Supplies!!! - Updated!

My sweet sister has been in so many musicals and plays but I have never been able to see her act... Until now! My parents and I snuck up to Oregon and saw Julia's play, surprising her afterwards. She was awesome, the play was hilarious and my debilitating guilt at leaving my kids for the weekend (with Livi promptly throwing up after I left) was briefly assuaged while watching the magic on stage! Not only is Julia as good as everyone said, but look who I spotted in our hotel lobby!

UPDATE: a close up of the "visitor"

Me and My Buddy, or Come To Nebraska I'll Show You A Lame Time!

We were so lucky to have James and Jes come out this weekend. It seems even more wonderful that we got to have them here knowing that they will never come again!

I've been really excited to have them come visit because:
a)they are really awesome and fun to be around
b)I've been really lonely, and
c)it gives us an excuse to go to the various "sights" we have here.

They got here Friday around dinner and we laughed and hung out.

Saturday morning I woke up with a sore neck but brushed it off as no big deal. We went to the bakery (one of the "sights") and over to Eric's office (one of the other "sights," yep it is soooooooo fun here!). The whole time my neck was starting to hurt more and more. By the time we left Eric's office I couldn't move my head and the pain was starting to reach excruciating levels.

It seems that as I slept I pulled a muscle that pinched a nerve and it got to the point if I moved my head, shoulders, or right arm there was a sharp stabbing pain that went from my neck into my head and made it feel like my head was about to explode. Luckily I found some muscle relaxants from the last time this happened (3 years ago) so I was able to spend the evening in a semi-normal state of mind (i.e. not yelling out or crying every time I moved or was bumped).

Basically we spent the whole weekend curled up on the couch watching Pen and Teller magic clips and Top Gear, which was totally fun for me, but I'm not sure I would have been happy to drive 8 hours each way to do it. James and Jes were totally gracious and it was great to have them here and hang out with them. We all loved having them around and Tonks totally wants to keep Bailey forever. Bailey was happy to go home, I think, since having a rambunctious puppy and 3 little kids around means she missed most of her naps.To top such a "wonderful" weekend for them this morning brought the first real snow fall we've had all winter. Plus the I-80 in Wyoming, their only way home, is closed. Awesome. Come spend a boring time at my house and then get stuck in Wyoming. I can almost guarantee they never come back here, but at least they can't avoid hanging out with me forever...there is always Canada!!!

I Know, I Am The Stupid Child.

I am thankful for my siblings. They are hard to have as my siblings, as they are so amazing. It's hard to be the eldest and have to look up to (figuratively) my younger siblings, but it is true, they rock.

One of my favorite pictures. Andrew is such a great Dad!

Andrew is by far one of the smartest people I know. He had a hard time in school because he was on a totally different plane intellectually than the other kids, but he made it through, still grew up, went to college, married a totally awesome girl, and is in Med school (take that bullies), and seems to function just fine in society despite his "gigantic melon" (ha ha).
I think I had the hardest time with Andrew as a child because he was the closest in age and so my faults and deficits in character were magnified by his depth and strength thereof. I'm not proud of it, but he seems to still love me even though I was (and still can be) a total beast.
Andrew also is totally fun to be around. He has a witty sense of humor. He is always introducing us to the best video games, that we all get addicted to, and neglect our families for, but we love him anyways!

James "helping" Ebby in the water, right before Ebby totally fell in and was traumatized for life!

James is amazingly charismatic. People everywhere love James and feel close to him. He has the ability to make you feel like the coolest person on earth, and he has a grin that has been able to get him out of more scrapes than I have ever been in. He and I both share of love of the non-mainstream in a totally non-hipster type of way (try figuring that gibberish out!) and have had too many funny conversations and experiences (dancing at Disneyland while we walk) to count.
James is very musical, and for such a scrawny guy has an amazingly deep bass voice that really rounds out the family "choir." He has great taste in music and is constantly introducing us all to new bands.
James is amazing with all kids, and especially his nieces and nephews. Kids love him because he sees them for the people they are and talks to, and interacts with them while showing them he values them and their interests. James is the comedian of the family, he is quick to smile, and quick to make others smile too. He loves to play a game, whether video game or bored game, as long as other people are involved, as he likes to be around people (And we kind of like to be around him too, ha ha).

I know: "Quit being so cute Julia!" We were all thinking it!

