Update on Life

The Olympics are WAY done and still I have not gotten back into the swing of blogging.  But I'm going to blame my blog-laziness on them.  Stupid Olympics. 

BUT, here is a picture of my Olympic hat.  (Never mind how scary Brian may look...he is attempting to look happy for me.)  You may have seen this hat on the US Olympians in the opening ceremonies as well as on certain athletes while standing around in the snow.  Me and my knitting friends spotted the hat immediately and decided we MUST learn how to knit it.  Thankfully, our local yarn store owner went to town creating a chart and voila! the hat is mine.  It involved me tying yarn to my kitchen mixer and attempting to create twisted cord for the tassles, which I must say worked swimmingly.  However, the yarn shop owner rejected them (claiming they were too tight) and made me twist tassles by hand in her store.  How humiliating.  And my moose are dimply.  I am not happy about that.  I'll just have to make another one so that Brian and I can match.  :)

In March we hosted a mystery supper for our church youth group.  If you have never been to one you must.  They are tons of fun.  Or maybe you should host one but if you do, you may want to hire extra help.  Here is the menu just to give you an idea of what it entails.

Welcome to our Mystery Dinner. Dinner will consist of three courses. For each course please select 6 items from the menu below. Place the numbers that correspond to the items you've selected, in the spaces next to the letters below. No duplicates allowed! You will be served only those items selected for each course.


Among the items you are to select are such items as your utensils, beverages, and your napkin. You must make all of your course selections before the meal begins and turn this form into your maitre de.

We hope you enjoy your meal (if you can figure out what you are ordering). Good luck!

MYSTERY MENU

1. The fourth item required to summon Captain Planet

2. Racial Harmony

3. Poultry’s Sin

4. A tricky Situation

5. The Cat’s Meow

6. Prison Enemy

7. Immature Biscuit

8. Early Hodgepodge

9. Warm Snuggles

10. Dangerous to Cut

11. Particle Maintenance

12. Yellow Surfboard

13. Fork

14. Sleepy relative

15. Forest river

16. Tot’s Money Maker

17. Ebony’s Embrace

18. Beatles Favorite Crop

And here is what we served (not in the order of the menu above):

Deviled egg, cheese, pickle, napkin, lasagna, tossed salad, garlic bread, lemonade, fork, spoon, toothpick, knife, brownie cheesecake, cream of broccoli soup, hershey kiss, and strawberries.

Brian and I were so in control leading up to this event.  We went to the store on Tuesday evening and then spent the whole night prepping our food.  We were in such good shape that when we got home on Wednesday evening we sort of paced around for awhile waiting to put the food in the oven or to assemble things.  We became totally arrogant with our advanced preparation thinking it was going to be a breeze.  And then the 12 people present turned in their menus and HOLY COW! I felt like we began a sprint that did not end for 1.5 hours.  We totally underestimated how much work it would be to assemble everyone's plates.  And people were hungry and grumbly and Brian and I were frantically trying to decode menus and put plates together.  We also underestimated how many plates we would need.  Brian was washing dishes as we went.  I cannot describe the chaos that went on in that kitchen on that night.  You would weep and scream if you knew the horrors.  (Notice the blanket hanging over the kitchen doorway so the horrors could not be witnessed.)  But I think it was successful...I think the youth had fun but frankly I simply didn't have time to check in on that.

This is an "after" picture.  I don't know if you can see how dazed and shell-shocked I am from the experience.  Also notice that I am sitting on the floor.  When I mentioned sitting on the couch to rest my weary bones there were immediately 11 teenagers on the couch. The kids were awesome though.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.


I went to another wonderful show at the Morris with my theater going friend Heather.  We saw "Rain" a Beatles tribute show.  It was like going to the best sing along imaginable.  Nothing but fun.  And the show was done in a clever way so that you could sort of imagine what it would have been like to see the Beatles in each stage of their run together.  (i.e. the Ed Sullivan set, the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band era and look, etc.)  However, there were several people in the audience taking pictures on phones and other cameras  and Heather and I were like, ummm, you do realize that's not really the Beatles up there right? 

On the way back to Heather's house we realized how very animated we can get in our conversations when Heather glanced to her left at a stoplight and saw a young man hanging out his window mimicking our gesticulations.  Our conversation had been about the Olympics.  We are both very passionate, what can I say?

That about brings us up to the present.  This past weekend was Easter and what a great weekend it turned out to be.  My parents returned home from Texas on Wednesday night.  My sister and her family came to spend the weekend with us which is always so much fun.  Our good friends Dan and Felicia and Colin came and had a bonfire with us Saturday night.  Dan and Felicia came to church on Sunday and joined my family for dinner and it was just such a fun and awesome weekend!  Made so much better by Kevin's neverending stream of joke telling all weekend.  Therefore, I end this blog with my favorite Kevin joke of the weekend.

Two peanuts were walking down the street.
And one was a-salted.