also managed to make plans for the week last night like jenny and i are going to look for bridesmaid dresses wednesday night and i managed to invite myself to a free movie with my cousin for tonight. it’s been forever since i had a girls-only night with my cousin. i feel a little guilty having two girls-nights this week when my hubby is going to be gone all next week but it’s also nice to have friends around. i think him and bro-n-law are talking about a golfing man-date wednesday anyhow. oh, and you’ll be shocked to know that my body has been vehemently disapproving of my run on saturday. my poor quads.

HAPPY 2^nd ANNIVERSARY, BRUDDER & SIS-N-LAW!!! funny for it to only be their second anniversary when they’ve been together thirteen years. kinda like how it seems strange that our fourth anniversary is coming up when we’ve been together almost nine years. and to celebrate our very special 4^th anniversary… you guessed it… dental cleanings for the happy couple! whew! do we know how to live it up or what? unfortunately, someone’s work schedule has been a planning nightmare lately and i had to schedule something. i figured that week was the safest because we have furniture being delivered on the 13^th so we have to be here, right? so, of course, the only day that they had back-to-back appointments open was our anniversary. i’m not looking forward to this dental visit either. the only dentist in our relative area that is on our insurance AND taking new patients does not sound like someone i want to go to. yep, i know, that sounds horribly prejudiced. the thing is, with a doctor i wouldn’t mind but i have had TERRIBLE experiences with foreign dentists. i’m not one to fear the chair but i’m just not looking forward to this. in other news, we broke out our wii last night and our miis got to play a little. we each did our little fitness test gigs to find out our mii’s ages. no i will not say what my mii scored but it was an improvement over my previous mii’s performance at my cousin’s house. stupid wii baseball. after obtaining our respective ages, we each tried a little golf as we had not wii-golfed before. i actually liked it. i got the hang of it and even managed to birdie a hole. unfortunately, it looks like my poor boy is going to have to wait until almost july before getting his jam on with rock band. however, he will get to do some rehearsals ps2-style with my nephews this weekend. that’s right, we’ve confirmed our reservations and we’re headed to orlando. really, we are. and i’ve heard that the broken man-child has been working on his one-armed drumming à la rick allen from def leppard (hmmm, think he’s ever heard of them?). anyhow, anyone wanna get together next week?

we had a sleepover with the three chilluns friday night which went well. saturday late morning/early afternoon, b&j came back and we all went down to the pool for a while and then went to lunner and then they left for the long trip home. we rested for a few hours and then went to our favorite hangout to listen to some music until the wee hours of the morning. we got home a little after 0300 and crashed. i really enjoyed the band that was playing last night. they were a birmingham band called within reason. they had a good sound to them and the covers they did were actually current, which was cool. there are several bands we’ve seen there multiple times that we enjoy but most of the covers are the usual covers. it was refreshing to hear something different for a cover band. they also gave out free sample cds and i can definitely appreciate their sound. anyhow, i just got up a little bit ago and made some brunch while my hubby hung some decor in our bathroom. now we’re getting ready to head out to town for some shopping and returns.

wow, been a while, eh? alright, some bits of randomness then, shall we?

• we did make our tv purchases. we ended up choosing a 50″ plasma for the living room which would not fit in the car. of course, we did not do enough up front research to know that we also could not lay it down in the car and, therefore, would have been better off with a smaller lcd for ease of transport. luckily, my hubby is a social person and when he went back into the store to re-measure the display model to see if it would fit in the car out of the box he met a man buying the same tv who happened to live a couple miles from us and had a truck but no straps. well, it just so happens that we never are without straps in our vehicle. so a deal was struck for this very kind gentleman to follow us home with our tv. we also got a 26″ lcd for our bedroom. we don’t much watch tv in our bedroom but i prefer to have a tv in there when my boy is out of town because i watch tv until i can’t keep my eyes open when i’m alone and being in bed is more conducive to that sleep behavior than having to get up from the couch and walk to bed by which time i’m awake again. insomnia sucks, ya’ll.
• i love my tvs. they are so shiny and pretty and clear. the living room requires a sound system though as the tv’s sound is insufficient and very directional.
• we had company part of last weekend. our great friends b&t and family came to visit again. they are doing vacation two beaches over this week so they came down a couple days early to stay with us. they enjoyed the entertainment system upgrades since their last visit. next time we’ll even have beds for the chilluns to sleep on. we went to play and have dinner at their rental wednesday night. tonight, we are giving them their anniversary gift by letting them drop the chilluns off for the night and then tomorrow they are headed home.
• we spent ten or eleven hours glued to the couch last sunday watching the lotr trilogy on our pretty, new tv. the rest was much needed but that is a long flippin’ trilogy.
• i got a call from my sissy last saturday letting me know that the man-child went and got himself broken at the very end of spring break. they were at the beach (apparently our beach is too far, how rude!) and the boys had just gotten a skim board and poor man-child wiped out and broke both bones in his arm and had to have surgery to pin him back together. they were on the way back from the beach hospital when she called and he was in the back of the van half asleep and drooling from the pain meds. my poor nephew. it’s been a rough and painful week for him with no guitar hero. i just want to hug him and squeeze him and take away his pain.
• we’re trying really hard to get down to orlando before the end of the month because it’s been like forever since we visited and i miss my friends and family and need to hug my little man-child ferociously. unfortunately, one of us has been working rediculously crazy hours lately and has to go out of town on a moments’ notice so it’s really hard to schedule a non-work trip.
• we got a wii! well, my mil got it for us because we have had no luck finding any. we got close the other day when we saw a man purchasing one in a store and he informed us there was another one back there but by the time we made it to the electronics department, it was gone. so next time we go to al, we’ll have a wii. in case we find one before then, in which case we’ll have a wii for sale!

since i haven’t got much a way to post pix, i figured i’d at least try to post my videos. i’ve never youtubed before but it seemed like the simplest way to post. the compression really ruins the video quality but oh well. the greatest thing about the first video is the very cute “oh crap” moment kenny has when he forgets where he’s at and can’t think of the words. in the second video, if you’re paying attention, you can hear my hubby excitedly singing along in the first chorus. i sing this song to him a lot when we’re in al because he has a tendency to go john deereing up there.

heck, i’ll even throw in a link to the pix.