Julia, the baby of our family, is one of those complicated people who is always surprising you. She is a very talented writer who's rye and witty thoughts are completely addicting. I check her blog every day. Her mildly...satirical... take on the world is very different from the soft spoken little "Snow White" that use to spend time walking around our pool singing songs to herself (okay she was pretty young when she did that). Furthering her likeness to Snow White is her love of animals and her talent singing, with the sweetest, highest soprano that makes me sound like a fog horn in comparison.
She is also a very hard worker, not afraid of new experiences like switching colleges every semester and working at random yogurt places (things that would have terrified me as I hate new "things").
Julia is also a hoot to watch movies with, as she sees things you gloss over and finds way to make them hilarious.
She is also a very caring, sensitive person, who is going to make a VERY wonderful mother in a few months.

We are pretty similar in our interests, and senses of humor which means there is almost nothing I enjoy more than getting all four of us together, with Mom and Dad, and having a rip roaring laugh fest (while the poor in-laws look like they think they married crazy people). Thanks guys, for being so awesome!

Oh Canada, Pt 4 (last one I promise)

Okay, I'm going to try and wrap up the Canada trip this post. It was just so much fun it's hard to condense everything. Some things I didn't get pictures of like Jes' overly...ah..."enhanced" D&D character, McKay scaring us with stories of cancer from microwave popcorn (we ate it anyways), and the shear number of hot chocolate cups we went through. I do have a few pictures from other highlights though:

Red Rock Canyon: I was amazed my very tired, pregnant sister wanted to go, but it was fun for the three couples to brave the super high water and basically swim our way up the canyon. We even attracted an audience at one particularly embarrassing part that involved sliding down rocks into a VERY cold pool of water (embarrassing because I squealed like a ground squirrel about to be attacked by Baylee). I thought McKay's foot wear (flip flops) particularly brave, but he ended up having better traction than James did with his "specialty shoes."

Horse back riding, a favorite every year. This year was just as beautiful and not as scary as years past (no run away horses!). The most memorable part was Jes getting the shortest, widest horse available.
She spent a BIG part of the ride trying to get her horse NOT to eat.

I didn't go on the "walk" (according to Julia it was a death march) to the sand hills.
My knee did not survive Red Rock and then a horse ride so I was at the cabin drinking hot chocolate (ha-ha). Ethan and Ella liked jumping off the "cliffs" (really a little shelf, but the kids thought they were so brave!).

Taking walks by the lake to cool off. It was unusually hot some of the days so we would walk by the lake to get a cool breeze. One particularly hot day Ebby and Livi decided to wade pretty far into the glacial water and it turned traumatic for all:

Golfing in the most beautiful setting ever:

Park runs at least twice a day:

The best boating day ever. The lake was like glass, and the International boat was just coming back from the US side. We used the wake from the giant boat to push our little fishing boat into a rip roaring ride that had us all laughing in fear, and Ethan getting thrown from one side of the boat to the other. Good times.


Saying goodbye to the cabin, always bitter sweet (although that doesn't really make sense. It was just bitter, not sweet, I didn't want to go back home. If we could just live there year round I would. Eric wants to open a store there, but we have yet to come up with something plausible. Plus the whole 20 feet of snow in the winter is a deterrent.)

Here is a video from the Red Rock adventure. You are at a dam in the river and there is a small hole you can climb through to get to the upper part of the river. The only problem is that, that means there is a very small hole you have to climb down to get back. Luckily we had three strong guys we could fall on if we needed to:

8 days a week, 28 hours a day OR Julia's life is more interesting UPDATED

Or at least that is what it seems like when you are trying to keep a house clean with 3 kids. My life consists of cleaning sinks, scrubbing cabinets, sweeping floors and then doing it all again when the kids blow through like tornados. Time consuming, yes. Worthy of taking pictures, no.
Needing something to blog about (to do something other than clean), I decided to share some cool pictures my sister sent us of her trip in China. Some of you may have seen them, some of you may not care, but she isn't blogging herself, so I'll do it myself. I guess they take their parks pretty seriously. This is a park lit up at night that reminds me of Disneyland at Christmas. Hmmm, spend a bazillion dollars to go to China, or spend a bazillion dollars to go to Disneyland. I'll have to think about it.*update* I found out this is not fish flavored toothpaste. It is pea flavored ice-cream. Oh, that makes it so much better! Mmmmm, I think my decision has been made for me. Plus Julia said all the drinks are warm. The water, the juice, everything. Plus they have a corn smoothie. Corn. Enough said.Milk? Check. Smiling Cow? Check Julia's nickname, jujube? Awesomeness!
To quote Julia's email "In China, there are no trumpets allowed, nor cars on fire, nor blue. Blue is just out of the question."